Kim Hunter (November 12, 1922 – September 11, 2002) was an Academy Award-winning American film and stage actress.
Hunter was born Janet Cole in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Donald Cole and Grace Lind. She attended Miami Beach High School.
Hunter's first film role was in the famous film noir The Seventh Victim in 1943.
Hunter performed in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), playing the role of Stella Kowalski. She appeared in the 1951 film, for which she won both the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture.
She appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in the 1957 live broadcast of The Comedian, a harrowing drama written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer.
She was blacklisted from film and television in the 1950s, amid suspicions of communism in Hollywood, during the McCarthy Era.
Her other major film roles include David Niven's love interest in the classic film A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and Zira the chimpanzee scientist in the first three of the Planet of the Apes series. She also appeared in several soap operas, most notably as Nola Madison on The Edge of Night, for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 1980 as Best Actress. She also starred in several episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the mid seventies.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Kim Hunter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1617 Vine Street and a second star at 1715 Vine Street.
In 2002, Kim Hunter died of cardiac arrest in New York City at the age of 79.
