Jimmy Hunt, a former child actor best known for roles in the original Cheaper by the Dozen, Invaders From Mars and Pitfall, has died aged 85.
Hunt’s daughter, Alisa, told The Hollywood Reporter that he had died in hospital after experiencing a heart attack six weeks prior.
From 1945 to 1953, Hunt appeared in 35 films, including a role as the freckle-faced youngster in 1948’s Sorry, Wrong Number, before retiring from acting aged 14.
He was best known for playing William Gilbreth, one of the 12 children of efficiency expert Clifton Webb and and psychologist Myrna Loy in the 1950 film Cheaper by the Dozen. He returned for the 1952 sequel, Belles on Their Toes, to play another son named Fred.
One of his most memorable roles was his performance as David MacLean in the 1953 sci-fi classic Invaders From Mars. In the film, David spies a flying saucer from his bedroom before he’s sucked underground, where he encounters a Martian and its green humanoid accomplices aboard the saucer.
Hunt came out of retirement to play a police chief in Tobe Hooper’s 1986 remake of Invaders From Mars. In the film, his adult character approaches a hill where the flying saucer may have landed, and says: “I haven’t been here for 40 years.”
The actor was born in 1939 and was scouted by an MGM talent agent aged six at his school in Los Angeles. He made his acting debut as the child version of Van Johnson’s Navy pilot in the 1947 film High Barbaree.
He appeared in five films released that year. In 1948, he acted in another eight films as he attended MGM’s Little Red Schoolhouse – a school for contracted young actors on the MGM studio lot – where his classmates included Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowall.
His onscreen parents included Jane Wyatt and Dick Powell in 1948’s Pitfall, Claudette Colbert in 1949’s Family Honeymoon, Ronald Reagan in 1950’s Louisa, Teresa Wright in 1950’s The Capture and Patricia Neal in 1951’s Week-End With Father.
Hunt quit acting aged 14 after deciding he would “rather play sports in high school than make movies. So I retired,” he said in a 2017 interview. Hunt later went to college and served for three years in the US army. He went on to work as a sales manager for an industrial tool and supply company.
He is survived by his wife, Roswitha, his children Randy, Ron and Alisa, his sister Bonnie, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
