Tab Hunter Biography, Age, Death, Movies, Confidential, Songs, and Net Worth

Tab Hunter Biography – Who is Tab Hunter?

Tab Hunter born Arthur Andrew Gelien, was an American actor, singer, film producer, and author. He appeared in over 40 films and was a well-known Hollywood star and heartthrob of the 1950s and 1960s, known for his blond, clean-cut good looks.

Tab Hunter Age – How Old was Tab Hunter when He Died?

Tab Hunter was born on July 11, 1931, and died 3 days to his birthday that was on July 8, 2018. He died at the age of 86 years old.

Tab Hunter Family

Hunter was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Gertrude and Charles Kelm. His father was Jewish and his mother was a German Catholic immigrant, from Hamburg. He had an older brother, Walter. Hunter’s father was reportedly abusive, and within a few years of his birth, his parents divorced.

He was raised in California living with his mother, brother, and maternal grandparents, John Henry, and Ida Gelien, living in San Francisco, Long Beach and Los Angeles. His mother reassumed her maiden surname, Gelien, and changed her sons’ surnames, as well.

As a teenager, Arthur Gelien, as he was then known, was a figure skater, competing in both singles and pairs. Hunter was sent to a Catholic school by his religious mother.

Tab Hunter Confidential – Tab Hunter Gay – Tab Hunter Married

Tab Hunter Confidential is a 2015 American documentary feature film focusing on the American actor, singer, and author Tab Hunter, and is inspired by his autobiography of the same name. Produced by Allan Glaser the film was directed by Jeffrey Schwarz.

The film features extensive interviews with Hunter, as well as contemporaries and associates, including John Waters, Clint Eastwood, Debbie Reynolds, and more.

In the book, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, Hunter acknowledged that he was gay, confirming rumors in circulation since the height of his fame. According to William L. Hamilton of The New York Times, detailed reports about Hunter’s alleged romances with close friends Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood during his young adult years had strictly been the fodder of studio publicity departments.

As Wood and Hunter embarked on a well-publicized but fictitious romance, insiders had developed their own headline for the item: “Natalie Wood and Tab Wouldn’t”.

Regarding Hollywood’s studio era, Hunter said, “[life] was difficult for me, because I was living two lives at that time.

A private life of my own, which I never discussed, never talked about to anyone. And then my Hollywood life, which was just trying to learn my craft and succeed.”

The star emphasized that the word ‘gay’ wasn’t even around in those days, and if anyone ever confronted me with it, I’d just kinda freak out.

I was in total denial. I was just not comfortable in that Hollywood scene, other than the work process.

“There was a lot written about my sexuality, and the press was pretty darn cruel,” the actor said, but what “moviegoers wanted to hold in their hearts were the boy-next-door marines, cowboys and swoon-bait sweethearts I portrayed.”

Hunter had long-term relationships with actor Anthony Perkins and champion figure skater Ronnie Robertson before settling down and marrying his partner/spouse of over 35 years, film producer Allan Glaser.

Tab Hunter Net Worth

Tab Hunter was an American actor, singer, and author who sat at an approximate net worth of $10 million at the time of his death in 2018. He earned his lucrative income from his career as actor, singer, film producer, and author.

Tab Hunter Movies and TV Shows

1. Tab Hunter Confidential
2. Lust in the Dust
3. Gunman’s Walk
4. That Kind of Woman

5. Damn Yankees
6. Battle Cry
7. Polyester

8. The Bunning Hills
9. Saturday Island
10. Grease 2
11. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

12. The Tab Hunter Show
13. Ride the Wild Surf
14. The Lawless
15. Operation Bikini

16. The Pleasure of His Company
17. The Girl He Left Behind
18. They Came to Cordura

19. The Loved One
20. Track of the Cat
21. The Golden Arrow
22. The Sea Chase

23. Lafayette Escadrille
24. Return to Treasure Island
25. Gun Belt
26. City Under the Sea

27. The Steel Lady
28. Hostile Guns
29. Dark Horse
30. Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood

31. Cameron’s Closet
32. Birds Do It
33. Pandemonium
34. Sweet Kill

35. The Fickle Finger of Fate
36. Out of the Dark
37. Katie; Portrait of a Centerfold
38. Bridge over the Elbe

39. The Last Chance
40. Timber Tramps
41. Grotesque
42. Troubled Waters

43. Vengeance Is My Forgiveness
44. Forever Fernwood
45. Hacksaw

46. While We’re Young
47. Sex; The Revolution
48. Rita
49. Wild Bill

Tab Hunter Cause of Death – What Did Tab Hunter Die Of?

Three days before Hunter’s 87th birthday, he died after suffering cardiac arrest which arose from complications related to deep vein thrombosis. According to Glaser, Hunter’s death was “sudden and unexpected”.

