Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1946)

Marsha Hunt (born April 15, 1946) is an American actress, novelist, singer and former model, who has lived mostly in Britain and Ireland. She achieved national fame when she appeared in London as Dionne in the long-running rock musical Hair. She had relationships with Marc Bolan and Mick Jagger, who is the father of her only child, Karis Jagger.

Hunt has written three novels and three autobiographies, which include a frank account of life as a breast cancer sufferer.

Early life

Hunt was born in Philadelphia in 1946 and lived in North Philadelphia, near 23rd and Columbia,<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> then in Germantown and Mount Airy, for the first 13 years of her life.<ref name=PCOLREB /><ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> Hunt told The Philadelphia Inquirer that she remembers Philadelphia with affection, particularly the "Philadelphia steak sandwiches and the bad boys on the basketball court".<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia>Ann Kolson, "Marsha Hunt's Life is Filled with 'Joy': The Irrepressible Performer has Mick Jagger in her past, old ties to Philadelphia, and a New Book", Philadelphia Inquirer, February 16, 1991.</ref>

Hunt's mother, Inez, was her primary parent and worked as a librarian in a local library.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite>"History" Template:Webarchive, Marsha Hunt's Official Website.</ref><ref name=PCOLReallifethebook>Real Life by Marsha Hunt. Published by Chatto & Windus, 1986.</ref> Hunt's father, Blaire Theodore Hunt Jr.,<ref name=PCOLReallifethebook/> was one of America's first Black psychiatrists<ref name=PCOLREB /> but he did not live with Hunt; when she was 15 years old, she found out that he had taken his own life three years previously.<ref name=PCOLImlucky>Barry Egan, "I'm lucky that I grew up poor", Irish Times, August 31, 2008.</ref> Hunt was brought up by her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother.<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> Hunt described her mother as "extremely intelligent and education-minded", her aunt as "extremely Catholic but very glamorous", and her grandmother as an "extremely aggressive...ass-kicking" independent Southern woman.<ref name=PCOLImlucky/>

Hunt credits the experience of having been poor with teaching her not to be materialistic.<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> Her family put a great deal of emphasis on academic performance, and Hunt did very well in school.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> In 1960, the family moved to Kensington, California, which Hunt still regards as home,<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> so that her brother and sister could attend Oakland High School and prepare to attend the University of California, Berkeley.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> Hunt also went to Berkeley, in 1964, where she joined Jerry Rubin on protest marches against the Vietnam War.<ref name=PCOLREB>The Irish Times. "Rebel to the Roots" by July 4, 1998.</ref> In her book Undefeated she recalled that during her time at Berkeley they "were sitting in for the Free Speech Movement, smoking pot, experimenting with acid, lining up to take Oriental philosophy courses, daring to co-habit, and going to dances in San Francisco."<ref name=PCOLUndefeatedbymarshahunt/>

Move to London

In February 1966,<ref name=PCOLUndefeatedbymarshahunt/> Hunt booked a flight for a brief trip to London, where she was temporarily detained before a fellow detainee gave her details of contacts, including John Shepherd, who worked on the television show Ready Steady Go!.<ref name=shindig/> Through Shepherd, she met Kenny Lynch, and then appeared as an extra in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up.<ref name=shindig>Martin Ruddock, "Voodoo Child", Shindig!, #106, August 2020, pp.68-74</ref> Hunt has said that in London in the 1960s "anything seemed possible."<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/>

She briefly lived in Edinburgh, Scotland,<ref name=PCOL005>John Gibson, "Undefeated after battle with cancer", The Scotsman, October 26, 2005.</ref> before returning to London where she became a backing singer with Alexis Korner's trio Free at Last.<ref name=shindig/> She then met and began a short relationship with musician John Mayall, inspiring Mayall's songs "Marsha's Mood" and "Brown Sugar", which were included on his 1967 album, The Blues Alone.<ref name=shindig/> Although Hunt indicates that she had no great musical talent,<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> she worked as a singer for 18 months after arriving in England, intending to earn her fare back home.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/>

