Marsha Hunt, actress blacklisted during 1950s ‘Red Scare,’ dead at 104

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. — Actress Marsha Hunt, who starred in “Pride and Prejudice,” “These Glamour Girls” and “Raw Deal” and had her career derailed when she was blacklisted during the communist “Red Scare” of the 1950s, died Tuesday. She was 104.

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Hunt died from natural causes at her home in Sherman Oaks, California, Roger C. Memos -- the writer-director of the 2015 documentary Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity -- told The Hollywood Reporter.

Once known as “Hollywood’s Youngest Character” actress, Hunt starred with Mickey Rooney in 1943′s “The Human Comedy,” according to IMDb.com.

Born Marcia Virginia Hunt on Oct. 17, 1917, in Chicago, the actress rose to prominence as a suicidal coed in 1939′s “These Glamour Girls,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. She played Mary Bennet in 1940′s “Pride and Prejudice” and played a good-girl role in 1948′s “Raw Deal.”

In 1947, Hunt and her second husband, screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr., joined the Committee for the First Amendment, which questioned the legality of the House Un-American Activities Committee that was seeking to root out communists in the entertainment industry, the entertainment website reported.

In June 1950, she was listed in Red Channels, a right-wing pamphlet that claimed that scores of actors, directors, screenwriters and others were sympathetic to “subversive” causes.

“You know, I was never interested in communism,” Hunt told Film Talk in a 2004 interview. “I was very much interested in my industry, my country and my government. But I was shocked at the behavior of my government and its mistreatment of my industry. And so I spoke out and protested like everyone else on that flight. But then I was told, once I was blacklisted, you see, I was an articulate liberal, and that was bad. I was told that in fact it wasn’t really about communism — that was the thing that frightened everybody — it was about control and about power.

In a 2020 interview with The Associated Press, Hunt said she hoped she would be remembered as a character actress and not an artist who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.

“That whole thing was such a bafflement to me,” Hunt told the AP in a telephone interview. “I never understood why I was included in it, fully.”

In December 2020, Turner Classic Movie aired 14 hours of her films, according to the AP.

“Fourteen hours?” Hunt laughed. “They’ll be sick of me!”

Hunt signed with Paramount when she was 17 and landed the female lead in her first movie, “The Virginia Judge, in 1935, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“I was determined not to just be a leading lady,” Hunt told the AP. “I didn’t want to always play the sweet young things. I so loved character roles. And being a lead and winning the leading man, that was not the point.”

In April 2015 Hunt was named the inaugural recipient of the Marsha Hunt for Humanity Award, the website reported.

She acted into the 21st century, starring in the 22-minute film “The Grand Inquisitor,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“I think I’m just very lucky,” Hunt told the AP in 2020. “I have no enemies that I know of and I have no hatred. I go around loving people and getting along with them.”

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