Marsha Hunt was born Marcia Hunt on October 17 1917 in Chicago. She later changed the spelling of her first name. Her father was a lawyer and later a Social Security Administrator. Her mother was an organist and vocal coach. The family moved to New York City when she was very young. She was 16 she graduated from the Horace Mann School for Girls.
Marsha Hunt was still a teenager when she became a model. She signed with the Powers Agency. While her modelling career was taking place, she took acting classes at the Theodora Irvine Studio. She was 17 when she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. She made her film debut in The Virginia Judge in 1935. Over the next few years she appeared in the films Desert Gold (1936), Gentle Julia (1936), The Arizona Raiders (1936), Hollywood Boulevard (1936), Easy to Take (1936), The Accusing Finger (1936), College Holiday (1936), Murder Goes to College (1937), Easy Living (1937), Annapolis Salute (1937), Thunder Trail (1937), and Born to the West (1937). Paramount Pictures decided not to renew her contract in 1938.
For the next couple of years Marsha Hunt appeared in films for various studios, including Come On, Leathernecks! (1938), Long Shot (1939), and Star Reporter (1939). She then signed with MGM and for the remainder of the Thirties she appeared in the films The Hardys Ride High (1939), and Winter Carnival (1939), These Glamour Girls (1939), Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President (1939), Irene (1940), Pride and Prejudice (1940), Ellery Queen, Master Detective (1940), and Flight Command (1940).
In the Forties she appeared in the films Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941), The Trial of Mary Dugan (1941), The Penalty (1941), I'll Wait for You (1941), Blossoms in the Dust (1941), Unholy Partners (1941), Joe Smith, American (1942), Kid Glover Killer (1942), The Affairs of Martha (1942), Panama Hattie (1942), Seven Sweethearts (1942), The Human Comedy (1943), Pilot #3 (1943), Thousands Cheer (1943), Cry "Havoc" (1943), Lost Angel (1943), None Shall Escape (1944), Bride by Mistake (1944), Music for Millions (1944), The Valley of Decision (1945), A Letter for Evie (1946), Carnegie Hall (1947), Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947), The Insider Story (1948), Raw Deal (1948), Jigsaw (1949), Take One False Step (1949), and Mary Ryan, Detective (1949). She made her television debut in 1949 in an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse. In the late Forties she appeared on the TV shows The Ford Theatre Hour, The Silver Theatre, Studio One, Danger, and Sure as Fate. In 1948 she made her Broadway debut in Joy to the World. In 1950 she appeared on Broadway in The Devil's Disciple, Borned in Texas, and Legend of Sarah.
It was in 1947 that she and her husband Robert Presnell Jr. joined the Committee for the First Amendment, a group formed to challenge the legality of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), then trying to uncover Communist activity in Hollywood. The group also included such members as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, and John Huston. It was on October 19 1947 that members of the Committee for the First Amendment flew to Washington, DC to protest the HUAC hearings. While other members of the Committee for the First Amendment would recant, Marsha Hunt would not. As a result she was listed in Red Channels,a radical right wing pamphlet that named 151 actors, directors, musicians, and so on who were alleged to be Communists or Communist sympathizers. Marsha Hunt then found herself blacklisted.
Increasingly, Marsha Hunt's career would be on television and on stage. In 1959 she was a regular on the sitcom Peck's Bad Girl. She guest starred on the TV shows Cosmopolitan Theatre, The Ford Television Theatre, The 20th Century Fox Hour, The O. Henry Playhouse, Panic!, Matinee Theatre, Climax!, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Laramie, Grand Jury, The Detectives, and Zane Grey Theatre. She appeared in the movies Actors and Sin (1952), The Happy Time (1952), Diplomatic Passport (1954), No Place to Hide (1955), Back from the Dead (1957), Bombers B-52 (1957), Blue Denim (1959), and The Plunderers. She appeared on Broadway in The Tunnel of Love.
During the Sixties Marsha Hunt guest starred on the shows The Americans, Cain's Hundred, Sam Benedict, Breaking Point, Gunsmoke, Channing, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, The Defenders, Profiles in Courage, Ben Casey, Run for Your Life, My Three Sons, Accidental Family, The Outsider, The Name of the Game, Marcus Welby, M.D., The Young Lawyers, and Ironside. She appeared on Broadway in The Paisley Convertible.
In the Seventies Marsha Hunt appeared in the movie Johnny Got His Gun (1971). She guest starred on the shows Ironside, Jigsaw, Harry O, Medical Story, and Police Story. In the Eighties she guest starred on the shows The Mississippi; Murder, She Wrote; Matlock; Shadow Chasers; and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Her final screen appearances would be in the Naughts and the Teens. She appeared in the TV movie Chloe's Prayer (2006). She appeared in the TV movie Meurtres à l'Empire State Building in 2008. That same year she appeared in the short "The Grand Inquisitor," directed by film author and historian Eddie Muller.
In 1993 her book The Way We Wore: Styles of the 1930s and '40s and Our World Since Then was published. In 2015 she was the subject of the documentary Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity. She also wrote songs.
Marsha Hunt was a humanitarian and activist. She joined the United Nations Association in 1955 to fight starvation in the Third World. She founded the San Fernando Valley Mayor's Fund for the Homeless. For many years she served on the advisory board of the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center. She was also a member of the SAG board for many years. Having moved to Sherman Oaks, California in 1946, she was named its honorary mayor in 1983.
Marsha Hunt was an incredible talent. In the mid-Forties she was known as "Hollywood's Youngest Character Actress." While other actresses often played the same sort of roles multiple times, Marsha Hunt played a wide variety of roles. No two roles were ever really the same. In Pride and Prejudice she played the bookish, dowdy Bennet sister Mary. In Raw Deal Marsha Hunt played caseworker Ann Martin, who finds herself hostage to escaped convict Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe). In the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Tea Time," she played Blanche, a woman having an affair with a married man. In "The Grand Inquisitor," Marsha Hunt played the widow of a possible serial killer in one of the most chilling performances of her life.
Marsha Hunt was a remarkable woman beyond being a talented actress. She was certainly brave, continuing to take a stand against HUAC even though it was detrimental to her career. She also devoted herself to humanitarian causes long before it was fashionable to do so. Over the years Marsha Hunt appeared at various film festivals, and she was a familiar face to Turner Classic Movies fans. I have plenty of friends who had the chance to meet her, and every one of them have said she was one of the warmest, nicest people one could hope to meet. She was articulate, thoughtful, and she truly loved her fans. Marsha Hunt had strength of character that few have, and she treated everyone with dignity. She was not simply a great actress. She was a great woman.
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