Marriage to Mike Ratledge

In late 1966, Hunt met Mike Ratledge of Soft Machine.<ref name=PCOLRatledge/> Hunt was having trouble getting a visa extension to stay in England and proposed to Ratledge.<ref name=PCOLRatledge>Graham Bennett, Soft Machine: Out-bloody-rageous, SAF Publishing Ltd, 2005.</ref> Ratledge and Hunt were married on April 15, 1967.<ref name=PCOLRatledge/> The Soft Machine were heavily booked and there was no time for a honeymoon, but Ratledge and Hunt spent two months together before the band headed for France later that year.<ref name=PCOLRatledge/> Hunt said in 1991 that she and Ratledge never held hands and never kissed, though "...he comes for Easter. But that's what we called 'married'."<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> While the two have remained good friends, Hunt says the secret to a happy marriage is to "separate immediately."<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> On their 40th wedding anniversary, Hunt called Ratledge up and jokingly said, "We should renew our vows."<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> Ratledge died on 5 February 2025.<ref>"He was the backbone of Soft Machine." Founding member and keyboard player Mike Ratledge dead at 81</ref>

Music career

After her marriage in 1967, Hunt took a singing job with Long John Baldry's band Bluesology, alongside keyboard player Reg Dwight, soon to be known as Elton John.<ref name=shindig/> She also auditioned for Ratledge's band Soft Machine, and in 1968, briefly joined the group The Ferris Wheel.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/>

That same year, Hunt achieved national fame in England when she appeared as Dionne in the rock musical Hair, a box-office smash on the London stage.<ref name=PCOLREB /> Hunt only had two lines of dialogue in Hair, but she attracted a lot of media attention and her photo appeared in many newspapers and magazines.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> Her photograph was used on the poster and playbill of the original London production, photographed by Justin de Villeneuve.<ref>"Justin's Birds of Barnes" Template:Webarchive – Justin de Villeneuve bio.</ref> Her 1968 photo also replaced the original LP artwork when Reader's Digest re-issued the LP in Europe in 1976. Hunt says that the role was a perfect fit for her and expressed who she actually was.<ref name=PCOLREB /> She was one of three Americans featured in the London show, and when the show began she had no contract to perform.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> Once the show opened, she was featured in so many stories that she was offered a contract right away.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/>

Hunt played at the Jazz Bilzen<ref>Timeline — Bands 1969, Jazz Bilzen.</ref> and Isle of Wight music festivals in August 1969 with her backup band "White Trash".<ref name=PCOLUkrock>"Marsha Hunt and White Trash –The Isle of Wight Festival" Template:Webarchive, August 30, 1969. UK Rock Festivals.</ref> Hunt's first single, a cover of Dr John's "Walk on Gilded Splinters", produced by Tony Visconti, was released on Track Records in 1969; it became a minor hit.<ref name=PCOLBolan/> An album, Woman Child (also produced by Tony Visconti) (in Germany released under the title Desdemona), followed in 1971.<ref name=PCOLBolan/> In May 1977, an album with disco songs was released in Germany with the title Marsha. It was recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich and produced by Pete Belotte (co-producer with Giorgio Moroder of many Donna Summer albums).

Hunt met Marc Bolan in 1969 when she went to the studio where Bolan's group was recording "Unicorn".<ref name=PCOLBolan/> Tony Visconti said that when Bolan and Hunt met, "[y]ou could see the shafts of light pouring out of their eyes into each other.... We finished the session unusually early, and Marc and Marsha walked out into the night hand in hand."<ref name=PCOLBolan>Mark Paytress, "Marc: The Rise and Fall of a 20th Century Superstar", Omnibus Press, 2002.</ref> According to Hunt, the relationship between the two was based on more than physical attraction, though she also recalled that her commercial visibility put her in opposition to Bolan's philosophy that "the serious art of music...was validated by obscurity."<ref name=PCOLBolan/>

In 1971, after the birth of her daughter Karis, she appeared for a while in the musical Catch My Soul, and acted alongside Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the film Dracula A.D. 1972.<ref name=shindig/> She signed a recording contract with Phonogram Records, and led her own band, 22, which the record company insisted on billing as "Marsha Hunt's 22". The band included guitarist Hugh Burns, whom Hunt lived with for three years.<ref name=shindig/> The band toured, released two singles, "Medusa" and "(Oh No! Not) The Beast Day", and recorded a set of demos of songs largely written by Hunt. These were later released in Germany and Poland as an album, Attention! Marsha Hunt, though Hunt was unaware of its release until 2020.<ref name=shindig/> The band 22 split up after they had their equipment stolen and Hunt's daughter became ill.<ref name=shindig/>

