Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 20, 2026

Barbara Hunter

Barbara Hunter was an American film editor and screenwriter active primarily during Hollywood's silent era.

Last revised
Jul 20, 2026
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≈ 2 min
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Barbara Hunter
Hunter in 1939, after an attempted suicide
Born
Barbara Jackson

c. 1898
Diedunknown
OccupationsFilm editor, screenwriter, aviator
Spouse
William Dietz
(m. 1929)

Barbara Hunter (c. 1898 – unknown) was an American film editor and screenwriter active primarily during Hollywood's silent era.

Biography

Barbara got her start in the film industry serving as the personal secretary of Thomas A. Edison and later became the chief scenario writer at Pathe (she did not receive credits for these screenwriting efforts).

Later, she took on editing work, cutting films like Geraldine and A Ship Comes In.1 She also had an interest in flying, and became one of the first 100 women in the country to get a flying license23(she was even once mistaken for Amelia Earhart after landing her plane in Lodi, California).45

In 1929, she married Pathe cameraman William Holt Dietz and seems to have retired from the industry afterward.26 The pair enjoyed flying and yachting together.7 Toward the end of her life, she was suffering pain from old injuries sustained in an automobile accident and was in poor health; she died sometime around 1940, and was survived by her husband and her son from an earlier relationship.8

Selected filmography

References

References