TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL – The QFest St. Louis Review

TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL screens Monday, April 20th at 7pm at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) as part if this year’s QFest St. Louis. For ticket information, go HERE

Hollywood can destroy people. For every survivor of the Hollywood system, whether from years ago or any current actors, there are dozens of actors and other artists who crashed and burned, had serious substance abuse issues, committed suicide or never made it at all.

Just from memory I can name Barbara Payton, Jayne Mansfield, Jeanne Eagles, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Diana Sands and Montgomery Clift. For a complete rundown you can’t do much better than Kenneth Anger’s incredible book Hollywood Babylon and it’s even more depressing sequel Hollywood Babylon Part Two. Vincent Price called Hollywood “the most evil place on Earth!” And Vincent Price would know something about evil!

A few short years ago I read Tab Hunter: Confidential co-written by Tab Hunter and Eddie Muller and found it fascinating, informative and literally could not put it down until I read the whole book. Now comes an even more fascinating and informative documentary about one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history who was also one of its most closeted gay actors.

Tab Hunter: Confidential begins with the man himself recalling his arrest in early 50s Hollywood for being at a “gay” party. Keep in mind this was so long ago, no one there was having sex, the mere fact that everyone there was male automatically red flagged the party as “queer.” That arrest came back to haunt Tab Hunter in a few short years when the story was published in Confidential Magazine, a once notorious scandal sheet. The film then segues into a brilliantly edited montage of appearances on 1950s television by Tab Hunter, ending with him looking directly into the camera and stating “I’m Tab Hunter, and I’ve Got a Secret!” Man did he ever!

We hear quite a lot from Tab Hunter himself, still amazingly handsome, still boyish in his 80s and very articulate. His real name is Art Gailene, he grew up with no Father, idolized his brother and dreamed of movie stardom. He also drove girls crazy at a very early age. We also hear from many actors who knew and worked with him and knew what kind of ordeal he endured under the Hollywood system. Robert Wagner, Connie Stevens, Debbie Reynolds, Daryl Hickman and Portia De Rossi all tell about their relationship with Tab Hunter, then and now.

We also hear from John Waters who seems to appear in every documentary made these days. Waters actually got to work with Tab Hunter in the incredible Polyester (which came with a scratch and sniff card at theatrical showings so the audience could smell what the cast of the movie could smell at certain points. But I digress…)

We also hear from George Takei, himself the subject of a wonderful documentary and also a gay actor who not only recently came out but married his long time partner. In fact Takei’s documentary and Tab Hunter Confidential would make an excellent double feature.

We learn just about everything there is to know about Tab Hunter. He admits in the new footage that he is now “an old man” and doesn’t give a damn what anybody thinks about his life style. In the 50s and 60s a gay lifestyle could easily destroy a Hollywood career (or a career in insurance or accounting for that matter.) Tab Hunter was represented by an infamous Hollywood agent, Henry Wilson, who handled “all the pretty boys” according to Don Murray and gave them hyper masculine names, Rock Hudson, Guy Madison, Clint Walker and Tab Hunter. As Tab Hunter recalls he was, “thrown under the bus” when Confidential Magazine was ready to tell the truth on Rock Hudson. Hudson being the bigger star at that time Hunter was the sacrificial goat.

We learn all too well the pain of being made into an “image” for public consumption and the real life that had to be lived in secret. And we also learn the struggle of a “pretty boy” trying so hard to prove himself as a capable, professional actor. And Hunter did that, on live television, which he grew to love, and in an obscure western called Gunman’s Walk, wherein he convincingly played a total psychopath with a loaded gun.

Amazingly that story in Confidential was only a minor blip on Tab Hunter’s resume. He kept working in movies, both major and minor, until the movie going public came to think of him as an old fashioned, Eisenhower era pretty boy and not much else.

We learn about his relationships with other closeted gay actors, most famously Anthony Perkins. Now there is a couple for the history books, the All American Boy Next Door and Norman Bates! Perkins ended up marrying and having children.  Perkins also betrayed Tab Hunter in true Hollywood style by stealing the part of Jimmy Piersall in Fear Strikes Out away from Tab Hunter who had played the part on stage and wanted it for his own film project at Warner Brothers.   Tab Hunter seems to never have forgiven Perkins for that.

Hunter admits he did have a major crush on Etchika Choureau and actually talked marriage with her. She was his costar in Lafayette Escadrille and to this day speaks no English. She admits that she told Tab that his orientation was no big deal, but that she did not want to be “the beard” in a Hollywood marriage.

Hunter was so popular in the 50s that Warner Brothers got him on television as much as possible. He was talked into recording a song for Dot records, Young Love, which became a major hit and earned him the ire of Jack Warner himself who told him that Warner Brothers owned everything he did. Hunter had to point out that Warner Brothers had no recording department, which led to the creation of Warner Brothers records.

Hunter’s music recordings were not a novelty, his records sold in the millions and he was considered the equal of Elvis and Pat Boone! He worked extensively in television, live, on film and videotape. He also did a lot of stage acting and was always working to perfect his craft. When his movie career bottomed out he became a staple on the dinner theater circuit. I can recall him appearing at a dinner theater in St. Louis during the 1980s. In fact he was on the road so much and working so hard in dinner theater he had a heart attack and had to give it up.

Early in his life Hunter became enamored of horseback riding and continues to ride horses to this day. From Clint Eastwood, a major western icon himself, we hear that Tab Hunter is “a better man than me, I will not mess with an animal that weighs almost a thousand pounds and has the brain the size of a walnut, not at my age!”

And of course his association with John Waters and Polyester is covered and Hunter’s favorite project from his later career, Lust in the Dust. We hear from Lainie Kazan regarding her working with Tab on that western spoof, she admits that for her it was a dream come true to do a love scene with Tab and she doesn’t give a damn about his lifestyle!

Now in his golden years Tab Hunter is happy with his long time partner Allan Glaser, who also was a producer on this excellent documentary. Painfully honest, thorough, very well edited and shot Tab Hunter Confidential is many things all at once, a look back at Hollywood history, an examination of what “stardom” really entails, a meditation on identity, a history of what it means to live your life in secret and how much attitudes towards gay people have changed in this country (and how much farther we have to go, judging by many of the letters to the editors regarding same sex marriage).

Anyone with any interest in Hollywood history, the gay lifestyle or just likes to hear the story of an interesting person’s life, especially a survivor of Tab Hunter’s magnitude, really ought to spend some time with Tab Hunter Confidential. I have watched it three times now and may go and watch it again. Because I am off this page!