Marsha Hunt (born April 15, 1946) is an American singer, novelist, actress and model. Hunt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1946 and lived in North Philadelphia, near 23rd and Columbia, then in Germantown and Mount Airy, for the first 13 years of her life. Hunt remembers Philadelphia with affection, particularly the "Philadelphia steak sandwiches and the bad boys on the basketball court". Hunt's mother Inez was her primary parent and worked as a librarian in a local library. Hunt's father, Blaire Theodore Hunt, Jr., was one of America's first black psychiatrists but he did not live with Hunt; she found out when she was 15 years old that he had committed suicide three years previously. Hunt was brought up by her mother, her aunt and her grandmother, three strong, but very different women. Hunt describes her mother Ikey as "extremely intelligent and education-minded", her Aunt Thelma as "extremely Catholic but very glamorous", and her grandmother Edna as an "extremely aggressive...ass-kicking" independent Southern woman. Hunt credits the experience of having been poor with teaching her not to be materialistic.