- In 1933, she was employed by a young Alec Guinness as an acting coach. After 12 lessons she told him, "You'll never make an actor, Mr Guinness", although the two remained friends. Guinness persevered and made his professional stage debut the following year, and in 1946, his film debut as Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), in which he co-starred with none other than Martita Hunt.
- Won Broadway's 1949 Tony Award as Best Actress (Dramatic) for "The Madwoman of Chaillot.".
- Although her birth year is listed as 1899 on the 1911 census and her grave marker, Hunt's death registration (on which the enumerator mistakenly listed her first name as 'Martila') gives the year as 1900.
- Although her birth date was given as 1900 in some records, Martita gave it as 1899 for the UK 1939 Register (a pre-War census). She also gave it as 1899 on documents related to entry to the US in 1948 when she gave her place of birth as Uruguay, not Argentina. The 1911 census gives her birthplace as Salto, Uruguay, but states that she was British by parentage.
- She was notorious for chain-smoking in bed and nodding off whilst doing so - her former student Alec Guinness reports in his autobiography that she was forever having to buy new bed-sheets because of the holes made in them by cigarette burns. There were even reports that she had died in a fire caused by this habit of hers, but this would appear not to be true.
- Contrary to popular belief she is not the aunt of Gareth Hunt.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content