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R.I.P. Jimmy Hunt, child actor from ''Invaders from Mars''
Hunt retired from acting at the age of 14, choosing a normal childhood over Hollywood. The former child star was 85 years old.
Jimmy Hunt, child actor best known for his role in 1953's Invaders from Mars, has passed away.
Hunt began his film career at the age of 6, after an MGM scout came to his Los Angeles school looking for talent. "I was attending school about six blocks from MGM and they came there and picked some of us out, screen tested us, and I got the part," said Hunt in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
"There were kids out there who wanted to be in movies, who would give their left arm to be in movies. I couldn't dance or sing. What I had, I guess, was the all-American look everyone was looking for - freckles and curly hair."
Though Hunt appeared in 35 movies by the time he was 14, including Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) and Pitfall (1948), the one that he is most remembered for — and the one that Hunt said he still got fan mail for over seven decades since it hit theaters — was Invaders from Mars.
In the sci-fi classic, David MacLean (Hunt) sees a flying saucer land behind his house and when his dad goes to investigate, he comes back acting strange. Soon David is working with the U.S. Army in an effort to destroy the alien menace before the whole world becomes mind-controlled.
When Hunt was 14, he decided that he would rather go to school and be a normal kid than stay a Hollywood actor. He retired from the business, went to college, and served in the Army as a codebreaker.
Hunt returned to the screen in 1986 for Tobe Hooper's remake of Invaders from Mars, where he played a police chief.
The former child star was 85 years old.
