Hunt has written three novels, as well as three volumes of autobiography, which include a frank account of life as a breast cancer sufferer.

[2] In her book Undefeated she recalled that during her time at Berkeley they "were sitting in for the Free Speech Movement, smoking pot, experimenting with acid, lining up to take Oriental philosophy courses, daring to co-habit, and going to dances in San Francisco.

"[6] In February 1966,[6] Hunt booked a flight for a brief trip to London, where she was temporarily detained before a fellow detainee gave her details of contacts, including John Shepherd, who worked on the television show Ready Steady Go!.

[7] Although Hunt indicates that she had no great musical talent,[1] she worked as a singer for 18 months after arriving in England, intending to earn her fare back home.

[9] The Soft Machine were heavily booked and there was no time for a honeymoon, but Ratledge and Hunt were able to spend two months together before the band headed for France later that year.

[3] That same year, Hunt achieved national fame in England when she appeared as "Dionne" in the rock musical Hair, a box-office smash on the London stage.

[3] Hunt played at the Jazz Bilzen[12] and Isle of Wight music festivals in August 1969 with her backup band "White Trash".

[13] Hunt's first single, a cover of Dr John's "Walk on Gilded Splinters", produced by Tony Visconti, was released on Track Records in 1969; it became a minor hit.

It was recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich and produced by Pete Belotte (co-producer with Giorgio Moroder of many Donna Summer albums).

"[14] According to Hunt, the relationship between the two was based on more than physical attraction, though she also recalled that her commercial visibility put her in opposition to Bolan's philosophy that "the serious art of music...was validated by obscurity.

"[14] In 1971, after the birth of her daughter Karis, she appeared for a while in the musical Catch My Soul, and acted alongside Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the film Dracula A.D.

[3] In 1968, Hunt posed nude for photographer Patrick Lichfield after the opening night for Hair[17] and the photo appeared on the cover of British Vogue's January 1969 issue.

[29][30] Christopher Sanford writes in his book Mick Jagger that when the Rolling Stones released the song "Brown Sugar" there was immediate speculation that it referred to Hunt or to soul singer Claudia Lennear.

[35] Hunt discovered that her father's mother, Ernestine, had been born in 1896 and that she grew up in Memphis, "an intelligent, remarkably beautiful young woman who excelled in school and was greatly envied for her pale skin, blue eyes and blonde hair.

[36] In 1990, Hunt published her first novel, Joy, about a woman who grew up to join a singing group reminiscent of The Supremes before dying an early death.

Set in a posh New York apartment in the course of one day in the spring of 1987, the novel contains frequent flashbacks that describe life in a black neighbourhood in the 1950s and 1960s.

The book also deals with stardom in the music business and some people's inability, despite their riches, to make their own American Dream come true and to lead fulfilled lives.

"[1] Hunt wrote Joy while touring England with a group performing Othello and said her fellow actors made fun of her while she was writing the book; given her reputation, she feels, they may have thought her an aspiring Joan Collins.

[1] Hunt said that living in England and exploring its accents taught her how beautiful Black language was, a "culturally important" feature she preserved in her novel.

[33] With no one for company but a barn cat who came to eat each morning, and the people she saw once a day at a nearby patisserie, she was inspired to write by silence and boredom.

[40] One publisher was critical of the repetitive themes of urban poverty, addiction, and life in prison, but Hunt responded by asserting that it is worth considering why the inmates had such similar tales to tell.

[41] Awarded to "the best unpublished novel by a writer born in Great Britain or The Republic of Ireland having a black African ancestor",[42] the prize, while attracting criticism from the Commission for Racial Equality,[43][44] ran for four years until 1998, winners including Diran Adebayo and Joanna Traynor.

[3] In 1973, she wrote, produced and directed a new London show entitled Man to Woman,[47] the music from which was released on vinyl in 1982 by Virgin Records, featuring vocals by Robert Wyatt.

[3] In 1991, Hunt appeared as Nurse Logan in the world premiere of Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mount Morgan at London's Wyndham's Theatre.

"[50] Hunt's film career included appearances in Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), Britannia Hospital (1982) directed by Lindsay Anderson, The Sender (1982), Never Say Never Again (1983), Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985), and Tank Malling (1989).

[52] Hunt fell in love with Gilsenan and moved to the Wicklow mountains near Dublin with him,[33] where in 1999 she helped him fight colon cancer, drawing on her own experiences with the disease.

[54] When she chose to have surgery, she decided to have it done in Ireland, because she felt that the Irish are more supportive and comfortable with illness than people in the U.S.; she envisaged that treatment in the U.S. would feel impersonal.

[36] Her view of the experience of mastectomy states that the surgery left her with a "battle scar" that makes her feel sexier, as it is a memento of what she has survived.

[5] She enjoys the solitude of living on her own and finds that being single means she has encounters and experiences that she would not have if she were part of a couple, where others might choose not to intrude and where she would have to co-ordinate her schedule with another.

[35] She herself describes her skin colour as "oak with a hint of maple",[4][35] and notes that "[o]f the various races I know I comprise—African, American Indian, German Jew and Irish—only the African was acknowledged.