LINDA HUNT Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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LINDA HUNT

Name: Linda Hunt                                                                       
Born: 2 April 1945 Morristown, New Jersey, USA                                         
                                                                                       
Linda Hunt (born April 2, 1945) is an American film, stage and television             
actress. She is perhaps best known for her Academy Award-winning role in 1983's       
The Year of Living Dangerously.                                                       
                                                                                       
Hunt was born in Morristown, New Jersey, the daughter of Elsie (née Doying), a       
piano teacher who taught at the Westport School of Music and accompanied the           
Saugatuck Congregational Church choir, and Raymond Davy Hunt, the long-time vice       
president of Harper Fuel Oil in Long Island. She has a sister, Marcia. She             
was also born with Turner's Syndrome, a chromosonal disease that only women get,       
closely associated with Down's Syndrome.                                               
                                                                                       
Hunt's film debut occurred in 1980 in Robert Altman's musical comedy Popeye. In       
1982 she won the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the male             
Chinese-Australian dwarf Billy Kwan in the film The Year of Living Dangerously.       
She is still the only person ever to win an Oscar for playing a character of the       
opposite sex.                                                                         
                                                                                       
Hunt is also a well known stage actress, who has received two Obie awards and a       
Tony Award nomination for her theatre work. She created the role of Aunt Dan in       
Wallace Shawn's play Aunt Dan and Lemon. Recently, she portrayed Sister Aloysius       
in the Pasadena Playhouse production of John Patrick Shanley's Tony Award-winning     
play Doubt. Her television appearances include a recurring role as Judge Zoey         
Hiller on David E. Kelley's series The Practice.                                       
                                                                                       
Beside her acting abilities, Hunt is distinguished by her small stature (she is       
4' 9" or 1.45 m), and her rich, resonant voice, which she has used effectively         
in numerous documentaries, cartoons, and commercials. Hunt is the on-air host         
for City Arts & Lectures, a radio program recorded by KQED public radio. She was       
chosen by Walt Disney Feature Animation to lend her enigmatic speaking and             
singing voice to Grandmother Willow in the film Pocahontas. Her voice work also       
includes the character of "Management" in the US TV series Carnivàle, and Gaia,       
who serves as the Narrator in the video games God of War and God of War II. She       
also narrates the introductory film at the International Spy Museum in                 
Washington, DC.