HUNTER, Kim 1922-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Original name, Janet Cole; born November 12, 1922, in Detroit, MI; died of a heart attack September 11, 2002, in New York, NY. Actress and author. Hunter was an award-winning actress best known for her role as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire. A somewhat lonely child growing up in Florida, she turned to her imagination and acting for comfort. She acted in school and made her professional debut at the age of seventeen in a Miami Women's Club production of Penny Wise. Her only formal training was between 1938 to 1940, when she studied acting in Miami with Charmine Lantaff Camine. She then moved to California, where a talent scout saw her in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace. Her film debut came in 1943 with the horror movie The Seventh Victim. In 1947 she starred as Stella in the stage version of Streetcar, for which she won a New York Drama Critics Circle award, and in 1950 she toured with a road production of Two Blind Mice. Trouble came in the 1950s, however, when Hunter learned that she had been put on the black lists of the television networks for her involvement in a peace rally. Although she won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for playing Stella in the 1951 film adaptation of Streetcar, she was blackballed by television networks and movie studios for several years. Hunter finally reemerged in 1956 in the movie Storm Center. Despite this unjust treatment, she did not hold a grudge, and continued to work on stage, in movies, and in all kinds of television shows, including two years on the soap opera Edge of Night, and in series such as Marcus Welby, M.D. and Ironside. Besides the role of Stella, Hunter is probably best remembered for playing Dr. Zira alongside Charlton Heston in the 1968 film The Planet of the Apes as well as in its sequels. Other important stage productions Hunter acted in include The Lion in Winter (1975), Death of a Salesman (1983), The Cocktail Hour (1992), and The Gin Game (1994). Some of her other films include A Canterbury Tale (1949), Bermuda Affair (1957), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), and, most recently, The Hiding Place (2000), Abilene (2000), and Old Hats (2000). Hunter was also the author of two books: Kim Hunter: Loose in the Kitchen (1975) and Jesus Died on the Electric Chair (2001).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

books

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Volume 29, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2000.

Pickard, Roy, The Oscar Stars from A-Z, Headline (London, England), 1996.

periodicals

Chicago Tribune, September 12, 2002, section 2, p. 9.

Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2002, p. B13.

New York Times, September 12, 2002, p. C11.

Washington Post, September 12, 2002, p. B10.