From 1973, Hunt co-presented with Sarah Ward a popular late-night radio show, Sarah. Marsha and Friends, on London's Capital Radio.<ref>Peter Harvey, "Capital hits the million", Record & Radio Mirror, 1974, p. 9.</ref> Also in 1973, as a member of a panel organised by British magazine Melody Maker to discuss women in music and options open to Black women, Hunt suggested that Black women needed to make use of the "side-door" in the industry, entering as "the statutory representative" before they could make music under their own terms.<ref name=PCOLMelodymaker>Sue Stewart, Sheryl Garratt, Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: True Stories of Women in Pop, South End Press, 1984.</ref>

In 1976, she released two funk-pop singles produced by Steve Rowland, and the following year issued an album, Marsha, produced by Pete Bellotte, which she later described as "a musical departure that had nothing to do with my own taste".<ref name=shindig/> She moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, and fronted a punk rock-influenced band, Marsha & The Vendettas. From there, she moved to Australia, and recorded a single, "Pleasure Zone", written with David Dundas and produced by Ricky Fataar.<ref name=shindig/>

Modelling

Three months after Hair opened, Hunt was on the cover of British high-fashion magazine Queen, the first Black model to appear on their cover.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> In 1968, Hunt posed nude for photographer Patrick Lichfield after the opening night for Hair<ref name=PCOL074>Douglas and McIntyre Publishing Group. Undefeated. Author: Marsha Hunt Template:Webarchive</ref> and the photo appeared on the cover of British Vogue's January 1969 issue.<ref>"Viewfinder: Marsha Hunt, 1969, Patrick Lichfield"Template:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore, Daily Telegraph, June 4, 2005.</ref> Almost 40 years later Hunt again posed nude for Lichfield,<ref name=PCOL074 /> recreating the pose for her Vogue cover five weeks after she had had her right breast and lymph glands removed to halt the spread of cancer.<ref name=PCOLBBC/> The photo appeared on the cover of her 2005 book Undefeated, about her battle with cancer.<ref name=PCOLBBC>"The Sixties star talks about her book", BBC Woman's Hour, October 12, 2005.</ref> She was pleased to work with the photographer under such differing circumstances, although in her autobiography she expressed confusion as to why the photo has been so often reprinted.<ref name=PCOLUndefeatedbymarshahunt/> Hunt has also been photographed by Lewis Morley and Horace Ové.<ref name=PCOLGAL>"Marsha Hunt (1947-), Model, singer, actress and writer", National Portrait Gallery.</ref>

Relationship with Mick Jagger

Hunt said that she met Mick Jagger in 1969 when The Rolling Stones asked her to pose for an ad for "Honky Tonk Women", which she refused to do because she "didn't want to look like [she'd] just been had by all the Rolling Stones."<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> Jagger called her later, and their nine or 10-month affair began.<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> According to Christopher Sandford's book Mick Jagger: Rebel Knight, Hunt told journalist Frankie McGowan that Jagger's shyness and awkwardness won her over, but that their relationship was conducted mostly in private because their social scenes were very different.<ref name=PCOLKnight/> According to Tony Sanchez in Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, Jagger considered proposing to Hunt but did not because he did not think he loved Hunt enough to spend the rest of his life with her, while Hunt, for her part, did not think they were sufficiently compatible to co-habit satisfactorily.<ref name=PCOLUpanddown/> The relationship ended in June 1970, when Hunt was pregnant with Jagger's first child, Karis. According to Hunt, the pair planned the child but never intended to live together and the two agreed that Jagger would be an "absent father".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> On 4 November 1970, Karis was born in London. She is Hunt's only child.<ref name=PCOLUpanddown/>

