TAB HUNTER

(11 July 1931 - 8 July 2018)

The American actor Tab Hunter, who has died aged 86 of cardiac arrest, was born Arthur Kelm, although his mother Gertrude Gelien gave her son her maiden name when his parents split up. He joined the Coast Guard at 15 by lying about his age. After discharge, he returned to California hoping for a career with horses, his great passion. Being a prime athlete with blond hair he was soon approached by a Hollywood agent who changed his name to Tab Hunter. By 1950 he was in The Dividing Line then Saturday Island, with Linda Darnell. Set in World War II on a desert island, it required Tab to be shirtless which built up both his female and male fan base, as he became known as ‘The Sigh Guy’. As with Rock Hudson, the studios covered up the fact that Hunter was gay, so he had to escort Hollywood starlets to social occasions. His film career blossomed but mainly in genre pictures such as Gun Belt, Treasure of Kalifa, Return to Treasure Island, Track of the Cat, Battle Cry, The Sea Chase, The Burning Hills and The Girl He Left Behind, the last two with Natalie Wood. Television then took over for a while until What Lola Wants, the film of the musical Damn Yankees, in which he got top-billing. He played the boy-next-door in a TV version of Meet Me in St Louis (1959), opposite Jane Powell, and then appeared in That Kind of Woman with Sophia Loren, They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper and The Pleasure of His Company with Fred Astaire. The Tab Hunter Show was a TV sitcom about a cartoonist and his romantic exploits around Malibu. It lasted for a season in 1960-61. More films and television came along, with only the occasional worthy piece such as Tony Richardson’s The Loved One, until John Waters discovered Tab for Polyester, with Divine. By then he was something of a Hollywood icon and he did Grease 2, the starry Pandemonium, and appeared in and produced Lust in the Dust with Divine again. His last feature was David Hemmings’ Dark Horse in 1992, for which Hunter provided the story and produced the film. He was also something of a singer and was signed by Warner Bros. Records. Jeffrey Schwarz made a documentary about the actor called Tab Hunter Confidential in 2015. Tab Hunter’s longtime partner was film producer Allan Glaser.

MICHAEL DARVELL