Harrison Hunter

Harrison Hunter (1870 – January 2, 1923) was a Scottish-American stage actor whose Broadway career spanned from 1901 to 1920. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Scottish parents who were visiting the United States at the time, Hunter was taken back to Scotland in infancy and raised in the United Kingdom, where he began his acting career.

Hunter returned to the United States in 1899 as a member of Olga Nethersole's theatrical company and subsequently settled in the country, purchasing a farm in Brookfield, Massachusetts. He was married to actress Sidney Crowe, and in 1892 the couple had a daughter who later performed under the name Leah Bateman.

His Broadway career began in 1901 with The Way of the World and continued with appearances in Pippa Passes in 1906 and The Thirteenth Chair in 1916, among other productions including Marriage, The Crimson Alibi, and By Pigeon Post. Outside the theater, Hunter accumulated a single film credit, appearing in Raoul Walsh's The Strongest in 1920.

Hunter's final stage role came in The Bat, a mystery centered on a murderous criminal known as "the Bat" who searches for hidden money in a Long Island mansion. Hunter played a character who presents himself as a police detective but is unmasked as the Bat himself in the play's closing scene. The production's creators withheld this plot twist from the cast until the dress rehearsal, and Hunter was reportedly troubled to discover that his character was the villain. Nevertheless, he remained with the show through a Broadway run exceeding two years before continuing with a touring company. While the production was playing in Boston, Hunter was admitted to the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital for surgery and died of complications one week later, on January 2, 1923.