Jimmy Hunt obit

Jimmy Hunt, Young Star of ‘Invaders From Mars,’ Dies at 85

From 1945-53, he appeared in 35 films, and his onscreen parents included Dick Powell, Teresa Wright, Ronald Reagan, Patricia Neal, Leif Erickson and Claudette Colbert. 

He was not on the list.

Jimmy Hunt, the freckle-faced youngster who appeared in Pitfall, Sorry, Wrong Number, Cheaper by the Dozen, Invaders From Mars and 31 other features before he retired from acting at age 14, has died. He was 85.

Hunt suffered a heart attack six weeks ago and died Friday in a hospital in Simi Valley, his daughter-in-law Alisa Hunt told The Hollywood Reporter.

Hunt played William Gilbreth, one of the 12 offspring of an efficiency expert (Clifton Webb) and a psychologist (Myrna Loy), in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), then returned to play another son in the family, Fred, in the sequel, Belles on the Toes (1952).

As an orphan, his character fueled the plot in The Mating of Millie (1948), a charming romantic comedy starring Evelyn Keyes and Glenn Ford, who taught him how to shoot marbles on the set. And in The Lone Hand (1953), Hunt portrayed the son of a widowed farmer (Joel McCrea) and served as the film’s narrator in what he said was one of his favorite acting experiences.

Hunt’s onscreen parents included Jane Wyatt and Dick Powell (in 1948’s Pitfall), Claudette Colbert (1949’s Family Honeymoon), Ronald Reagan (1950’s Louisa), Teresa Wright (1950’s The Capture) and Patricia Neal (1951’s Week-End With Father).

He also played Margaret O’Brien’s brother in Her First Romance (1951).

His most memorable role, however, came as David MacLean in the cult sci-fi classic Invaders From Mars (1953), directed by famed production designer William Cameron Menzies.

In the movie — made in about 3 1/2 weeks for less than $300,000 — David spies a flying saucer from his bedroom and notices his dad (Leif Erickson) acting weird. Then he’s sucked underground, where he encounters a Martian and his green humanoid accomplices aboard the saucer. But was it all a dream? Gee whiz!

In Tobe Hooper’s 1986 remake of Invaders, Hunt came out of retirement to play a police chief. As he approaches a hill where the flying saucer may have landed, he says, “I haven’t been here for 40 years.”

It was the only movie of his career for which he received residuals. “Every once and a while, the Screen Actors Guild sends me a check for like nine dollars,” he said with a chuckle in 2022.

James Walter Hunt was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 4, 1939. An MGM scout visited his second-grade class at his Culver City school, which was located mere blocks from the studio, and that led to the 6-year-old redhead playing a kid version of Van Johnson’s Navy pilot in High Barbaree (1947).

Placed under contract, he would appear in five films released that year, then another eight in 1948 as he attended MGM’s Little Red Schoolhouse, where his classmates included Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor.

“We were strictly lower middle-class people,” Hunt said in 1986. “Actually, that’s the way we stayed. As long as [his parents] were satisfied that I was getting a good education, the acting was all right.”

In Cheaper by the Dozen, his character, William, weeps as he informs his siblings that their dad has died.

During the making of the movie in Seal Beach, California, his real father “was working for a company, and he went back to Kentucky to open a plant for them back there, and he was gone for a couple of months,” he recalled at the 2022 Cinecon Classic Film Festival. “In my mind, I saw him coming home on a plane and the plane crashing. So I could get myself worked up.”

His big-screen résumé also included Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster (Erickson played his dad in that, too); Fuller Brush Man (1948), starring Red Skelton; Rusty’s Birthday (1949), the last in the Columbia Pictures series about a boy and his German shepherd; The Sainted Sisters (1948), starring Veronica Lake; Top O’ the Morning (1949), starring Bing Crosby; Shadow on the Wall (1950), starring Ann Sothern; and She Couldn’t Say No (1954), starring Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons.

“I took my little lunch pail and I went to work each day, and the director told me what he wanted me to do,” he said in a 2017 interview.