Tab Hunter Songs

1. Young Love
2. Red Sails in the Sunset
3. Ninety-Nine Ways
4. I’m a Runaway

5. Apple Blossoms Time
6. Reproduction
7. There’s No Fool Like A Young Fool
8. My Baby Just Cares For Me

9. Jealous Heart
10. I Love You, Yes I Do
11. When I Fall in Love
12. I Gotta Have My Baby Back

13. I’ll Never Smile Again
14. Let’s Pretend There’s a Moon
15. Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
16. Black Coat

17. Don’t Let It Get Around
18. I Ain’t Got Nobody
19. Kiss Her One Time For Me
20. Moonlight Bay

21. It’s the Bottle Talking
22. I Don’t Know Why I Love You But I Do
23. Hey Good Lookin
24. It’s All Over Town

25. I’ll Never Be Free
26. Again
27. I Want to Be with You Always
28. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry

29. Your Gonna Change
30. 99 Ways
31. She’s Not That Kind
32. My Devotion

Tab Hunter Anthony Perkins

The two on-screen characters met in 1956, at the pool at the Chateau Marmont. Perkins, agonizing and dimly attractive, was doing “Cordial Persuasion” and was four years from “Psycho.” Hunter was a studio player at Warner Brothers: a blondie, blue-peered toward dreamboat, whom the studio was selling—effectively—as the quintessential kid nearby.

Had the three-year sentiment that pursued been worthy in the light of day, Hunter and Perkins may have been notable: an East Coast–West Coast, radiant meets-stormy power couple. In actuality, obviously, the relationship was a potential profession ender for both, and they kept it a mystery from even their dearest companions.

As Hunter reviews in Jeffrey Schwarz’s new narrative, “Tab Hunter Confidential” (opening in New York this end of the week), he would go out on “dates” with divas like Debbie Reynolds, organized by the studio and slurped up by motion picture magazines; in some cases, he and Perkins would twofold date with ladies and after that return home together.

Allan Glaser Tab Hunter

One Year Later, Tab Hunter’s Husband Recalls Actor’s Unexpected Death

“He wasn’t sick; he wasn’t ill,” remembers Allan Glaser, Hunter’s widower. “We had lunch 20 minutes before he collapsed in my arms.”

On July 9, 2018, Hollywood legend Tab Hunter unexpectedly passed away at the age of 86, just two days shy of his birthday on July 11.

“I had his birthday card on my desk. He had a blood clot in his leg that nobody knew about, and it dislodged and went into his lung, and he had a heart attack. And that was it,” Hunter’s partner of 35 years, Allan Glaser, recalls to NewNowNext.

“There was nothing wrong with him,” Glaser continues. “He wasn’t sick; he wasn’t ill. He had just ridden his horse the day before. We had lunch 20 minutes before he collapsed in my arms. I mean, in a weird way, I think his time was up.”

Hunter was a blond Hollywood heartthrob who lit up the screen in a string of popular movies in the 1950s and ‘60s, including Damn Yankees, Battle Cry and Rides the Wild Surf. In the ’80s, he had a career resurgence thanks to the “Pope of Trash” John Waters, who cast him in Polyester, opposite Divine.

Hunter also appeared in the 1982 cult classic Grease 2, and 1985’s Lust in the Dust. It was during the creation of Lust that he met his future husband, Glaser, a producer at Fox to whom Hunter pitched the idea for the film.

Hunter stepped out of the spotlight again until 2005, when he publicly came out as gay in his tell all-memoir Tab Hunter Confidential, co-written with Eddie Muller, noted film noir expert and host of Noir Alley on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

“Tab was not really comfortable talking about his sexuality,” Muller tells NewNowNext, recalling the early days of his collaborative process with the prolific onscreen heartthrob. “He was just very, very private in that regard.

Honestly, I think he felt more comfortable having a straight guy be his collaborator than a gay guy because he didn’t want that [his sexuality] to be the be-all and end-all of the book.”

Muller explained to Hunter that the book was being published in the first place because he was “the biggest living gay movie star. But I promise you that by the time we finish the book, that’s not going to be all that people take away from it.”

Hunter and Muller’s book was eventually made into an eponymous documentary, which will make its TCM debut on Hunter’s birthday this July 11—and kick off a marathon of his movies, including Gunman’s Walk, That Kind of Woman, and Battle Cry.

“Tab had a wonderful relationship with TCM because they were always so good to him over the years. They would occasionally do a birthday salute, or invite him to come to something they were doing,” Glaser says. “And Tab was very friendly with [TCM host] Robert Osborne. He was a lovely man.”