In 1973, when Karis was two years old, Hunt asked the courts in London for an affiliation order against Jagger and eventually settled out of court.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=PCOLUpanddown>Tony Sanchez, Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, Da Capo Press, 1996, p. 210. Template:ISBN.</ref> Jagger called the suit "silly".<ref name=PCOLUpanddown/> He agreed to set up a trust fund for Karis until she reached 21 but he was allowed to deny his paternity on record.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1978, Hunt filed a paternity suit in Los Angeles asking for $580 a week. At the time, Hunt was unemployed and received welfare payments from Aid to Dependent Children.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1979, Hunt won the paternity suit, saying she wanted "only to be able to say to my daughter, when she's 21, that I didn't allow her father to neglect his responsibilities".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Jagger grew closer to Karis when she was 11 years old, legally, financially, and personally. He paid for her education at a private secondary school and at Yale University and employed her in the Rolling Stones' infrastructure as a researcher on the 25×5: the Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones documentary.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Jagger took her on holiday with his family when she was a teenager, attended her Yale University graduation and her 2000 wedding, and he was at the hospital for the birth of her son in 2004.<ref name=PCOL005 /> In 1991, Hunt indicated that she left the door open for Jagger to come back to his child and admired the fact that he did.<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> In December 2012, Hunt sold a series of love letters written to her in the summer of 1969 by Mick Jagger. The letters were sold by Sotheby's of London for £182,250 ($301,000).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

"Brown Sugar"

Christopher Sandford writes in his book Mick Jagger that when the Rolling Stones released the song "Brown Sugar" there was immediate speculation that it referred to Hunt or to soul singer Claudia Lennear.<ref name=PCOLKnight>Christopher Sanford, Mick Jagger: Rebel Knight, Omnibus Press, 2003, p. 194. Template:ISBN.</ref> In her autobiography, Real Life (1985), Hunt acknowledged that "Brown Sugar" and a few other songs are about her,<ref name=PCOLReallifethebook/> which she reiterated in her book Undefeated (2006).<ref name=PCOLUndefeatedbymarshahunt/> When Hunt was asked for an interview with the Irish Times in 2008 how she felt about the song, she said: "it doesn't make me feel any way at all."<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> However, Rolling Stones' bassist Bill Wyman stated in his book, Rolling With The Stones (2002), that the lyrics were partially inspired by Lennear.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2014, Lennear told The Times that the song is about her because she was dating Jagger when he wrote it.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Hunt was also the titular dedicatee Marsha in Robert Wyatt's song "To Carla, Marsha and Caroline (For Making Everything Beautifuller)" from his album The End of an Ear.

Writing

Autobiography

Hunt began writing in 1985, and her first book was her autobiography, Real Life: The Story of a Survivor (1986).<ref name=PCOLTOP>"On My Mountain Top." by Marsha Hunt</ref> In 1996, she published her second autobiography, Repossessing Ernestine: A Granddaughter Uncovers the Secret History of Her American Family, about her search for her paternal grandmother who was placed in an asylum for nearly 50 years.<ref name="PCOLAmazon">"Repossessing Ernestine: A Granddaughter Uncovers the Secret History of Her American Family" at Amazon Books.</ref> In 2005, Hunt released her memoir about her battle with cancer, Undefeated.<ref name="PCOL244">Isla Whitcroft, "She's the Sixties Icon Who Had a Child By Mick Jagger", Red Orbit, September 27, 2005.</ref>

Novelist

In 1990, Hunt published her first novel, Joy, about a woman who grew up to join a singing group reminiscent of The Supremes before dying an early death.<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> She wrote Joy while touring England with a group performing Othello.<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> Hunt's second novel, Free, published in 1992, tells the story of freed slaves and their children living in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1913.<ref>"Free" at Amazon Books</ref> Her novel Like Venus Fading (1998) is inspired by the lives of Adelaide Hall, known as the "lightly-tanned Venus", Josephine Baker and Dorothy Dandridge.<ref>"Like Venus Fading" at Amazon Books.</ref>

Hunt wrote her first four books whilst living in isolation in a remote hideaway in France called La montagne.<ref name="PCOLTOP" />

