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Marsha Hunt was born on 17th October, 1917. She became an actress and appeared in her first film, The Virginia Judge, in 1935. Over the next twelve years she appeared in 44 films including Hollywood Boulevard (1936), The Accusing Finger (1936), Murder Trail (1937), Winter Carnival (1939), Pride and Prejudice (1940), Lost Angel (1943) and Carnegie Hall (1948).

In 1947 the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. The HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood. These people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses". During their interviews they named several people who they accused of holding left-wing views.

One of those named, Bertolt Brecht, an emigrant playwright, gave evidence and then left for East Germany. Ten others: Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz,, Dalton Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie refused to answer any questions.

Known as the Hollywood Ten, they claimed that the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution gave them the right to do this. The House of Un-American Activities Committee and the courts during appeals disagreed and all were found guilty of contempt of congress and each was sentenced to between six and twelve months in prison.

Although not associated with left-wing groups, Hunt became one of the leaders of the campaign against the blacklist. Hunt was on the board of the Screen Actors Guild and helped organize a deputation that visited the HUAC in Washington. As a result Hunt's name appeared in the pamphlet Red Channels. This listed 150 people working in Hollywood who were known to have been involved in anti-HUAC activities.

Hunt was now blacklisted and over the next ten years she struggled to get work in Hollywood. She became involved in charitable activities and worked for various United Nations projects. After the blacklist was lifted Hunt appeared in Johnny Got His Gun (1971), an anti-war novel written and directed by another blacklisted figure, Dalton Trumbo.

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(1) Marsha Hunt was interviewed about being blacklisted by Glen Lovell in January 1998.

Q. You were so passionate about your craft. Why didn't you just hold back, safeguard your career?

A. We didn't know the extent of the risk, or the dimensions of the pall that would fall over motion pictures and broadcasting at the time, Franchot Tone, who was on SAG's Board, was going back (east) to do a play or something, and he asked me if I would fill out his term. I was so flattered, knowing nothing of organizations never having joined anything. My father, you have to remember, was a very conservative Republican, and I wasn't sure about unions.

Q. How well did you know Reagan?

A. Socially. He was a boring liberal. He would buttonhole you at a party and talk liberalism at you. You look for an escape. That (arch-conservatism) was quite an about-face.

Q. Any warnings from studios or your agent about joining the SAG Board?

A. I was freelance then. Didn't ask the studios. No warnings from anybody. The first month I was on the Board, I sat and listened.

Q. But you evolved into quite an activist.

A. Gradually, I began to speak. I remember Gene Kelly giving me a warning one day. He said, "Marsha, save your fire for when it matters. You are beginning to be heard."

Q. Let's flash forward to June 1950, and the so-called "Bible of the graylist" - the pamphlet Red Channels. Do you have a copy here?

A. I would never sully my house with it.

Q. It's of historical importance.

A. Oh gosh, that's what ended my career eventually.

Q. How long were you blacklisted? Did the blacklist end for you?

A. Never really. Never fully. Well, I can't say the blacklist never ended, but what is true is that the momentum never was recaptured. I had such an ongoing, thriving career. What was it? Fifty some movies before "the Dark Ages." Then, since 1950, I've made about eight.

 

(2) Marsha Hunt was interviewed by Elizabeth Farnsworth in 1997.

Elizabeth Farnsworth: Marsha Hunt, tell us how you came to be blacklisted and how you first learned about it.

Marsha Hunt: It was a gradual process with me, I think. I had been on that chartered plane that a number of us - close to 30 of us - film makers, actors, directors, writers, and even Ira Gershwin, to protest what was happening at the HUAC hearings in Washington.

Elizabeth Farnsworth: This was in 1947?

Marsha Hunt: It was October 27, 1947, fifty years ago. And we went there to try to counter these terribly frightening headlines that were covering the country, scaring moviegoers about the safety of seeing movies, lest their loyalty be subverted with all this secret propaganda that was said to be in there, and we felt that the positive needed to be accented and to protest the treatment of those 19 who were being examined as witnesses.

We went back for two days of attending the hearings and on the return the climate in Hollywood had already changed, and I think in my own case I was told that this was years later, that the only way I might be able to work in films again would be to denounce that flight as a serious error that had been masterminded by Communists. I knew quite to the contrary, and of course I couldn’t say or swear to such nonsense.

I had to declare my undying opposition to Communism. I didn’t know or care about Communism. I was terribly worried about what we were doing to democracy. The actual blacklist in my case I think didn’t come into force until a publication called "Red Channels." That was a private pamphlet issued in New York about the broadcast industries, radio and television, and it listed with activities under each name that were found to be suspect people who performed on broadcast media who the editors of "Red Channels" felt did not deserve to work because they were either Communists or fellow travelers or pinkos. There were many ugly terms then. I was included in that list.

Elizabeth Farnsworth: What happened to you in the years after you were blacklisted? What happened to your career?

Marsha Hunt: Well, it really was ended. There were occasional film jobs but they came really in the mid 50's - Stanley Kramer engaged me for the Happy Time, which was a major film and should have been a happy time, but I was asked repeatedly, executive officers, to take out ads of my non-Communism in order to fend off the threats of picketing of the film if I remained in it. This was only done by little groups in the country. Generally, the public didn’t know that I had a problem with work, and I think I made perhaps three films in all of the 1950's.

Elizabeth Farnsworth: Are you angry now when you look back at this period? Is it hard to forgive people?

Marsha Hunt: It was a terribly, terribly painful time. It was shameful. Well, it spread across the nation, as you know. It started with Hollywood, because that’s an easy way to get headlines, but it spread to the broadcast media, to education, to even religion, and for well over a decade this was no longer the land of the free, nor the home of the brave.

 

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