Biography for
Kim Hunter (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

12 November 1922, Detroit, Michigan, USA

Date of Death

11 September 2002, New York City, New York, USA (heart attack)

Birth Name

Janet Cole

Height

5' 3½" (1.61 m)

Mini Biography

Her father, Donald Cole, was a consulting engineer, and died in 1926 when Kim was only 3 years old. Her mother, Grace Lind, once performed as a concert pianist. She had one brother who was eight years older than she, and she was educated at Miami Beach High.

According to an in-depth article on Kim Hunter by Joseph Collura in the October 2009 issue of "Classic Images", Kim was quiet and painfully shy as a child and overcame it through the guidance of a local dramatics teacher, a Mrs. Carmine. Included were diction, voice and posture lessons.

She studied at the Actors Studio and her first professional appearance was as "Penny" in "Penny Wise" in Miami in November 1939. Then, she joined a repertory group called "Theatre of Fifteen", but it disbanded in 1942 when WWII took away most of its male members.

She made her Broadway debut performance as "Stella" in "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, in December 1947 that was the 1947-1948 season's success and for which she won the Critics Circle and Donaldson awards.

A one-time student of the Pasadena Playhouse, she was appearing in the 1942 production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" when she was discovered by an RKO talent hunter who signed her to a seven-year contract for David O. Selznick's company. Selznick suggested she change her first name to "Kim" and a RKO secretary suggested the last name of "Hunter". A few years later, Irene Mayer Selznick, David's ex-wife by then, recommended Kim for her reprise role of "Stella" in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), for which she won an Oscar.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Artemis-9

Spouse

Robert Emmett	(20 December 1951 - 8 April 2000) (his death) 1 child
William A. Baldwin	(11 February 1944 - 12 February 1946) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia

Son, Sean Emmett (or Emmitt), born 1954, is a rock musician (Mainstream, Sienna).

Daughter Kathy was born to Kim and Marine Capt. William A. Baldwin and became a judge in Connecticut. Now the mother of four, she used to ride on the handlebars of Marlon Brando's motorcycle.

Political activist, she signed several civil rights petitions and was a sponsor of a 1949 World Peace Conference in New York - which triggered her label of being a Communist sympathizer, for which she was blacklisted in films and TV even though she never even held pro-Communist views. Her testimony to the New York Supreme Court in 1962 against the publishers of "Red Channels" helped pave the way for clearance of many performers unjustly accused of Communist connections.

An agent for David O. Selznick saw her in a stage production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" at the Pasadena Playhouse and signed her to a seven-year contract. Selznick suggested she change her first name to "Kim" and a RKO secretary suggested the last name of "Hunter". A few years later, Irene Mayer Selznick, David's ex-wife by then, recommended Kim for the role of "Stella" in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

She played the mother of Richard Kiley's character in Blue Moon (1999) (TV) in spite of the fact that he was eight months her senior.

Mother of two children: Kathryn and Sean. Kathrin, from her first marriage with Marine Captain William A. Baldwin, and later, she was adopted and took the last name Emmett from her mother's second husband, stage actor Robert Emmett; she used to ride on the handlebars of Marlon Brando's motorcycle, and became a judge and a mother of four. Sean Emmett, born 1954, is a rock musician (Mainstream, Sienna).

Won the Critics Circle and Donaldson awards for her 1947-1948 Broadway debut performance as Stella in "A Streetcar Named Desire".

A one-time student of the Pasadena Playhouse, she was appearing in a 1942 production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" when she was discovered for film by a David O. Selznick talent representative. Kim was signed by RKO.

Joined a repertory group called "Theatre of Fifteen." It disbanded in 1942 when WWII took away most of its male members.

According to an in-depth article on Kim by Joseph Collura in the October 2009 issue of "Classic Images", Kim was quiet and painfully shy as a child and overcame it through the guidance of a local dramatics teacher, a Mrs. Carmine. Included were diction, voice and posture lessons.

Father Donald Cole was a consulting engineer and died in 1926 when Kim was only 3 years old. Mother Grace once performed as a concert pianist. Kim had one brother who was eight years older than she.

Did voice work for the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

Personal Quotes

[about her "blacklisting"] For a long while, I wouldn't talk about it at all. I do now, because there's a whole new generation that doesn't remember. And the more one knows, the more one can see, and not allow history to repeat itself.

[on being known as an actress rather than a star] That's fairly accurate, I think, for a great number of us. Becoming a star wouldn't have bothered me, but what is a star? A star isn't anything. An actor acts. That's the important thing.

[about Marlon Brando] The great thing about Marlon is his incredible sense of truth--he may make some bad choices in the roles he does, but the one thing he cannot be is false. I think that's why he didn't like acting very much, because it always drew up painful things from within him about his life that he then transferred to his character. But to work with that great sense of truth was simply wonderful.

[about her Oscar-winning role in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)] It was not at all certain I would do the movie. As a matter of fact, I had to test for it twice. First, I did a film test in New York with Elia Kazan. Then I got a call telling me to come to California for another test. They weren't happy with my hair. Vivien Leigh was going to wear a blonde wig, and for some reason they wanted me to be blonde as well--as if sisters always have the same hair color. So I bleached my hair and got the part. Later Kazan said to me, "There was no way I was going to direct the film with anybody else but you playing Stella".