Jeffrey Hunter was an actor best known for his role alongside John Wayne in 1956’s The Searchers,
as well as his role as Jesus Christ in the 1961 epic King
of Kings. Though Jeffrey Hunter would play the role of Jesus towards the beginning of the 1960s,
he sadly wouldn’t live to see the end of the decade. A lifelong alcoholic,
Jeffrey tragically passed away in 1969. The reason given for his death was that the
actor fell and hit his head at home, which apparently resulted in a hemorrhage. However,
many fans have speculated over the years that the true cause of Jeffrey’s death was an on-set
accident that occurred around a year prior. This on-set accident occurred during the production of
a film by the name of Viva America, also known as Cry Chicago. Join Facts Verse
as we explore how Jeffrey Hunter’s final film role was responsible for his death.
Jeffrey Hunter Got His Start in Radio During High School
Jeffrey Hunter was born on November 25, 1926,
in New Orleans. Jeffrey’s father was an engineer working in sales,
and the family moved out to Milwaukee when Jeffrey was less than four years old. Jeffrey would spend
the rest of his childhood days in Wisconsin, and it was in high school that he got his first
taste of show business. This first taste of show business came when the high-school
student was given a gig working on a local radio station named WTMJ. Jeffrey enjoyed this first
little taste of show business and pursued other opportunities to explore the arts.
Following Jeffrey’s time as a teenager working for the local Wisconsin radio station WTMJ,
he could be found doing summer-stock work. Jeffrey then made the decision
to travel out to Chicago and try his hand at the stage there. Things were going good,
but Jeffrey decided to take a break to serve for a short time in the United States
Navy. The young man served in the United States Navy from 1945 to 1946, during which time he
worked at the Great Lakes Naval Station, located in the state of Illinois. Once done with the Navy,
Jeffrey stayed in Illinois and continued trying his hand at the
stage. In addition, he also began attending Northwestern University, located in Evanston,
Illinois. At this school, Jeffrey earned a bachelor’s degree in speech.
In the late 1940s, Jeffrey’s continued work on the stage opened up the opportunity for him to
have a small role in the 1949 film Julius Caesar. The film starred Charlton Heston,
and the bit part gave Jeffrey some great experience.
Not long after performing his small role in 1949’s Julius Caesar, Jeffrey decided to move out to
California and continue his higher education at UCLA. The young man also continued performing
on the stage in California. While putting on a production of All My Sons at his college, Jeffrey
caught the attention of some talent scouts. This led to Jeffrey's screen testing at Paramount
Pictures, though it wasn’t Paramount Pictures that Jeffrey ended up signing his first contract with.
Instead, the first studio that managed to get Jeffrey to sign his name on the dotted line was
20th Century Fox. There, he went on to make his first big film appearance in the movie Fourteen
Hours, which also happened to serve as the big-screen debut of an actress named Grace Kelly!
Jeffrey Made His Debut Alongside Grace Kelly
Following Jeffrey’s mainstream debut in the film Fourteen Hours, the actor could be counted on as
a reliable presence on the screen for the next few decades. The actor wasn't afraid
to try his hand at different genres, with the actor appearing in films throughout his career
that ran the gamut from comedy to science fiction to serious drama. The actor also loved to appear
in war films and Westerns, which were two of the genres that utilized the star the best.
In 1956, Jeffrey’s Hollywood career reached a new level when the star was given the opportunity to
appear alongside John Wayne in the classic John Ford-directed Western The Searchers. Jeffrey
recalled before his death how proud he was on the film set when he realized that his character was
given almost as much ammunition as John Wayne's! Jeffrey's role as John's sidekick in The Searchers
is arguably his most iconic, though a decidedly epic role that the actor would go on to play in
the early 1960s gave it a run for its money… If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure
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Jeffrey’s Performance as Jesus Was Vatican-Approved
After achieving more fame than ever before by appearing alongside John Wayne in the classic 1956
Western film The Searchers, Jeffrey Hunter was given the chance to take on the role of
Jesus Christ in the 1961 religious epic King of Kings. Jeffrey knew that he needed to take the
role seriously, and he ended up receiving quite a bit of praise for his performance. The film
was a pretty big deal in religious circles, with it’s script having been preapproved for
production by the Vatican prior to the picture’s filming. Besides Jeffrey’s role in The Searchers,
Jeffrey’s turn as Jesus Christ is undeniably one of his most iconic.
