The down 'n' dirty business of independent film, with its improv style and thrown-together crews, seems far removed from the glamour and stateliness evoked in the golden age of Hollywood, but every now and again those two worlds collide. Such was the case when I worked with veteran screen actress Marsha Hunt on a short film that I worked on which I wrote about previously for Film.com.

Here I'll admit that I didn't know who Marsha Hunt was before I worked on the film. I didn't know that she started in Hollywood in 1935, and I didn't know that she was blacklisted in the '50s. All I knew was that she was a sprightly 89 years old, and she was always a consummate professional whose 70 years of experience was a lesson to us all. But I learned even more by listening to her talk, both on and off set.

Born in 1917, she knew she wanted to be a screen actress when she was growing up. At the time there were no schools for that, so she became a model and eventually moved to Hollywood. After her first screen test, she landed the role of the female lead in The Virginia Judge. Once filming concluded she said that the studio wanted her to pose for some "leg photos," pin-up shots to get her name and face out there, but that's not why she went into acting so she refused. Not knowing how else to publicize this new actress, they placed her in a series of fashion spreads in the Sunday supplements of newspapers across the country and noted that she'd be seen in their new movie. That's the first in many examples of her refusal to play by other people's rules.

A lifelong, outspoken Hollywood liberal, in 1947 she flew to Washington with a group of about 30 actors, directors, writers, and filmmakers (including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Huston, and Danny Kaye) for a sort of publicity tour to protest the House Un-American Activities Commission. Though she wasn't officially called in front of the government, she did appear in the pamphlet "Red Channels," which listed 150 people in the entertainment industry as Communist sympathizers. Because she refused to denounce her democratic beliefs in the freedom of speech and privacy of opinion, she found it difficult to find work after that. Though she had been in 50 movies up until then, her career slowed to a standstill, all because of a government that feared opinions it could not control. And yes, she does see parallels with our government today.

Fascinating as those stories are, I was drawn even more to her tales of old Hollywood in the '30s and '40s. "I remember going to the Trocadero one Sunday night, which was kind of a talent night" she mentioned one afternoon at lunch, "and this chubby little girl got on stage and really started to belt it out. That was the first public performance of Judy Garland." Though she never met Garland during her early career, Hunt did talk about visiting the set of The Wizard of Oz while they were filming and hanging out with the Munchkins and stuff. Like I said, she is full of great stories.

For those who want more, you can find video interviews courtesy of GreenCine from when she was honored at Noir City 5 in San Francisco. You can find a transcription of the event thanks to the blog The Evening Class. She talks more about the Hollywood blacklist and hanging out with a boring Ronald Reagan back when he was a liberal on this UK website.

Finally, for those who want a more general history of Marsha Hunt, check out her Wikipedia page.

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Andy Spletzer was completely smitten with Marsha Hunt, and found her one glass of white wine during lunch to be symbolic of the old school glamour of the golden age of Hollywood.