Thanks to the cable network, Hunter and Osborne eventually became friends, catching up at TCM events. “They both loved classic films,” Glaser adds. “Robert was a walking encyclopedia; he knew everything about everything. And he was a gentleman, and so was Tab. They both never discussed sexuality, anything like that. They were just two old-fashioned gentlemen who enjoyed each other’s company.”

Osborne never spoke publicly about his sexuality, but after his death in 2017, it was revealed he was in a relationship with theater producer David Staller for the past 20 years.

Glaser and Muller will be co-hosting the TCM premiere of Tab Hunter Confidential, with the pair sitting down before and after the film to discuss Hunter’s life.

“It’s something Tab would have loved,” Glaser says. “When I told Tab about a year ago that I wanted to [screen Confidential on TCM]—because the rights were expiring—I said, ’Would you go talk with one of the hosts?’ And he agreed. I’m actually taking Tab’s place as one of the co-hosts because it was one of the last things he agreed to do to promote the documentary. It was supposed to be Tab and Eddie discussing it.”

On July 9, 2018, Hollywood legend Tab Hunter unexpectedly passed away at the age of 86, just two days shy of his birthday on July 11.

“I had his birthday card on my desk. He had a blood clot in his leg that nobody knew about, and it dislodged and went into his lung, and he had a heart attack. And that was it,” Hunter’s partner of 35 years, Allan Glaser, recalls to NewNowNext.

Glaser and Muller will be co-hosting the TCM premiere of Tab Hunter Confidential, with the pair sitting down before and after the film to discuss Hunter’s life.

“It’s something Tab would have loved,” Glaser says. “When I told Tab about a year ago that I wanted to [screen Confidential on TCM]—because the rights were expiring—I said, ’Would you go talk with one of the hosts?’ And he agreed. I’m actually taking Tab’s place as one of the co-hosts because it was one of the last things he agreed to do to promote the documentary. It was supposed to be Tab and Eddie discussing it.”

TCM
When asked how he plans to celebrate Hunter’s birthday this year, Glaser explains that he plans on “having some of his closest friends over to the house to watch the documentary premiere on TCM.” He also notes that he visits Hunter’s grave every week to lay fresh flowers, so he will be doing that as well.

“I wanted to create a legacy for Tab that went beyond his Hollywood 1950s image. That’s why I wanted to do the documentary,” Glaser says. “Tab was very hesitant even to do the documentary, but I talked him into it. And I’m really glad I did, because it left a legacy behind for him, so people can actually see who he was and what his contributions were.”

In the end, Glaser says Hunter was glad he’d agreed to make the documentary, too. In fact, what he loved most about the final product “wasn’t any of the movies we talked about.”

“It was about his mother, and his brother, and his love for horses, and everything that went outside of the world of show business,” Glaser notes. “That’s what he appreciated because that’s who he was as a person.

Society—and Warner Bros. built a wall around Tab that he had to deconstruct one brick at a time, and I think the first brick in that deconstruction was writing his autobiography. I do think the last brick, having that wall come down, was doing the documentary.”

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Tab Hunter Career

The 1950s

Clayton introduced Hunter to agent Henry Willson, who specialized in representing male stars such as Robert Wagner and Rock Hudson. It was Willson who named him “Tab Hunter”.

Hunter’s first film role was a minor part of a film noir, The Lawless (1950). He was friends with character actor Paul Guilfoyle, who suggested him to director Stuart Heisler, who was looking for an unknown to play the lead in Island of Desire (1952) opposite Linda Darnell. The film, essentially a two-hander between Hunter and Darnell, was a hit.

Hunter supported George Montgomery in Gun Belt (1953), a Western produced by Edward Small. Small used him again for a war film, The Steel Lady (1953) supporting Rod Cameron, and as the lead in an adventure tale, Return to Treasure Island (1954). He began acting on stage, appearing in a production of Our Town.

Tab Hunter Warner Bros

One of Hunter’s first films for Warners was The Sea Chase (1955), supporting John Wayne and Lana Turner. It was a big hit, but Hunter’s part was relatively small. Rushes were seen by William A. Wellman, who cast Hunter to play the younger brother of Robert Mitchum in Track of the Cat (1955). It was a solid hit and Hunter began to get more notice.

His breakthrough role came when he was cast as the young Marine Danny in 1955’s World War II drama Battle Cry. His character has an affair with an older woman but ends up marrying the girl next door.

It was based on a bestseller by Leon Uris and became Warner Bros.’ largest grossing film of that year, cementing Hunter’s position as one of Hollywood’s top young romantic leads. He was in the third (Battle Cry) and tenth (The Sea Chase) most popular films of the year.

In September 1955, the tabloid magazine Confidential reported that Hunter had been arrested for disorderly conduct in 1950.

