Jeffrey Hunter (born Henry Herman McKinnies Jr.; November 25, 1926 – May 27, 1969) was an American film and television actor and producer known for his roles in films such as The Searchers and King of Kings. On television, Hunter is known for his 1965 role as Captain Christopher Pike in the original pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Early life Hunter was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Edith Lois (née Burgess) and Henry Herman McKinnies. His family was of Scottish ancestry. After 1930, he was reared in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitefish Bay High School. He was involved in school sports and began acting in local theater and radio in his early teens.
From 1942 to 1945, he spent his summers appearing in small roles for a touring summer-stock theater company from New York called the Northport Players. He made his professional radio debut in his senior year in high school on a program called Those Who Serve, playing a G.I. After graduating from high school in 1945, Hunter joined the United States Navy. He completed a naval radar course at the Radio Technical School and was assigned to Communications Division, Headquarters of the Ninth Naval District in Great Lakes, Illinois. Although he served during World War II, he did not see any battle duty because of a broken arch bone suffered in a high school football injury.
College After the war, he attended Northwestern University (NU), from which he graduated in 1949. Here, he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
In college, Hunter appeared in two NU stage productions, including Ruth Gordon's Years Ago (as Captain Absolute). He also acted with the NU Theatre summer-stock company at Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, in 1947, appearing in Too Many Husbands, The Late George Apley, Payment Deferred, The Merchant of Venice, and Fata Morgana. He did radio work with the NU Radio Workshop and Radio Guild, and worked summers with the NBC Radio Institute in Chicago.
Hunter's first film role came in 1949. While at NU, he was one of a number of students who were cast in David Bradley's version of Julius Caesar (1950). The movie featured a young Charlton Heston as Mark Antony.
He graduated from NU on August 26, 1949, then moved to the University of California at Los Angeles to get his master's degree in radio. In 1950, he was appearing in a college production of All My Sons in the role of Chris and was spotted by talent scouts from Paramount and 20th Century Fox. Paramount tested him doing two scenes from All My Sons with Ed Begley. They were impressed and offered him an option; Darryl F. Zanuck of Fox heard about this and offered him a long-term contract. The young actor agreed and the studio changed his name to "Jeffrey Hunter" on June 1, 1950.
20th Century Fox Fox started off Hunter in a small role in Fourteen Hours (1951), shot in New York City for director Henry Hathaway; he and Debra Paget were two young people who connect while watching a man about to jump off a ledge. He had a two-minute scene in Call Me Mister (1951) and was a "campus Casanova" in a Jeanne Crain drama, Take Care of My Little Girl (1952), directed by Jean Negulesco. Hunter then was given a bigger part in the all-male war movie The Frogmen (1951) for director Lewis Milestone, supporting Richard Widmark and Dana Andrews; among his fellow support players was Robert Wagner, another young actor under contract to Fox at the time. The two would appear in several movies together and were often rivals for the same part.
Leading man Frogmen, and Hunter's role in it, received favorable reviews and he moved into leading roles with Red Skies of Montana (1952), billed third in a film about smokejumpers with Richard Widmark and Constance Smith. He had a more conventional male juvenile lead in Belles on Their Toes (1953), a sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen, which reunited him with Crain.
Marilyn Monroe later gave an interview where she discussed Hunter's appeal:
Fox gave Hunter his first starring role in Lure of the Wilderness (1952), a remake of Swamp Water, directed by Negulesco and opposite Jean Peters. After Dreamboat (1952), where Hunter supported Clifton Webb and Ginger Rogers, he was given his best role yet, the starring part in a war film, Sailor of the King (1953), based on C. S. Forester's book, Brown on Resolution. Although financed by Fox, it was essentially a British film, with British talent — Hunter was cast as a Canadian to explain his accent (his casting led to some difficulties with British film unions).
Sailor of the King was a minor success, Filmink arguing Hunter "didn't have that X factor of great, or even second tier stars – Hunter lacked individuality, a presence that compelled the audience to look at him, and we think this is what would hold him back as a star for the rest of his career." Hunter followed it with a Western he made with Mitzi Gaynor, Three Young Texans (1954). Princess of the Nile (1954) was an "Eastern" with Debra Paget in the title role. It was not particularly successful, either, and Hunter did not manage to transition into being a top-line star. The title role in Prince Valiant, which had been mentioned for him, was given to Robert Wagner. "It was a terrible disappointment to me", said Hunter later. "I just didn't know what to do. It seemed my career was over. They were making a lot of pictures on the lot, but I wasn't cast in any of them and I couldn't understand why, particularly since I started out with such a terrific lot of luck."
Career lull Fox lent him out, along with Debra Paget, to Allied Artists to play the abolitionist Owen Brown in Seven Angry Men (1955), with Raymond Massey in the lead.
Hunter then played an Indian chief in the Western White Feather (1955), essentially supporting Robert Wagner. It was a moderate hit at the box office. Hunter said after it, "I had no immediate pictures scheduled... Nothing seemed to be coming up. I wasn't thinking of leaving my studio — it's important having a major studio behind you. It was just that I was restless, and nothing seemed to be happening."
