Martita Hunt

About Martita Hunt

Who is it?: Actress, Miscellaneous Crew
Birth Day: January 30, 1900
Birth Place:  Buenos Aires, Argentina, Argentina
Died On: 13 June 1969(1969-06-13) (aged 69)\nHampstead, London, England
Birth Sign: Aquarius
Occupation: Actress
Years active: 1920–1969

Martita Hunt Net Worth

Martita Hunt was born on January 30, 1900 in  Buenos Aires, Argentina, Argentina, is Actress, Miscellaneous Crew. Popular British character actress known for her rich cluster of queens, dowagers, shrews and evildoers, Martita Hunt was born on a ranch in Argentina to British parents, but moved with her family to England at age 10 for her formal education. On stage at age 21 with the Liverpool Repertory Theatre, she grew in stature as a dramatic actress with the Old Vic before expanding her sights to include film in the 30s. Her imposing glare and fervent gait reminded one of the equally horsey-looking Edna May Oliver, and lent itself to a number of scene-stealing supports in such top-quality British efforts as When Knights Were Bold (1936), Tudor Rose (1936), The Mill on the Floss (1936), and The Wicked Lady (1945). But it was her brilliant performance as the mad, reclusive Miss Havisham in the classic period piece Great Expectations (1946) that earned her international recognition and Hollywood quickly took notice. More flavorful roles came her way in the post-war years, both regal and ravaged, with Anastasia (1956), Becket (1964) and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) the highlights. In 1949, she won a Broadway Tony award for her "The Madwoman of Chaillot". Martita Hunt died at age 69 of natural causes in London.
Martita Hunt is a member of Actress

💰Martita Hunt Net worth: $17 Million

Some Martita Hunt images

Famous Quotes:

"With an arresting appearance and a dominant stage presence, she proved most effective as strong, tragic characters, her Gertrude in Hamlet being accounted by some critics the finest they had seen."

Biography/Timeline

1900

Hunt was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 January 1900 to English parents Alfred and Marta (née Burnett) Hunt. She spent the first 20 years of her life in Argentina before she returned with her parents to England to attend Queenwood Ladies' College in Eastbourne and then to train as an Actress.

1923

Hunt began her acting career in repertory theatre at Liverpool before moving to London. She first appeared there in the Stage Society's production of Ernst Toller's The Machine Wreckers at the Kingsway Theatre in May 1923. From 1923 to 1929, she appeared as the Principessa della Cercola in W. Somerset Maugham's Our Betters (Globe, 1924) and as Mrs. Linde in Ibsen's A Doll's House (Playhouse, 1925) in the West End, along with engagements at club theatres such as the Q Theatre and the Arts Theatre and a short 1926 Chekhov season at the small Barnes Theatre under Theodore Komisarjevsky (playing Charlotta Ivanovna, in The Cherry Orchard and Olga in Three Sisters).

1929

In September 1929, she joined the Old Vic company, then led by Harcourt Williams, and, during the following eight months played Béline in Molière's The Imaginary Invalid, Queen Elizabeth in George Bernard Shaw's The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and Lavinia in Shaw's Androcles and the Lion. However, her time there was more noted for a succession of Shakespearean roles: the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, the Queen in Richard II, Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Portia in Julius Caesar), including roles with John Gielgud (Rosalind in As You Like It, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, and Gertrude in Hamlet).

1937

Hunt also appeared in many supporting roles in several popular British films such as Good Morning, Boys (1937), Trouble Brewing (1939), and The Man in Grey (1943). The Wicked Lady (1945) was an international success, but her next film role in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946) would be her most famous and most lauded. As Miss Havisham, she reprised her role from the 1939 stage adaptation by Alec Guinness which provided the inspiration and template for Lean's film. Her performance met with significant acclaim, and Roger Ebert later wrote in 1999 that she "dominate[d] the [film's] early scenes, playing Miss Havisham as a beak-nosed, shabby figure, bedecked in crumbling lace and linen, not undernourished despite her long exile."

1938

She then returned to the West End (briefly returning to the Old Vic to play Emilia in the 1938 Othello), notably playing Edith Gunter in Dodie Smith's Autumn Crocus (Lyric, 1931), the Countess of Rousillon in All's Well That Ends Well (Arts, 1932), Lady Strawholme in Ivor Novello's Fresh Fields (Criterion, 1933), Liz Frobisher in John Van Druten's The Distaff Side (Apollo, 1933), Barbara Dawe in Clemence Dane's Moonlight Is Silver (Queen's, 1934), Theodora in Elmer Rice's Not for Children (Fortune, 1935), Masha in Chekhov's The Seagull (New Theatre, 1936), the Mother in an English-language version of García Lorca's Bodas de sangre ("Marriage of Blood"; Savoy, 1939), Léonie in Jean Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles (Gate, 1940), Mrs Cheveley in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (Westminster, 1943), and Cornelia in John Webster's The White Devil (Duchess, 1947).

1948

Other films in which she appeared include: Anna Karenina (1948), The Fan (1949), Anastasia (1956), Three Men in a Boat (1956), The Admirable Crichton (1957), The Brides of Dracula (1960), The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), Becket (1964), The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) and Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965). She also appeared on TV as Lady Bastable in several adaptations of the Saki stories (1962)

1949

From this time on, she divided her time between British and American films as well as the stage. She won a Tony Award in 1949 for her Broadway début as Countess Aurelia in the English-speaking première of Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot (though she had relatively less impact on the production's 1952 tour). Her last stage role was as Angélique Boniface in Hotel Paradiso, an adaptation from Feydeau, again with Guinness at the Winter Garden Theatre in May 1956.

1969

Martita Hunt died of bronchial asthma at her home in Hampstead, London, aged 69, on 13 June 1969. Her estate was valued at £5,390. She never married. She was an aunt of actor Gareth Hunt.