JIMMY HUNT

(4 December 1939 – 18 July 2025)

Former child actor Jimmy Hunt, whose earnest, freckled face was a familiar fixture in post-war American cinema, has passed away at the age of 85 following complications from a heart attack six weeks prior. During his youth, he shared the silver screen with the who’s who of Hollywood in some 35 films between 1947 and his retirement from the industry in 1953 at age 14. He is probably best remembered for having saved the world from aliens in the low-budget 20th Century-Fox sci-fi feature Invaders from Mars, which has been credited as an inspiration by filmmakers such as Joe Dante, John Landis, and Steven Spielberg.

He was born James Walter Hunt and grew up in the heart of the industry in Culver City, California. At age six, an MGM talent scout visited his second-grade classroom and cast him as the younger version of Van Johnson’s Navy pilot in the wartime drama High Barbaree (1947). By the end of that year, he had already appeared in five films. In 1948 alone, he would be featured in eight more, often playing the all-American boy-next-door and on-screen son of Dick Powell (Pitfall), Barbara Stanwyck (Sorry, Wrong Number), and Claudette Colbert (Family Honeymoon).

While under contract at MGM, Jimmy was enrolled at the studio’s Little Red Schoolhouse, where his classmates included Roddy McDowall, Margaret O’Brien, and a teenage Elizabeth Taylor. In Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), he played William Gilbreth, one of the 12 children of Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, and returned in 1952 for the sequel Belles on Their Toes. While filming 1951’s Week-End with Father, Hunt broke his arm during a potato-sack race rehearsal with Van Heflin. Instead of stopping production, he finished the film with his arm taped to his side. Hunt made three Westerns with Joel McCrea, including 1953’s The Lone Hand, where he also served as the narrator.

The role that would cement his cult status arrived in 1953 when he played David MacLean, the plucky neighbourhood kid who sees a flying saucer land behind his house in William Cameron Menzies’ sci-fi thriller Invaders From Mars. Shot in just over three weeks for under $300,000, the film's dreamlike sets, exaggerated angles, and ‘SuperCinecolor’ palette helped fuel its surreal, Cold War allegory — but it was Hunt’s grounded, emotionally honest performance that anchored the paranoia in reality. The film became something of a foundational text in American science fiction cinema, with admirers like directors Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese citing its use of light and colour. When censors in the UK baulked at the ambiguous ending, Hunt returned to film an alternate version. But by then, he had already begun to feel the strain of child acting.

After completing She Couldn’t Say No (1954) with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons, he decided to leave acting behind at age 14. Hunt focused on school, attended college, and joined the U.S. Army, where he worked for three years intercepting and decoding classified communications. While stationed in Germany, he met his future wife, Roswitha Jäger. They married in 1963 and settled in Simi Valley, where Hunt began a decades-long career as a sales manager for an industrial tool and supply company serving aerospace clients. In 1986, Hunt returned briefly to acting to film a cameo in Tobe Hooper’s remake of Invaders From Mars. Now playing a small-town police chief, his character walks toward the old landing site and delivers a perfect nod to his childhood stardom, “I haven’t been here for 40 years.” It was the only film for which he ever received residuals. He was often amazed by the longevity of his work and still received fan mail for Invaders From Mars — 70 years after its release.

CHAD KENNERK