The innuendo-laced article and a second one focusing on Rory Calhoun’s prison record were the results of a deal Henry Willson had brokered with the scandal rag in exchange for not revealing the sexual orientation of his more prominent client, Rock Hudson, to the public.

The report had no negative effect on Hunter’s career. A few months later, he was named Most Promising New Personality in a nationwide poll sponsored by the Council of Motion Picture Organizations. In 1956, he received 62,000 valentines. Hunter, James Dean and Natalie Wood were the last actors to be placed under an exclusive studio contract at Warner Bros.

Warners decided to promote him to star status, teaming him with Natalie Wood in two films, a Western, The Burning Hills (1956), directed by Heisler, and The Girl He Left Behind (1956), a service comedy. These films also proved to be hit with audiences and Warners planned a third teaming of Hunter and Wood.

Hunter rejected the third picture, thus ending Warners’ attempt to make Hunter and Wood the William Powell and Myrna Loy of the 1950s. Hunter was Warner Bros.’ most popular male star from 1955 until 1959.

Hunter received strong critical acclaim for a television performance he gave in the debut episode of Playhouse 90 (“Forbidden Area”, 1956) written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer.

Tab Hunter Music

Hunter had a 1957 hit record with the song “Young Love,” which was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for six weeks (seven weeks on the UK Chart) and became one of the larger hits of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.

He had another hit single, “Ninety-Nine Ways”, which peaked at No. 11 in the United States and No. 5 in the United Kingdom. His success prompted Jack L. Warner to enforce the actor’s contract with the Warner Bros. studio by banning Dot Records, the label for which Hunter had recorded the single, from releasing a follow-up album he had recorded for them. He established Warner Bros. Records specifically for Hunter.

Hunter’s acting career was also at its peak. William Wellman used him again in a war film, Lafayette Escadrille (1958). Columbia Pictures borrowed him for a Western, Gunman’s Walk (1958), a film in which Hunter considered his favorite role.

Hunter starred in the musical film Damn Yankees (1958), in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington, D.C.’s American League baseball club. The film had originally been a Broadway musical, but Hunter was the only one in the film version who had not appeared in the original cast. The show was based on the best-selling 1954-book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Douglass Wallop.

Hunter later said the filming was hellish because director George Abbott was only interested in recreating the stage version word for word. He starred in the films, They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth and That Kind of Woman (both 1959), with Sophia Loren.

The 1960s

Hunter’s failure to win the role of Tony in the film adaptation of West Side Story (1961) prompted him to agree to star in a weekly television sitcom. The Tab Hunter Show had moderate ratings and lasted for only one season of 36 episodes. It was a hit in the United Kingdom, where it ranked as one of the most-watched situation comedies of the year.

Hunter had a starring role as Debbie Reynolds’s love interest in The Pleasure of His Company (1961). He played the lead in a swashbuckler shot in Italy, The Golden Arrow (1962) and was in a war movie for American International Pictures, Operation Bikini (1963).

In 1964, he starred on Broadway opposite Tallulah Bankhead in Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.

Ride the Wild Surf (1964) was a surf film for Columbia, followed by a movie in Britain, Troubled Waters (1964). He stayed in England to make another picture for AIP, War-Gods Of The Deep (1965). Back in Hollywood, he had a supporting role in The Loved One (1965) and Birds Do It (1966). He made a film with Richard Rush, The Fickle Finger of Fate (1967).

For a short time in the late 1960s, after several seasons of starring in summer stock and dinner theater in shows such as Bye Bye Birdie, The Tender Trap, Under the Yum Yum Tree and West Side Story with some of the New York cast, Hunter settled in the south of France, where he acted in Spaghetti Westerns, including Vengeance Is My Forgiveness (1968), The Last Chance (1968) and Bridge over the Elbe (1969).

The 1970s

Hunter had the lead role in Sweet Kill (1973), the first movie from director Curtis Hanson. He won a co-starring role in the successful film The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) with Paul Newman. He had small roles in Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) and Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold (1978).

The 1980s

Hunter’s career was revived in the 1980s when he starred opposite actor Divine in John Waters’ Polyester (1981) and Paul Bartel’s Lust in the Dust (1985). He played Mr. Stuart, the substitute teacher in Grease 2 (1982), who sang “Reproduction”. Hunter had a major role in the 1988 horror film Cameron’s Closet.

Later years

Hunter wrote the story for and starred in, Dark Horse (1992), his last film.

An award-winning 2015 documentary about his life, Tab Hunter Confidential, was directed by Jeffrey Schwarz and produced by Hunter’s husband Allan Glaser. As of June 2018, a feature film about Hunter was in development at Paramount Pictures to be produced by Glaser, J. J. Abrams, and Zachary Quinto. Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning writer Doug Wright is attached to create the screenplay.