While filming Douglas Sirk’s Week-End With Father, Hunt broke his arm rehearsing a potato-sack race with Van Heflin but kept working, he said. “No one made me finish the picture that way. I wanted to,” he recalled. “I considered myself a professional. In other words, I never had any really bad times as a boy actor.”

After Invaders was completed, Hunt — who said he was paid about $4,000 for his work on the movie — was called back to film some new scenes for its U.K. release, as censors there did not approve of the original ending.

It turned out that Invaders was the last straw.

“The older I got, the more serious I became about getting a scene right on the first take,” he said. “Adult actors all made jokes when they blew their lines. Kids just feel dumb when it was their fault. So acting became harder for me all the time.”

At the ripe old age of 14, Hunt “decided that I would rather play sports in high school than make movies, so I retired,” he explained. He went to college and served for three years in the U.S. Army, intercepting and breaking code.

Later, he served as a sales manager for an industrial tool and supply company in the San Fernando Valley that serviced aerospace firms.

He said he was still getting mail from Invaders fans some 70 years after it first hit theaters.

Survivors include his wife, Roswitha, whom he met in Germany while in the Army and married in January 1963; his sons, Randy and Ron; another daughter-in-law, Christina; his sister, Bonnie; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. His daughter, also named Roswitha, died more than a decade ago.

Actor

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2020

 

Close Encounters of the 4th Kind: Infestation from Mars (2004)

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3.8

Video

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2004

 

Invaders from Mars (1986)

Invaders from Mars

5.5

Police Chief

1986

 

The Young Rounders (1971)

The Young Rounders

7.5

Young Rounder

1971

 

Tony Curtis and Lori Nelson in All American (1953)

All American

5.8

Whizzer

1953

 

Bob Hope, Arlene Dahl, Rosemary Clooney, and Tony Martin in Here Come the Girls (1953)

Here Come the Girls

5.8

Bang Crosby - Call Boy (uncredited)

1953

 

Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons in She Couldn't Say No (1953)

She Couldn't Say No

5.8

Digger

1953

 

Fireside Theatre (1949)

Fireside Theatre

7.3

TV Series

Johnny

1950–1953

2 episodes

 

Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, and Jimmy Hunt in Invaders from Mars (1953)

Invaders from Mars

6.3

David MacLean

1953

 

The Lone Hand (1953)

The Lone Hand

6.5

Joshua HallockNarrator

1953

 

Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952)

Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie

7.0

Little Boy on Train (uncredited)

1952

 

Belles on Their Toes (1952)

Belles on Their Toes

6.5

Fred Gilbreth (uncredited)

1952

 

Van Heflin, Jimmy Hunt, Patricia Neal, Gigi Perreau, Janine Perreau, and Tommy Rettig in Week-End with Father (1951)

Week-End with Father

6.0

Garrett 'Gary' Bowen

1951

 

Jane Wyman in The Blue Veil (1951)

The Blue Veil

7.0

Boy in Shop (uncredited)

1951

 

Allen Martin Jr. and Margaret O'Brien in Her First Romance (1951)

Her First Romance

5.3

Herbie Foster

1951

 

Gene Tierney, John Lund, and Thelma Ritter in The Mating Season (1951)

The Mating Season

7.4

Boy (uncredited)

1951

 

Ann Blyth, Cecil Kellaway, Mark Stevens, and Jesse White in Katie Did It (1950)

Katie Did It

6.2

Steven Goodrich

1950

 

Again... Pioneers (1950)

Again... Pioneers

6.1

Nathaniel Ashby

1950

 

Wanda Hendrix and Joel McCrea in Saddle Tramp (1950)

Saddle Tramp

6.8

Robbie

1950

 

Piper Laurie, Ronald Reagan, Spring Byington, Charles Coburn, Scotty Beckett, Edmund Gwenn, Jimmy Hunt, and Ruth Hussey in Louisa (1950)

Louisa

6.7

Chris Norton

1950

 

Gigi Perreau, Zachary Scott, and Ann Sothern in Shadow on the Wall (1950)

Shadow on the Wall

6.7

Boy

1950

 

Forrest Tucker in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Rock Island Trail

6.1

Stinky Tanner

1950

 

Lew Ayres and Teresa Wright in The Capture (1950)

The Capture

5.9

Mike Tevlin

1950

 

