Vintage

Marsha Hunt is a classic actress whose credits include such films as Pride and Prejudice, These Glamour Girls, Raw Deal, Cry 'Havoc', and Lost Angel, among many others. She was also one of the many actors and actresses who were blacklisted during the infamous HUAC hearings of the 1940s. Though work was subsequently hard to find, Marsha did appear in films and on television through the next few decades. She has appeared at numerous film festivals; and in addition to being the honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, California, she's the author of The Way We Wore, a book detailing the fashions of the 1930s and 1940s. I had the pleasure of speaking with Marsha about her life and Hollywood memories, from signing with Paramount at the age of 17 to the infamous blacklist which almost destroyed her career. You can read the transcription and listen to the audio below. If your browser is not equipped with Flash, you can download it right here.

MP: Today I’m on the phone with classic actress Marsha Hunt, who has appeared in some very well-known films through the 1930s and 1940s, and who continues to act today in a variety of mediums. In addition to her acting career, she’s also an author and a frequent guest at numerous film festivals. Marsha, thank you very much for your time today!

Marsha: I’m delighted that anybody would think a 92-year old is worth listening to!

MP: Before acting, you sang and modeled. Did you ever consider pursuing one of those as a career path?

Marsha: No my whole goal was to act. I dearly love music and I can’t help singing, it’s sort of like breathing. I sing much of time just because I love so many melodies. My parents were musicians and my home was filled with music as I grew up, and I loved all the music of that day, which I think is the greatest period of popular music that this country has ever known - those 30s and 40s. I don’t think we’ve approached them ever since. But the ambition was always to act. I did sing, actually, in about six movies. But everybody assumed that if I could sing, I would be a singer rather than an actress. I think they assumed that there was another voice that was dubbed in for me. But I’ve done some musicals on stage and there’s no dubbing those! (laughs) I’ve sung in about three or four musicals by now.

MP: Can you explain the circumstances that led Paramount to sign you in the early 30s?

Marsha: I tricked Paramount into wanting to test me. It was not my idea, I was never that clever. A couple of photographers we had posed for in New York came out here, thought that maybe they could persuade Hollywood that I was worth testing and so they pulled a whole publicity campaign that worked. Paramount tested me with a very careful test. I did two or three scenes and we rehearsed them well over a week, and then they liked the test enough that they did sign me - at 17!

MP: I know The Great Depression nearly caused Paramount to collapse, and around the time that you’d secured a contract, the heads of the studio were shifting around and there were a lot of financial problems. Did any of those issues affect film production when you made your debut in The Virginia Judge?

Marsha: Oh I wouldn’t have known if it did. I was just put to work a couple of weeks after they exercised the option, which is the technical term for liking a test and activating the contract that had been pre-signed before we made the test. I don’t know whether the production was curtailed in any way; I have no basis of comparison. I was so busy making my first film and doing my very first professional acting work in the romantic lead of a Paramount feature film to be seen around the world! That was dazzling enough for me.

MP: Being an 18-year old girl under contract to a major studio, were there any fellow actors or actresses with whom you felt a close connection?

Marsha: No, no I was working so hard and always I was the feminine lead - imagine that, for a beginner - and I worked largely with men. I only met fellow actresses when we did a publicity picture together and we knew each other to nod and say hello to. There was one fellow contractee named Louise Stuart, who had been a model in New York - as I had briefly while I was at dramatic school - and we formed a lifetime friendship but she left the studio when she married a man named Jack Moss, who was Gary Cooper’s manager. So she and I remained friends but not as fellow actresses.

MP: Those of us familiar with films of the 1930s are even more familiar with the infamous Hays Code, which dictated what could and could not be shown. What is your opinion on the code itself? Do you feel it made things more difficult or do you feel it was valuable?

Marsha: Oh I guess I have mixed feelings about the Hays Code. It certainly insisted on the optimistic and the virtuous. Crime was never allowed to pay, endings had to be happy, and wrongdoers always had to be punished. But that was an ideal world that does not exist. Maybe it was a good thing for those of us who went to movies - maybe it gave us the hope that those things were true, that if you were a good person you would wind up with a good and happy life and so on. It was unrealistic, it was bound to ideals rather than to reality and I think that explains the noir film cult that has grown around films that don’t have happy endings - where crime maybe does pay (laughs), and goodness is not always rewarded. They are far more cynical and I don’t know how these films send people home so happy but they love noir films! I think part of it was the reaction to World War II. Our servicemen, our soldiers and sailors and marines, came home from that ordeal, that nightmare of World War II, had seen so much horror and they had had to take part in it, that they couldn’t sit still for the idealism of American movies, and they demanded more harsh reality. So I think the Hays Code probably served some good purposes. It gave people an ideal to shoot for but I think reality is probably a better teacher.

