The man who walked away from a booming movie career at the ripe old age of 13 - his last film was the cult classic Invaders from Mars in 1953 - had agreed to join me for dinner at my Hollywood hotel and talk about old time, just for old times' sake.

I spotted him immediately, even though the slight child of 30 movies between 1947 and '53 is now a comfortably-fed middle-aged man, the old mop of carrot-colored curls long reduced to a receding close-cropped grey mass.

It was the face that did it. To a disarming degree, it retains the open friendliness of the child, especially the quick smile which crinkles everything up to a point where his eyes almost disappear entirely.

Last year was a fun year for Jim Hunt. He found himself back before a camera for the first time since putting that part of his life behind him as an adolescent.

The occasion was Tobe Hooper's remake of Invaders from Mars with Hunter Carson in Jim's old role.

"I have this business associate, a young engineer at Lockheed named Chris Clifford. He found out I used to be in movies and it sort of blew him away. When he read they were remaking Invaders, he started bombarding them with letters and phone calls saying, 'Hey, I know the guy who starred in the original!' Finally, probably just to get Chris off their backs, they asked me to come in. I met Tobe Hooper, and he asked me if I'd play his police chief. So I did, just for the fun of it."

The movie (now on Pay) was not well received but, for old fans like me, who have sometimes wondered whatever became of little Jimmy Hunt, it was a treat to find him back in the limelight, however briefly.

Born in Los Angeles, Dec. 4, 1939, James Walter Hunt was six when a talent scout came by his school "about six blocks from MGM" and picked him to test for a part in a picture.

"They were looking for somebody to play Van Johnson as a boy in High Barbaree. I don't remember much about it all, but apparently I did well, I had the look they wanted, and I got the part.

For seven years, he moved from studio to studio and film to film, finally landing the lead in Invaders, the picture for which he is best-remembered. But by then, ironically, he'd had enough.

"I was in junior high and very into sports. It was getting to a point where the roles were more and more demanding and they expected more from me.

"So I told my parents I wanted out, and they talked to my agent - and it nearly killed the poor guy." After college, Jim joined the U.S. Army and ended up at Herzl near Nuremberg, Germany, working on such top-secret projects as code-breaking.

And that's where he met the girl he married.

"She worked in a men's store but couldn't speak any English, and I couldn't speak much German. She flipped a coin to see if she'd go out with me, and I won. I told her that was the only thing I'd ever won in my life."

When they married in 1963, he brought her and her young daughter from a previous marriage to the U.S.

Jim and Roswitha ("her name means White Rose") eventually had two boys of their own, Randy and Ron, and today he is a grandfather three times over.

And a Mormon. The subject arose only when I chanced to comment that he had neither smoked nor drunk in the course of our dinner together.

"Yeah, I used to smoke and drink, so I had to give that up. We converted about 14 years ago - the whole family, except my daughter.

"It's the second best thing I've ever done," he grins, "The first best thing was to marry my wife."

In recent years, Jim's been employed by Southwest Industrial Supply, as a sales manager responsible for the entire metropolitan Los Angeles area.

The amiable erstwhile actor has no horror stories of his years in the movies. He seems to remember everything and everybody with humor and affection.

Pressed to the wall, he admits that, if he has any least favorites among the stars he worked with, they might be "maybe Bob Hope" (1953's Here Come the Girls) and "maybe Bing Crosby" (1947's Top O' the Morning).

"They were okay," he adds quickly, "They were just very aloof."

"The best had to be Joel McCrea - my favorite."

He worked with McCrea in two Universal Westerns, Saddle Tramp ('50) and Lone Hand ('53).

In the latter, he also worked with a very unfriendly horse.

"I got thrown by that horse several times, and man, it hurt. Later, when they were shipping him back to Colorado, he got into a fight with another horse and got beat up real bad. I was very happy about that."

Among his favorite films are Cheaper by the Dozen ('50) and Belles on their Toes ('52), the box office hits based on the sprawling real-life Gilbreth family.

After some time in my room perusing his scrapbooks and posing for pictures, Jim Hunt said he had to get going ("I told my wife I wouldn't be too late, and I don't want her to worry").

Home is Simi Valley, some 40 miles northwest of L.A.

The eyes disappear into yet another major smile as he pumps my hand in a hearty farewell.

"I'm very plain, really. My life has been nothing spectacular. I've done mostly things everybody else in the world has done - gone into the service, come out, got married, had kids, made a living."

But, at 47, the former child actor has also done something not everybody else has done. He has managed to mature into a warm and decent human being with a perpetually sunny disposition and a permanently grateful heart.