Myrna Loy, Jeanne Crain, Walter Baldwin, Betty Barker, Barbara Bates, Patti Brady, Denise Courtemarche, Teddy Driver, Jimmy Hunt, Roddy McCaskill, Carol Nugent, Norman Ollestad, Anthony Sydes, Clifton Webb, and Judy Ann Whaley in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)

Cheaper by the Dozen

7.0

William Gilbreth (uncredited)

1950

 

Ted Donaldson, Ann Doran, John Litel, and Flame in Rusty's Birthday (1949)

Rusty's Birthday

6.2

Jeff Neeley

1949

 

Bing Crosby, Ann Blyth, and Barry Fitzgerald in Top o' the Morning (1949)

Top o' the Morning

6.1

Pearse O'Neill

1949

 

Special Agent (1949)

Special Agent

5.6

Tim Rumpler (uncredited)

1949

 

Claudette Colbert, Jimmy Hunt, Fred MacMurray, Peter Miles, and Gigi Perreau in Family Honeymoon (1948)

Family Honeymoon

6.3

Charlie

1948

 

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Sorry, Wrong Number

7.3

Peter Lord

1948

 

Raymond Burr, Dick Powell, and Lizabeth Scott in Pitfall (1948)

Pitfall

7.1

Tommy Forbes

1948

 

Henry Morgan and Rudy Vallee in So This Is New York (1948)

So This Is New York

6.3

Little Bobby in Play (uncredited)

1948

 

Souvenirs of Death (1948)

Souvenirs of Death

6.2

Short

Johnny (uncredited)

1948

 

Janet Blair and Red Skelton in The Fuller Brush Man (1948)

The Fuller Brush Man

6.8

Junior (uncredited)

1948

 

Veronica Lake, Joan Caulfield, and Barry Fitzgerald in The Sainted Sisters (1948)

The Sainted Sisters

6.4

David Frisbee

1948

 

Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes in The Mating of Millie (1948)

The Mating of Millie

7.1

Tommy Bassett

1948

 

Katharine Hepburn, Paul Henreid, and Robert Walker in Song of Love (1947)

Song of Love

6.7

Ludwig Schumann

1947

 

Gene Kelly and Marie McDonald in Living in a Big Way (1947)

Living in a Big Way

6.1

Michael Randall, Jr. (uncredited)

1947

 

June Allyson and Van Johnson in High Barbaree (1947)

High Barbaree

6.4

Alec - Child (uncredited)

1947

 

Brian Donlevy, Tom Drake, Audrey Totter, Beverly Tyler, and Robert Walker in The Beginning or the End (1947)

The Beginning or the End

6.5

Little Boy (uncredited)

1947

 

Jackie 'Butch' Jenkins, Peter Lawford, Beverly Tyler, and Pal in My Brother Talks to Horses (1947)

My Brother Talks to Horses

6.1

Boy Walking With Three Dogs (uncredited)

1947

 

Soundtrack

Belles on Their Toes (1952)

Belles on Their Toes

6.5

performer: "Lazy"

1952

 

Bing Crosby, Ann Blyth, and Barry Fitzgerald in Top o' the Morning (1949)

Top o' the Morning

6.1

performer: "My Lagen Love" (uncredited)

1949

 

Self

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Following Films Podcast

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2022

1 episode

 

Film Threat (2006)

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5.3

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2022

2 episodes

 

Jimmy Hunt Saves the Planet

1.8

Short

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2022

 

No Match, Mate (2020)

No Match, Mate

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2020

 

Find Your Future Reality (2018)

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2018

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Queen Lamia in Horror Hotel (2013)

Horror Hotel

7.4

TV Series

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2018

1 episode

 

Stu's Show (2006)

Stu's Show

7.1

Podcast Series

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2011

1 episode

 

Archive Footage

Hollywood in the Atomic Age - Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists! (2021)

Hollywood in the Atomic Age - Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!

6.8

Self (archive footage)

2021

 

Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us (2005)

Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us

6.8

TV Movie

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2005

 

Michael Aspel in Strange But True? (1993)

Strange But True?

7.9

TV Series

Self (archive footage)

1996

1 episode