MP: Which film do you consider to be the most helpful in terms of experience?

Marsha: For my career, certainly the most helpful was the first time I got to play something other than the feminine lead, the girl, in a girl-boy story - an MGM film called These Glamour Girls in which Lana Turner played her first lead. That was about a Princeton college house party in which I played a neurotic, young woman who was neurotic enough to kill herself before the end of the picture. It was such a challenging role and I apparently brought it off, and it changed the whole course of my career. From then on, MGM gave me no two roles alike. The very next thing I played was my first aging role - where I started in my 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, and I think I died in my mid 60s. Well that was a wonderful challenge, and from then on I played a variety of roles that were challenging, that called my imagination and that really stretched my ability as an actress. I was then the happiest person in town because that’s what I had hoped for. My dream never was stardom as such; I just wanted to become the best actress I could and MGM gave me that challenge.

MP: In the 1940s, there were, of course, the HUAC hearings. Although you were never called before the committee, you were still blacklisted, and work became hard to find. Do you think you were blacklisted out of spite?

Marsha: Oh that’s a curious question. I don’t think it was spite. There was no one I was spiting except that badly behaving congressional committee on so-called un-American activities. It was actually a very un-American activity to inquire into people’s political beliefs, and that’s what they were doing. I was defending Freedom of Speech, the first amendment to the Constitution, and the rights of fellow filmmakers - some of the most talented writers we’ve ever had in films. I don’t know who would’ve felt spiteful about that event. No, rather than spite, I’m afraid it was cowardice. The heads of studios were really cowed by that committee. They were intimidated and they wanted not to make a problem, and they behaved very badly and cowardly. Congress would wind up trying to censor, to dictate, what could be told about in films, what could be said, and they [the studios] were so fearful of any dictation from government of the content of films, that they wanted to be as obliging as possible. While I had no interest in Communism, because I’m sure the FBI checked into me and found I was nowhere near a communist - didn’t even know anything about it, I had made myself controversial in their eyes, in that I had publicly objected to the tactics of that congressional committee - in the way it treated the Hollywood Nineteen, that became the Hollywood Ten. No, I don’t think spite, Gary, I think it was sheer cowardice. They must’ve known I wasn’t a communist, wasn’t even interested in it. But I had taken a permanent role in defending what I felt was my industry and the rights of the people in it. So to avoid any further controversy, they simply didn’t hire me, by mutual agreement. And of course, it is against the law to blacklist, and so they never admitted that they were doing that.

MP: Did you find any differences in the types of films you were making after the HUAC hearings as opposed to before?

Marsha: No, well, I was no longer under contract. I don’t know that I’ve made major films since the blacklisting; I’ve made fairly few. I had made over fifty films before I flew to Washington to defend my industry, that wound up punishing me, and I’ve made a total of sixty-two. So, twelve films in half a century - oh I guess it’s sixty years now, isn’t it? - it’s close to seventy! Time is marching on. Your question was the kinds of films that I did - yeah I guess so. Well I’ve been in some fairly major ones, not blockbusters. I don’t really estimate films in terms of the size of their budgets, and I know a lot of people do what they call the “A picture” and the “B picture”. The only difference to me is the size of the budget and the box office draw of the people who play the leads. It has all the same elements and the same hope to be as fine a film as they can make it.

MP: Were there any people who you feel abandoned you during the blacklist, and were there any who supported you?

Marsha: Well you know, my blacklisting was never public. The moviegoer, the general public, had no idea that I was being allowed to work, that it was being prevented. But the industry did know and of course my own friends knew. No, I was not publicly being blacklisted. And of course it was not absolute, I did make an occasional film. But the momentum was gone, the kind of opportunities that I had become used to were gone, and I’ve worked rarely and with lower salary than it would’ve been before. So it’s been very different in recent years.

MP: I want to change direction for a minute and talk about your book The Way We Wore, which details the fashion of the 30s and 40s. I thought it was interesting that you chose to write a book about style as opposed to an autobiography. What influenced you to write the book?

Marsha: I came across this enormous collection of beautiful photographs of beautiful clothes that I hadn’t looked at for decades. You see, because I had done some modeling before I started in films, it was natural that the studios would ask me to do fashion layouts to help publicize my latest film. Every time I did a sitting they would give me a set of those pictures, and I would look at them and put them away, and I never looked at them again for half a century until I brought them out when a big shopping center mall opened in Sherman Oaks, where I live. The theme of their big opening night, of the mall, was the black and white movies of the 30s and 40s. And I suddenly thought of all those pictures I had tucked away somewhere from that very era. So I suggested to them that, if they would like, I could probably show some pictures from that era, and that’s what happened. There was a display, I pulled out a few of them and was surprised to find they were in perfect condition after all those years. And the fashions were so beautiful that there was a display of them. They attracted a big crowd of people saying “Oh yeah, remember the ankle-strap shoe? Remember the shoulder pad?” and all the things that were typical of that day, and someone in the crowd said “You know, this ought to be a book”. And I heard that and I guess after another year or two, I started pulling some of them together to see if there might be the makings of a book. That’s how it actually began and it just found its own momentum from then on. And it’s proved to my delight to be a kind of reference work and a bible of authenticity for designers interested in that period or looking for some retro touches to bring back, and for costumers who are putting a play on or a film of that period. All the pictures in the book are from those two decades, so they certainly are authentic. I’m delighted to find that the books appeals to people who don’t have any great interest in fashion as such, but who are just nostalgic about the movies of that period, and they like reading about it and enjoy some of the stories that I remember from then.

MP: In your opinion, what made those styles of yesterday different from contemporary style?

Marsha: You know what amazed me as I looked through all those pictures from so long ago? Not one of those outfits would look absurd today, would look ridiculous. They might not be typical because people are wearing blue jeans today instead of skirts. Very few women wear skirts anymore, and high heels, surprisingly, are just returning, very high heels in fact. But mostly, those styles were flattering to women, and oddly enough they seem ever-timeless.

MP: And you don’t find that about the styles of today?

Marsha: No I don’t. I don’t even know what I’m talking about when I say the styles of today. I don’t see any style. I’m all for being casual when that’s the occasion. But you know, there are always those special times when we go to see a live play or an opera or a ballet, or to the Hollywood Bowl or a special banquet, a wedding, when we go to special occasions, then I think we ought to pay respect to the occasion by dressing up for it or at least dressing carefully. But we’re pretty slobby today, we’re pretty schleppy (laughs), and I don’t think it’s always appropriate. No I can’t point to what we’re wearing today. I see ads and occasionally I see something in the street that is halfway up the thigh between the knee and the hip. But that isn’t a style because not enough people are doing that. I think we need a little more attention to our particular dimensions, whether we’re tall, short, heavy, or thin. I think what presents us to the outside world as pleasantly as possible, I think that’s what our own style ought to be.

MP: Marsha, getting back to film, which of your co-stars did you enjoy working with most?

Marsha: That’s hard to say. I’ve worked with wonderful people, so many of them, I don’t know that I had a favorite. I love working with veterans because they’ve learned so much over the years. And as to the young, romantic people - they all had their own particular charisma. I’ve been asked a thousand times what it was like to work opposite John Wayne, and I have to say truthfully there was nothing special. He was nice, and big, and well-coordinated, good athlete. He used to say he didn’t take himself seriously as an actor, which I thought was good of him. But he became America’s hero, and I could not have predicted that when we made our film in 1937.

MP: In terms of your films, are there any that stand out to you personally?