Editor

In 1999, Hunt sought a job of writer-in-residence at Dublin's Mountjoy Prison and later collected selected writings from the prisoners and edited The Junk Yard: Voices From An Irish Prison.<ref name=PCOLIrishprison>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The book contains 15 stories divided into five sections: Childhood, Family Life, The Score, Criminal Life and Prison Life.<ref name="PCOLBarcelona">"The Junk Yard: Voices From An Irish Prison, edited by Marsha Hunt, Mainstream Publishing 1999". Book Reviews, Barcelona Review, issue 15 & 16.</ref> It became a number-one bestseller in Ireland in 1999.<ref name=PCOLUndefeatedbymarshahunt/>

Activist

In 1995, Hunt set up the Saga Prize, to discover new British-born black literary talent and recognise the literature emerging from indigenous black Britons' experiences.<ref>Marsha Hunt,

"Saga that led to a miracle", The Herald, August 8, 1995.</ref> Awarded to "the best unpublished novel by a writer born in Great Britain or The Republic of Ireland having a black African ancestor",<ref>Mark Stein, "Saga Prize", in Alison Donnell (ed.), Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture, Routledge, 2013 reprint, p. 270.</ref> the prize, while attracting criticism from the Commission for Racial Equality,<ref>Mark Stein, Black British Literature: Novels of Transformation, Ohio State University Press, 2004, p. 15.</ref><ref>Deirdre Osborne, "Introduction: Longevity and Critical Legitimacy: The 'So-called' Literary Tradition Versus the 'Actual' Cultural Network", Women: A Cultural Review, Volume 20, 2009 - Issue 3: Contemporary Black British Women's Writing, p. 239.</ref> ran for four years until 1998. Winners including Diran Adebayo and Joanna Traynor.<ref>Cole Moreton, "Books: Some kind of success", The Independent, January 4, 1998.</ref>

During the 1997 Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hunt staged a one-woman protest, picketing Charlotte Square about the "shoddy administration" of the festival.<ref name=PCOL005 /> The director of the festival was fired in the aftermath of her protest.<ref name=PCOL005 />

Other projects

In 2005, Hunt stated that she was writing a book about Jimi Hendrix that she considers her life work.<ref name=PCOL005 /> She indicated that no one alive can share her perspective on the matter, "because he and I shared something – black Americans who came to London were transformed and repackaged for the U.S., although I never became successful there and he did."<ref name=PCOL005 />

Acting

Theatre

In 1971, Hunt played Bianca in Catch My Soul,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the rock-and-roll stage version of Othello produced by Jack Good.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> In 1973, she wrote, produced, and directed a new London show entitled Man to Woman.<ref>"Hunt And Jagger Swagger", Jet, July 12, 1982, p. 38.</ref> The music from the show was released on vinyl in 1982 by Virgin Records, featuring vocals by Robert Wyatt.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1975, Hunt appeared as Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/> In 1991, Hunt appeared as Nurse Logan in the world premiere of Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mount Morgan at London's Wyndham's Theatre.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/><ref>"The Ride Down Morgan's Mountain". Dramatists Play Service, Inc. 1991.</ref> Hunt became a member of the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.<ref name=PCOLOfficialwebsite/>

In 1994, Hunt performed a one-woman play in Scotland at the Edinburgh Festival playing Baby Palatine, a 60-year-old woman who becomes the wardrobe mistress to a female pop group.<ref name="PCOLPalatine">"Chronicle", New York Times, August 20, 1994.</ref> The play is based on Hunt's 1990 novel, Joy, and was directed by Hunt's daughter, Karis Jagger.<ref name=PCOLPalatine/>

Film

Hunt's film career included appearances in Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), Britannia Hospital (1982) directed by Lindsay Anderson,<ref name=NYT>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Sender (1982), Never Say Never Again (1983), Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985), and Tank Malling (1989).