During the mid-1960s, Jeffrey Hunter signed a two-year contract with Warner
Bros. Pictures. The studio put Jeffrey to work in the Western television series
Temple Houston, which lasted for around 20 episodes before
it was canceled after being on the air for only around a year. The series followed the exploits
of real-life attorney Temple Lea Houston, and Jeffry Hunter was cast in the role of the
titular character. The series was inspired by the success of the 1963 film The Man from Galveston,
which featured Jeffrey Hunter in the role of an imaginary Texas lawyer named Timothy Higgins.
Temple Houston was sadly not the success that the studio wanted it to be, which meant
that Jeffrey Hunter was out of a consistent television gig. The actor almost got another
consistent television gig after performing in the first pilot for the series Star Trek.
In 1964, Jeffrey appeared in Star Trek’s first pilot episode as the character of Captain
Christopher Pike. The first pilot episode of the future cult-classic series wasn’t
appreciated much by those in charge, so a second pilot episode was put into
production to try and convince executives that the series was truly the future.
Jeffrey Almost Played a Role on Star Trek Jeffrey Hunter had never heard of any such
thing as a second pilot, and he wasn’t interested in wasting his time continuing to film footage for
a show that was never going to come to fruition. Because of this, Jeffrey opted out of returning
to reprise his role as Captain Christopher Pike for Star Trek’s second pilot. Little
could the star have known that Star Trek, even after the rejection of its first pilot, would
go on to become one of the most popular shows of the 1960s. Actor Sean Kenney ended up replacing
Jeffrey in the role of Captain Christopher Pike for the series proper, and Jeffrey
likely kicked himself once he saw what a major hit Star Trek became. Still,
the role of Captain Christopher Pike was merely a supporting one,
and it certainly didn’t do any wonders for Sean Kenney’s career following the program.
Jeffrey Hunter continued being a reliable presence on the screen
over the course of the remaining 1960s before tragically passing away at the end
of the decade. The actor’s last notable role came on the stage when he made an appearance
in a Chicago production of The Rainmaker. The actor was married three times over the
course of his life and had just recently married his third wife upon his passing.
Jeffrey’s first wife was an actress by the name of Barbara Rush. Jeffrey married Barbara towards the
end of 1950, and they went on to have one child together before divorcing in the spring of 1955.
That son was named Christopher. Despite the fact that Jeffrey and Barbara were only married
for a handful of years, Barbara held positive feelings for her husband after their divorce
and continued to think of the actor as the most handsome person that she had ever met.
Jeffrey Was Never Lucky in Love Following the end of his first marriage,
Jeffrey went on to marry his second wife just a few years later, in 1957.
Jeffrey's second wife was a model by the name of Joan Bartlett, though the public better knew her
by her stage name of Dusty. Jeffrey and Dusty had two sons throughout their marriage, and Jeffrey
also adopted Dusty's son from a previous marriage. Jeffrey's second marriage was a
little bit more successful than his first one, as he and Dusty were married for nearly a decade.
After divorcing his second wife in 1967, Jeffrey Hunter once again didn’t
waste very much time in finding a new one. Sadly, the actor’s tragic end was just
around the corner. Jeffrey tied the knot with third wife Emily McLaughlin in 1969,
and the two were only together for a couple of months before Jeffrey’s tragic passing.
Emily was a soap-opera actress best known for her longtime role on General Hospital.
In November of 1968, Jeffrey suffered a serious accident while filming a picture called Viva
America, also known as Cry Chicago. A window exploded in the wrong direction,
leading to Jeffrey losing consciousness and requiring hospitalization. Half of a year later,
Jeffrey fell and hit his head at home then died of a cerebral hemorrhage shortly afterward.
Many think that the accident on the set of Viva America was actually responsible for Jeffrey's
death, though it's also worth noting that the actor was a longtime alcoholic. For those that
don’t know, alcohol use can greatly increase the risk of suffering from brain hemorrhages.
It remains uncertain whether or not Jeffrey Hunter’s final film role was truly responsible
for the actor’s death, though it certainly didn’t help! Now it’s time to hear from you:
did you know that Jeffrey Hunter played Captain Christopher Pike in the pilot episode
of Star Trek and that his final marriage only lasted for two months before his tragic death?
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