Linda Hunt, the iconic actress behind Hetty in NCIS: Los Angeles, was spotted during a rare public outing in California.
Recently, the icon, 80, was photographed while out and about in Los Angeles in images obtained by the Daily Mail.
For the excursion, Hunt donned a white T-shirt featuring a whimsical drawing of a dog, pairing the top with gray jeans and black sneakers. Her wife, Karen Kline, wore a T-shirt with black and white stripes and jeans, with a gray hoodie wrapped around her waist. The couple have been dating since 1978 and officially married in 2008.
Kline and another woman assisted Hunt as they walked on the sidewalk, helping to support her weight as each woman steadied one arm, per the Daily Mail.
See the recent photos of Hunt during her rare outing here.
Linda Hunt in ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ (Photo by Bill Inoshita/CBS via Getty Images)
On NCIS: Los Angeles, Hunt portrayed the quirky and highly intelligent Henrietta “Hetty” Lange, the operations manager for the NCIS: Los Angeles Office of Special Projects (OSP). She played Hetty as a series regular from the time the series began in 2009 through Season 12. Her role was reduced after that until the show was cancelled in 2023 following Season 14.
When Hunt was noticeably absent in Season 10, fans expressed their concern that Hetty was gone for good. However, the actress had been in a car accident in July 2018 and needed more time to recover.
“I first want to say how much I appreciate the outpouring of support from the NCIS: Los Angeles fans following my car accident this summer,” she said in a statement at the time, per TV Insider. “Though I had hoped to return to playing Hetty at the start of the season, I had to take some additional time to recover. I look forward to returning later this season.”
In addition to NCIS, Hunt is known for her roles in the 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously (for which she won an Oscar), Dune (1984), Pocahontas (1995) and Kindergarten Cop (1990) She also appeared in Solo: A Star Wars Story more recently in 2018.
Hunt—who was born with a form of dwarfism called hypopituitary dwarfism and stands at 4 feet, 9 inches tall—opened up about falling in love with the idea of acting while watching a Broadway production of Peter Pan.
When asked what it was about the show that enticed her into the profession, Hunt told CBS News in 2013, “That it was bigger than life,” Hunt said. “And that in some sense, I longed to be bigger than life, because I wasn’t.”
After she was asked why she thought acting could help her “overcome all these other feelings,” Hunt replied, “You know what I think it was about? That I could pretend to be anything.”
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This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 31, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.