Actress
Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1922, Kim Hunter (real name: Janet Cole) has been working in acting for 65 years, having made her professional debut in 1939.
Although Hunter made an auspicious debut in the 1943 thriller The Seventh Vitim, it was her role as the American WAC with whom David Niven falls in love with in AMatter of Life and Death (1946) which captured the hearts of post-war audiences - and reflected her real-life romance with US Marine Corps Captain William Baldwin , whom she married in 1944.
Hunter returned to the New York stage in 1947, playing Stella Kowalski opposite Marlon Brando's Stanley and Jessica Tandy's Blanch DuBois in Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1951, Hunter reprised the role in Elia Kazan's faithful screen adaptation, starring Brando and Vivien Leigh, her performance winning her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
The actress has since made a wide range of TV and film appearances, ranging from her recurring role as Dr. Zira in the Planet of the Apes movies, to such films as The Kindred (1986), Two Evil Eyes (1990) and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).
Kim Hunter
