Kim Hunter

Kim Hunter
Photograph showing the head and shoulders of a woman 1951 publicity photograph
Born	Janet Cole (1922-11-12)November 12, 1922 Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Died	September 11, 2002(2002-09-11) (aged 79) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1943–2000
Spouse(s)	William Baldwin (1944–46) Robert Emmett (1951–2000)
Children	2

Kim Hunter (November 12, 1922 – September 11, 2002) was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire. Decades later, she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her work on the long-running soap opera The Edge of Night. She has also portrayed the character Zira in the first three installments of the original Planet of the Apes (1968-1973).

Biography

Early life

Hunter was born Janet Cole in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Grace Lind, who was trained as a concert pianist, and Donald Cole, a refrigeration engineer. She attended Miami Beach High School.

Career

Hunter's first film role was in the 1943 film noir, The Seventh Victim, and her first starring role was in the 1946 British fantasy film A Matter of Life and Death. In 1947, she was Stella Kowalski on stage in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Recreating that role in the 1951 film version, Hunter won both the Academy and Golden Globe awards for Best Supporting Actress. In the interim, however, in 1948, she had already joined with Streetcar co-stars Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and 47 others, to become one of the first members accepted by the newly created Actors Studio.

In 1952, Hunter became Humphrey Bogart's leading lady in Deadline USA.

Hunter was blacklisted from film and television in the 1950s, amid suspicions of communism in Hollywood, during the era of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). She still appeared in an episode of CBS's anthology series Appointment with Adventure and NBC's Justice, based on case files of the New York Legal Aid Society.

In 1956, with the HUAC's influence subsiding, she co-starred in Rod Serling's Peabody Award-winning teleplay on Playhouse 90, "Requiem for a Heavyweight". The telecast won multiple Emmy Awards, including Best Single Program of the Year. She appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in the 1957 live CBS-TV broadcast of The Comedian, another drama written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer. In 1959, she appeared in Rawhide in "Incident of the Misplaced Indians" as Amelia Spaulding. In 1962, she appeared in the NBC medical drama The Eleventh Hour in the role of Virginia Hunter in the episode "Of Roses and Nightingales and Other Lovely Things". In 1963, Hunter appeared as Anita Anson on the ABC medical drama Breaking Point in the episode "Crack in an Image". In 1965, she appeared twice as Emily Field in the NBC TV medical series Dr. Kildare. In 1967, she appeared in the pilot episode of Mannix. On February 4, 1968, she appeared as Ada Halle in the NBC TV Western series Bonanza in the episode "The Price of Salt".

Her other major film roles include the love interest of David Niven's character in the film A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and Zira, the sympathetic chimpanzee scientist in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes and two sequels. She also appeared in several radio and TV soap operas, most notably as Hollywood actress Nola Madison on ABC's The Edge of Night, for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1980. In 1979, she appeared as First Lady Ellen Axson Wilson in the serial drama Backstairs at the White House.

Hunter starred in the controversial TV movie Born Innocent (1974) playing the mother of Linda Blair's character. She also starred in several episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater during the mid-1970s. In 1971, she appeared in an episode of Cannon. In the same year, she starred in a Columbo episode "Suitable for Framing". In 1973, she appeared twice on Lorne Greene's short-lived ABC crime drama Griff, including the episode "The Last Ballad", in which she portrayed Dr. Martha Reed, a physician held by police in the death of a patient. In 1974, she appeared on Raymond Burr's Ironside. In 1977, she appeared on the NBC Western series The Oregon Trail starring Rod Taylor, in the episode "The Waterhole", which also featured Lonny Chapman.

Hunter's last film role in a major motion picture was in the 1997 Clint Eastwood-directed movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In it, Hunter portrayed Betty Harty, legal secretary for real-life Savannah lawyer, Sonny Seiler.

Personal life

Hunter was married twice. Her first marriage was in 1944 to William Baldwin, a Marine Corps pilot. Before the marriage was dissolved in 1946, the couple had a daughter, Kathryn. Her second marriage was in 1951 to actor Robert Emmett; together, they had a son, Sean Robert. Hunter and Emmett would occasionally perform together in stage plays; he died in 2000.

Hunter died in New York City on September 11, 2002, of a heart attack at the age of 79. She was survived by both her daughter and son.

Legacy

• Hunter received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 1615 Vine Street and a second for television at 1715 Vine Street.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1943	The Seventh Victim	Mary Gibson
	Tender Comrade	Doris Dumbrowski
1944	A Canterbury Tale	Johnson's Girl	US release scenes shot in 1946
	When Strangers Marry	Millie Baxter
1945	You Came Along	Frances Hotchkiss
1946	A Matter of Life and Death	June
1951	A Streetcar Named Desire	Stella Kowalski	Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1952	Deadline - U.S.A.	Nora Hutcheson
	Anything Can Happen	Helen Watson
1952	A Midsummer Daydream	Elizabeth
1956	Bermuda Affair	Fran West
	Storm Center	Martha Lockridge
1957	The Young Stranger	Helen Ditmar
1959	Money, Women and Guns	Mary Johnston Kingman
1964	Lilith	Dr. Bea Brice
	The Evil of Adelaide Winters	Adelaide Winters	The Alfred Hitchcock Hour TV Episode
1966	Lamp at Midnight	Virginia	Hallmark Hall of Fame television production
1968	Planet of the Apes	Dr. Zira
	The Swimmer	Betty Graham
1970	Beneath the Planet of the Apes	Dr. Zira
1971	Escape from the Planet of the Apes	Dr. Zira
	Jennifer on My Mind	Walker's Mother	(scenes deleted)
1974	Born Innocent	Mrs. Parker
	Bad Ronald	Elaine Wilby
1976	Dark August	Adrianna Putnam
1976	Once an Eagle	Kitty Damon
1987	The Kindred	Amanda Hollins
1990	Due occhi diabolici	Mrs. Pym	(segment "The Black Cat")
1993	The Black Cat	Mrs. Pym	Short release of segment in Due occhi diabolici
1994	Mad About You	Millie Barton	"Love Letters" episode
1997	Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil	Betty Harty
1998	A Price Above Rubies	Rebbitzn
1999	Abilene	Emmeline Brown
	Out of the Cold	Elsa Lindepu
2000	The Hiding Place	Muriel
	Here's to Life!	Nelly Ormond

External links

• Kim Hunter at IMDb
• Kim Hunter at AllMovie
• Kim Hunter at the Internet Broadway Database
• Kim Hunter scripts and rehearsal notes, 1957–1993, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts