Marsha Hunt, Blacklisted Actress Who Fought Witch Hunt, Dies at 104

Marsha Hunt, the film actress who was blacklisted after she fought the witch hunt for communists in Hollywood in the 1950s, has died at the age of 104.

An ex-model who appeared in The Human Comedy and Pride and Prejudice and appeared on the cover of Life, Hunt’s career fell apart after her name was printed in Red Channels, a compendium of entertainment-industry figures accused of being communist sympathizers.

Hunt was the last surviving person smeared by Red Channels, which included such luminaries as Lee J. Cobb, Lillian Hellman, and Leonard Bernstein.

In a 2020 interview with the BBC, Hunt said she came under scrutiny after she joined an entourage of bigger stars who traveled to Washington in 1947 to support writers who had been hauled before the House Committee.

“We were a brigade to defend those who'd been blacklisted or were under suspicion,” she said. “We were serious citizens trying to set Washington straight: we were not a bunch of Reds. We were headed by the Bogarts so we were a pretty spiffy team.

“We made our speeches and did a radio program called Hollywood Fights Back and came home thinking we'd been patriots and had defended our profession. If there were some communists among us that was their business and not ours,” she added

"I knew nothing about communism but I just thought that as it was a legal party other people had the right to join the darned thing if they wanted to. But it was a time of hysteria and all of us who spoke out against blacklists were punished in some way or other.”

Hunt saw job offers dry up and ended up mostly working in television and on stage after she was named in Red Channels—even though her agent convinced her to issue an anti-communist statement of her beliefs. She spent her later years on charity work and humanitarian causes.

In 2015, she had a starring role—in the documentary Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity.

“Many younger people know little about the Hollywood blacklist,” she told the BBC. “Sometimes I’m asked if it could ever happen again. I hope America learned from what happened all those years ago. But how can you ever be sure?”