Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star
by Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller
Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
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Reviewed by Connie Anderson
In 1956, 25-year-old teen idol, sex symbol, recording and movie star Tab Hunter received 62,000 valentines from young women worldwide.
That happened, in spite of the fact that in 1955, Confidential magazine had published an article intimating that this teen idol was gay! His hit record, "Young Love," also reached Top 10 after more smear articles hit the press.
As a new actor, his ability wasn't that polished, but his fans, swooning young women, didn't care. They loved him because he was gorgeous and charming--and appealed to their dreams of a young man!
This was the 1950s, McCarthy witch-hunting era. Homosexuals did everything to quietly live their personal life out of the spotlight to maintain and balance their career. This was not the same as the staged movie-star (man/woman) dating life the fan magazines showed.
Tab Hunter was among many, often very handsome men, including Rock Hudson, in the stable of one agent.
Tab Hunter tells his story in such an honest and upfront way you will be drawn into his personal life that includes his hard-working mother, absent father, and older married brother. And, whenever he mentions his "relationships," he gives no details.
The entertainment industry from 1950 to present day is detailed in ways that will especially interest someone who remembers those stars when young and first popular. However anyone who likes a good story well told will also appreciate Hunter's life story.
Hunter writes extensively of the upside of being an overnight celebrity--to the downside: scandals, lies, being take advantage of, always on guard for personal life, and later traveling almost all year long to do small-venue dinner theatre. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to be an entertainer.
The stories are wonderful--and the photos are trip down memory lane--of Hunter in movies with famous actors and actresses (many now gone), and with friends such as Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Natalie Wood, Vincent Price (from Missouri), Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds, Tony Perkins, Connie Stevens, Tony Perkins, Divine, and many more.
Armchair Interviews says: Hunter, born 1931, was an actor, stage actor, horse lover/breeder/showman, business man, doting son and friend to many. In Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, he tells it all to adoring fans or others who will come to admire him. Plan on long reading sessions as it is hard to stop reading.