An Oscar winning actress who made movie history was seen on a rare outing in LA recently.
She earned acting’s highest honor for an acclaimed historical drama that helped cement Mel Gibson’s rise to international stardom.
She has worked steadily in film since then, with roles in movies including Dune (1984), Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).
This 80-year-old actress has also been an in-demand star on television, where she is best known for her lengthy runs on The Practice and NCIS: Los Angeles.
But her acting roles have grown scarcer in recent years, and she hasn’t been seen on television since 2023.
Can you guess who this acclaimed actress is?
An Oscar winning actress who made movie history was seen on a rare outing in LA recently, can you guess who she is?
The star, now 80, earned acting’s highest honor for an acclaimed historical drama that helped cement Mel Gibson’s rise to international stardom
She’s Linda Hunt, who is best known for winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 1982’s The Year Of Living Dangerously.
Hunt was spotted out in Los Angeles in photos obtained by the Daily Mail on a rare sighting as she went out for a walk with her longtime wife Karen Kline and an assistant.
She was dressed casually in a white T-shirt with a comical drawing of a dog on the chest, along with pale gray jeans and black New Balance trainers.
Her wife, who is a psychotherapist, wore a black-and-white striped T-shirt with a gray hoodie tied around her waist and blue jeans.
The two have been together going back to 1978, and they finally tied the knot thirty years later in 2008.
Hunt appeared to require some help to get around, and she held her arms out for her wife and an accompanying assistant to hold her hands.
Hunt holds the rare distinction of being the first person to win an acting Oscar for playing a person of the opposite sex.
She played Billy Kwan, a Chinese–Australian photographer working with an Australian correspondent (played by Mel Gibson) covering the abortive military coup in the mid-’60s that later led the country’s president to be replaced by a right-wing military general.
She’s Linda Hunt, who is best known for winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 1982’s The Year Of Living Dangerously
She played Billy Kwan, a Chinese–Australian photographer working with an Australian correspondent (Mel Gibson) covering the abortive military coup in the mid-’60s that later reshaped the country’s government; still from The Year Of Living Dangerously
Hunt holds the rare distinction of being the first person to win an acting Oscar for playing a person of the opposite sex; seen at the 1983 ceremony
Hunt was spotted out in Los Angeles on a rare sighting as she went out for a walk with her longtime wife Karen Kline and an assistant
Hunt has been with her wife, a psychotherapist, since 1978. They tied the knot three decades later in 2008
Hunt appeared to require some help to get around, and she held her arms out for her wife and an accompanying assistant to hold her hands
However, she was also seen walking without assistance at other times
Sigourney Weaver also costarred in the film as a British embassy officer.
Hunt almost didn’t get her star-making role, as The Year Of Living Dangerously’s director, Peter Weir, was originally only looking for male actors.
He told the New York Times in 1982 that it was only after he saw a photo of Hunt — who is only 4ft9in — that he became intrigued by her appearance and asked her to do a screen test.
‘I never would have started out looking for a woman, […] But from the moment I saw her test, I knew she was appropriate,’ Weir said.
Hunt had been working for years in the theatre prior to breaking out in films, and she had been working on Broadway since 1975, when she made her debut in a revival of Ah, Wilderness.
She had a couple of small roles on television in the late 1970s, but her first prominent on-screen role was in Robert Altman’s divisive comedy Popeye, which starred Robin Williams as the title character and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.
Hunt appeared in a small support role as Mrs. Oxheart.
The Year Of Living Dangerously was just her second film, and she followed it up with roles in David Lynch’s box office bomb Dune and the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of Henry James’ The Bostonians, which starred Christopher Reeve and Vanessa Redgrave.
Hunt was dressed casually in a white T-shirt with a comical drawing of a dog on the chest, along with pale gray jeans and black New Balance trainers
Hunt only got her cross-dressing role in The Year Of Living Dangerously after the director, Peter Weir, saw her photo and invited her to do a screen test
Hunt had been working for years in the theatre prior to breaking out in films. Her first movie was Robert Altman’s divisive 1980 comedy Popeye, which starred Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall
The Year Of Living Dangerously was just her second film, and she followed it up with roles in David Lynch’s box office bomb Dune and the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of The Bostonians, starring Christopher Reeve and Vanessa Redgrave
Her other films in the ’80s included Silverado (1985) and She-Devil (1989) among others
In the 1990s, she appeared with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop (1990), and in 1993 she appeared with Brendan Fraser in two back-to-back films, Younger And Younger and Twenty Bucks
In 1994, she reunited with director Robert Altman for his satirical fashion comedy Prêt-à-Porter, and she turned to voice acting the following year to play the speaking tree Grandmother Willow in Disney’s Pocahontas
Her other films in the ’80s included Silverado (1985) and She-Devil (1989) among others.
In the 1990s, she appeared with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop (1990), and in 1993 she appeared with Brendan Fraser in two back-to-back films, Younger And Younger and Twenty Bucks.
In 1994, Hunt reunited with director Robert Altman for his satirical fashion comedy Prêt-à-Porter, and she turned to voice acting the following year to play the speaking tree Grandmother Willow in Disney’s Pocahontas.
Hunt appeared in the 1997 horror film The Relic and reprised her role as grandmother Willow in the straight-to-video sequel Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World in 1998.
She worked considerably less in the 2000s and 2010s, though she did appear with Will Ferrell in the dramedy Stranger Than Fiction in 2006, and she had a voice role in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story as Lady Proxima.
Hunt was far more prolific in television during the same period.
She appeared as Judge Zoey Hiller on The Practice from 1997 to 2002, and she narrated PBS’ documentary series The American Experience from 1998 to 2006.
She also had a voice role on multiple episodes of HBO’s short-lived series Carnivàle from 2003 to 2005.
Hunt was more prolific on television in the 2000s and 2010. She appeared on The Practice from 1998 to 2002, and she starred as Henrietta ‘Hetty’ Lange on NCIS: Los Angeles beginning in 2009
Hunt hasn’t appeared on screen since the end of NCIS: Los Angeles in 2023
Hunt’s longest-running role would be a starring part as Henrietta ‘Hetty’ Lange, the operations manager, on NCIS: Los Angeles, which she began appearing on in 2009.
Hunt was part of the show’s main cast through 2021, but she was absent from the penultimate thirteenth season, and she only had a limited role on the fourteenth and final season in 2023.
She also took some significant time away from the serious as she recovered from a serious multi-car crash in 2018.
Hunt has also made her mark on the video game industry as the narrator of God Of War (2005), as well as several of its sequels.
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