With a friend, Bill Hayes, he set up a production company, Hunter Enterprises. They produced a documentary, The Living Swamp. Hunter also began appearing regularly on television, having particular success in an episode of Climax! he made with Margaret O'Brien. Back at Fox, he supported Anthony Quinn in Seven Cities of Gold (1955).
He was lent to United Artists along with fellow Fox contract players Wagner and Joanne Woodward for A Kiss Before Dying (1956). Wagner had the best role—as a killer—while Hunter had the more conventional leading-man part. (The movie was shelved for a year before being released.) Filmink wrote "Hunter's specialty by this time might best be described as 'sensible principled character who acts as a counterpoint to a neurotic lead'." A loan-out to co-star with John Wayne in the title roles of the now-classic Western The Searchers (1956) began the first of three pictures he made with director John Ford, followed by The Last Hurrah (1958) and Sergeant Rutledge (1960).
The Searchers
Hunter's career was revitalized when he successfully lobbied John Ford to cast him as the second lead in The Searchers (1956), supporting John Wayne. Filmink argued "There's a reason that critics don't rhapsodise too much over Jeffrey Hunter, but it's a fine performance, far superior to those given by other male juveniles who supported John Wayne in Ford pictures."
Disney borrowed him to play William Allen Fuller in the Civil War action movie The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), opposite Fess Parker. Ironically, according to Parker's Archive of American Television interview, Ford had originally wanted to cast Parker in Hunter's role in The Searchers, but Disney refused to lend him out, something Parker did not hear about until years later; Parker referred to this lost opportunity as his single biggest career setback.
The success of The Searchers and The Great Locomotive Chase reignited Fox's interest in Hunter and the studio re-signed him, while giving him the right to make one "outside" film a year.
He supported Robert Ryan in a Western, The Proud Ones (1956). Hunter went over to Universal Studios and supported another older star, Fred MacMurray, in another Western, Gun for a Coward (1957), in a role originally meant for James Dean. Back at Fox, Hunter was reunited with Wagner as the James brothers in The True Story of Jesse James (1957), directed by Nicholas Ray (Hunter played Frank); it was mildly popular, although considered a critical disappointment.
Fox gave him a leading role in The Way to the Gold (1957), another Western. It was a low-budget production, but proved profitable. He was one of several leads in Fox's look at young people, No Down Payment (1957) – not a big hit, but the early work for director Martin Ritt received some critical acclaim. Fox sent Hunter to Britain to be an American star in a British war film once more: Count Five and Die (1957).
Illness In October 1957, Hunter started shooting for his role in the Universal film If I Should Die (later Appointment with a Shadow), but collapsed following his first day on the set, and was replaced by George Nader. He was off the screen for 14 months while ill with what was diagnosed as hepatitis.
John Ford cast him in another film, The Last Hurrah (1958), starring Spencer Tracy. He had a cameo as himself in the Pat Boone musical at Fox, Mardi Gras (1958).
Hunter then made a war film, In Love and War (1958), co-starring with several other Fox signees such as Wagner. It proved popular.
Hunter formed a production company, Mexico Films, and made a film in Mexico, The Holy City, The Sacred City. It struggled to find a release.
John Ford used him for a third (and final) time as the lead in the Western legal drama Sergeant Rutledge (1960) starring Woody Strode, and the film was not a big success.
Hunter was in an urban thriller, Key Witness (1960), directed by Phil Karlson. After making the film, Fox did not renew its contract with Hunter.
In June 1959 he announced he would make The Golden Horde for his own company, Hunter Enterprises.
Career after Fox
Hunter's next film was with Karlson; he played Guy Gabaldon in the Allied Artists film Hell to Eternity (1960), which was a hit at the box office. Gabaldon later named one of his sons Jeffrey Hunter Gabaldon.
Nicholas Ray cast Hunter in the role of Jesus Christ in the $8 million epic King of Kings (1961), produced by Samuel Bronston. "I've broken my shackles at last", said Hunter at the time. He told Louella Parsons, "Christ was a carpenter and 33 years old, and I am 33, and I suppose my physical measurements fitted the description in the New Testament. At the time of His death, He was robust, and not a delicate man."
It was a difficult part, met by critical reaction that ranged from praise to ridicule because of Hunter's youthful, matinee-idol appearance. However, the film was a box-office hit and remains one of Hunter's best-remembered roles.Gwilym Beckerlegge, From Sacred Text to Internet, Ashgate, 2001, p.268. Hunter later said: "I still get an average of 1,500 letters a month from people who saw me in that film and share the beauty and inspiration I derived from it with me. There are some things that can't be measured in dollars and cents and how can anyone put a price—even the price of a million-dollar career—on the role of the greatest Being this mortal world has ever known?"
When Hunter returned to Hollywood, he deliberately selected parts that were different, such as that of a psychopathic killer in an episode of Checkmate and as the lead in a heist thriller Man-Trap (1961), directed by actor Edmond O'Brien.