Marsha: Oh certainly. Well, I’ve mentioned These Glamour Girls because that was my first suicide - I had another one later in The Valley of Decision, both for MGM. Carnegie Hall was a very important film for me because I carried the story in a film that showed the performances of the finest concert artists of the mid-20th century, and it was a thrill to be in a film with them. Also, it was a very exacting role. It went from my real youth right through old age, with all the decades in between, and that was demanding. I think maybe the most important film - Pride and Prejudice was my first whiff of comedy. I never had a chance to play comedy before Pride and Prejudice, and it was such an off-beat role and I had such fun doing Mary, wearing my nearsighted squint and peering through glasses and singing off-key. That role has stayed in people’s memory; I get a lot of fan mail about Mary in Pride and Prejudice. So of course I love her and I love being part of a classic of literature. And I think the film has become a classic; it was a magnificent cast with Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, and everyone else in it. I think maybe the most important film to me that I was in was None Shall Escape, that I did on loan-out from Metro to Columbia. We made it in the midst of World War II, we shot it in 1943, and it predicted when that war would be over, and we who would’ve been the victorious side, and that the Nazi criminals would be tried for their war crimes by a world court. The screenwriter predicted all those things and they all came to pass, and it’s the first film, to my knowledge, to show actual atrocities against Jews, and it showed that as well. The writer of that film was named Lester Cole, who became one of the Hollywood Nineteen. One of the great writers before that awful committee in congress, the House Committee on un-American Activities. Lester - I think he was one of the ten of the nineteen who had been called on the witness stand before the committee adjourned and cited those ten for refusing to cooperate with them, for Contempt of Congress, and I think he also served a year in a federal penitentiary, of all things, for defending his rights. Those films really stand out to me and of course many of them were a delight or a stretch technically for me in one way or another. I’ve been glad of all the things I’ve done I think.

MP: You mentioned Pride and Prejudice, when you played the role of Mary and sang off-key. Since you are a singer, how was it like to act as if you couldn’t sing?

Marsha: (Laughs) You know, it was not easy! For anyone who’s musical, it’s not easy to sing flat, not even a note below but just a half a note, just a little off-key. Just enough to hurt the ears. I had to train, I actually had to train to be able to sing off-key. And then of course by the end of the film I do hit the note, truly, and that’s the end of the picture - when Mary finally makes it on that high note!

MP: I know you’ve done a lot of television work through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and recently, you got back into film work with The Grand Inquisitor and Chloe’s Prayer.

Marsha: Chloe’s Prayer doesn’t count. I did just what they call a cameo role. I worked one day and I got my entire role done in one shot. So I don’t really consider that I made that film and I haven’t heard of it in release. I don’t know whether it every played any theaters. It may have been shown on television. I don’t know the fate of Chloe’s Prayer so I really no longer count that. But the noir short film called The Grand Inquisitor was fascinating to do. I hadn’t made a film since Johnny Got His Gun from Dalton Trumbo’s great film and great book before he made the film of it. But Dalton had to cut three hours out of what he filmed, much of it my role, because it ran so terribly long - it ran close to five hours, and he had to cut three hours out of it. Dalton called and apologized and said he had never directed a film before and he didn’t realize he was taking so long with his scenes, and apologized that I’m scarcely in it anymore. But the noir film is a two-character film, a young woman and an old one, and I’m the old one, and it’s a battle of wits, it’s a question all the way through as to whether or not I may be the widow of a mass murderer. So it’s fascinating in that way. It was fun to do, I did it in four days and I believe it’s to be seen on the internet.

MP: You know, I got a chance to see The Grand Inquisitor when it was first screened.

Marsha: They showed it at the Egyptian Theater, didn’t they?

MP: That’s right, and you and I actually had a chance to meet afterwards.

Marsha: Yeah I do remember a meeting, yes!

MP: Do you ever watch your own films from the early days?

Marsha: Almost never, Bless them, they’re one by one paraded again on Turner Classic Movies and perhaps some of the other movie channels. Sometimes people call and say “You’re on, you’re on!” (laughs), and I’m busy doing something else and I probably don’t tune it in. It would be curious to see some of them that I’ve never seen for many decades, just to see what it would look like today. But no I don’t make a habit of seeing them. I probably should just out of curiosity, but life is so full Gary, I don’t have free time anymore!

MP: That’s a good thing though, isn’t it?

Marsha: Of course it’s a good thing. Yes, I welcome being kept as busy as I am and I think I’m among the lucky ones to have reached this age and to have so full a life, to be as comfortable, as healthy, and to have the friends that I do. I’m very grateful; I feel grateful each day that dawns.

MP: Once again, I’ve been speaking with classic actress Marsha Hunt, whose memories continue to provide us with a clear picture of Hollywood from past to present. Marsha, it was great talking to you today, I appreciate your time and I hope to talk to you again soon!

Marsha: Alright, I hope to hear from you again Gary!