Kim Hunter (born Janet Cole; November 12, 1922 – September 11, 2002) was an American theatre, film, and television actress. She achieved prominence for portraying Stella Kowalski in the original production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, which she reprised for the 1951 film adaptation, and won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Decades later, she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for portraying Nola Madison on The Edge of Night. She also portrayed the chimpanzee Zira in Planet of the Apes (1968), and its sequels Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971).
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Early life
Hunter was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Grace Lind, who was trained as a concert pianist, and Donald Cole, a refrigeration engineer. She was of English and Welsh descent. Hunter attended Miami Beach High School.
Career
Hunter's first film role was in the 1943 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 joined Streetcar co-stars Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and 47 others to become one of the early members accepted by the newly created Actors Studio.
In 1952, Hunter starred with Humphrey Bogart 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).
In 1956, with the HUAC's influence subsiding, she co-starred in Rod Serling's Peabody Award-winning teleplay "Requiem for a Heavyweight". The telecast won multiple Emmy Awards, including Best Single Program of the Year. She appeared 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. On February 4, 1968, she appeared as Ada Halle in the TV series Bonanza in the episode "The Price of Salt".
Starting in 1968, Hunter took on the role of Zira, the sympathetic chimpanzee scientist in Planet of the Apes as well as two of its sequels. She also appeared in several radio and TV soap operas, most notably as Hollywood actress Nola Madison in 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 1974, she appeared on Raymond Burr's Ironside. In 1977, she appeared on the series The Oregon Trail in the episode "The Waterhole".
Hunter continued acting in film and TV throughout her life, notably appearing in Clint Eastwood's 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In it, Hunter portrayed Betty Harty, the legal secretary for lawyer Sonny Seiler.
Hunter's final film role was in the Canadian production Here's to Life!, released in 2000. She was nominated for a Genie Award as best actress for her performance.
Personal life
Hunter was married twice, first to William Baldwin, a Marine Corps pilot, in 1944. The couple had a daughter and divorced two years later. She wed fellow actor Robert Emmett in 1951. They had a son in 1954. Hunter and Emmett occasionally performed together in stage plays; he died in 2000.
Hunter was a lifelong progressive Democrat.
Hunter died in New York City on September 11, 2002 of a heart attack at the age of 79. Her ashes were given to her daughter—an attorney, civic leader, and former judge in Connecticut.
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.