Television

In 1988, Hunt played Elvi Rogers in The Play on One: Unreported Incident.<ref>BBC – Radio Times – The Play on One: Unreported Incident</ref> In 1990, Hunt played Bianca in the BBC television production of Othello directed by Trevor Nunn.<ref name=PCOLGAL />

Documentaries

In 1997, Irish documentary filmmaker Alan Gilsenan made God Bless America, featuring six American cities seen through the eyes of six American authors. Hunt's participation resulted in Marsha Hunt's Philadelphia.<ref name=PCOLTOP /> According to Gilsenan, Hunt attributes the success of American democracy and capitalism to the crime of slavery, which must be understood if America is to have peace.<ref>"Alan Gilsenan Interview", Film West: Ireland's Film Quarterly, Issue 25.</ref> Hunt fell in love with Gilsenan and moved to the Wicklow mountains near Dublin with him,<ref name=PCOLTOP /> where in 1999 she helped him fight colon cancer, drawing on her own experiences with the disease.<ref name=PCOLMirror>Victoria Kennedy, "I lost a breast ..Big Deal!" The Mirror, September 21, 2005.</ref> As of 2008, Hunt and Gilsenan were no longer in a relationship.<ref name=PCOLImlucky/>

Hunt was the subject of an ITV documentary, Beating Breast Cancer, which was broadcast on September 26, 2005.<ref name=PCOLUndefeatedbymarshahunt>Marsha Hunt, Undefeated, Greystone Books, 2006, p. 235. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Cancer

In late 2004, Hunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and was told to have surgery to remove her right breast and her lymph nodes.<ref name=PCOL244 /> Hunt postponed seeking treatment for five months, which resulted in facing third stage cancer.<ref name=PCOLTripleassessment>Louise Hogan, "New treatment leaves Marsha undefeated", The Irish Independent, August 28, 2008.</ref> She chose to have surgery in Ireland and had a complete mastectomy with no following reconstruction.<ref name=PCOL244 /> After the operation, Hunt said she did not mourn the loss of her breast, but felt happy that the cancer had been removed.<ref name="PCOL244" /> She later described the scar from surgery as a memento of what she survived,<ref name="PCOL244" /> and also compared herself to an Amazon warrior.<ref name="PCOLImlucky" />

After her mastectomy, she contracted the superbug MRSA and had to be treated with Zyvox.<ref name="PCOL244" /> She also had chemotherapy.<ref name="PCOL244" />

The Irish Independent reported on August 27, 2008, that Hunt stood on a table at the opening of the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin to let everyone see that she had survived third-stage breast cancer after a treatment of chemotherapy, radiation, and Herceptin therapy at the hospital.<ref name=PCOLTripleassessment/>

Personal life

In 2008, Hunt stated that the biggest misconception people have about her is that she is wealthy, though she describes herself as "rich in spirit".<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> She believes that wealth is not necessary for happiness and claimed to have lived the "writing life" for the past two decades.<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> She enjoys the solitude of living on her own and the freedom of being single.<ref name=PCOLImlucky/> Hunt has lived in Ireland since 1995.<ref name=PCOL005 /> She also owns a home in the French countryside about 60 miles from Paris.<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/><ref name=PCOL005 />

Self-identity

When Hunt came to live in Europe she found that people there called her an American, not an African American or Black.<ref name="PCOLBlairhunt">Marianne Wiggins, "Coming back from the dead", The Independent, February 10, 1996.</ref> She herself describes her skin colour as "oak with a hint of maple",<ref name=PCOLReallifethebook/><ref name=PCOLBlairhunt/> and notes that "[o]f the various races I know I comprise—African, American Indian, German Jew and Irish—only the African was acknowledged."<ref name=PCOLReallifethebook/><ref name=PCOLBlairhunt/> Hunt invented her own word to describe herself, based on the French word melange (mixture) and the word melanin: Melangian.<ref name=PCOLReallifethebook/><ref name=PCOLBlairhunt/>

In 1991, Hunt stated that the Black community inflicts pain on itself,<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> and also said that living overseas for most of her life has made her a foreigner in the US.<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/> She said, "I'm scared to walk through Harlem... more scared than you, because if I walked through Harlem with the weird shoes and the weird accent, I'd get my butt kicked faster than you. In a way, I'm the betrayer."<ref name=PCOLPhiladelphia/>

Hunt is featured in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Smithsonian Institution museum in Washington D.C., which opened in 2016 at a ceremony led by then-President Barack Obama.<ref>MSNBC - Youtube, See MH at 3m:15s.</ref>

External links

• [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0402556

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• Marsha Hunt at HorrorStars