Tab Hunter - Career

Career

Arthur Gelien was given the stage name "Tab Hunter" by his first agent, Henry Willson. His good looks landed him a role in the film Island of Desire opposite Linda Darnell. However, it was his co-starring role as young Marine Danny in 1955's World War II drama Battle Cry, in which he has an affair with an older woman, but ends up marrying the girl next door, that cemented his position as one of Hollywood's top young romantic leads. His other hit films include The Burning Hills with Natalie Wood, That Kind of Woman with Sophia Loren, Gunman's Walk with Van Heflin and The Pleasure of His Company with Debbie Reynolds. He went on to star in over forty major films and became a cult star in the 1980s appearing in Lust in the Dust, Polyester and Grease 2.

In September 1955, the tabloid magazine Confidential reported Hunter's 1950 arrest for disorderly conduct. The innuendo-laced article, and a second one focusing on Rory Calhoun's prison record, were the result of a deal Henry Willson had brokered with the scandal rag in exchange for not revealing his more prominent client Rock Hudson's sexual orientation to the public. Not only was there no negative effect on Hunter's career, but 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 of the actors placed under exclusive studio contract to Warner Bros.

Hunter had a 1957 hit record with the song "Young Love", which was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for six weeks and became one of the larger hits of the Rock n' Roll era. He also had the hit "Ninety-Nine Ways", which peaked at #11. His success prompted Jack 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 (and which was owned by rival Paramount Pictures), from releasing a follow-up album he had recorded for them. He established Warner Bros. Records specifically for Hunter.

Hunter starred in the 1958 musical film Damn Yankees, in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington D.C's American League baseball club. The film had originally been a Broadway show, but Hunter was the only one in the film version who had not appeared in the original cast. The show was based on the 1954 best-selling 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 re-creating the stage version word for word. Hunter was Warner Bros. top money grossing star from 1955 through 1959.

Hunter's failure to win the role of Tony in the film adaptation of West Side Story prompted him to agree to star in a weekly television sitcom. On July 9, 1960, prior to the program's debut, he was arrested by Glendale, California police for allegedly beating his dog Fritz. His 11-day trial started in mid-October, a month after The Tab Hunter Show debuted on Sunday evenings on NBC. It was proved that the neighbor who initiated the charges had done so for spite when Hunter declined her repeated invitations to dinner, and he was acquitted by the jury. The Tab Hunter Show had moderate ratings (due to being scheduled opposite The Ed Sullivan Show) and was hence cancelled after one season, however it was a huge hit in the UK where it ranked as one of the top situation comedies of the year.

For a short time in the latter 1960s, Hunter settled in the south of France, where he acted in spaghetti westerns. His 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 is particularly remembered by later audiences as Mr. Stewart, the substitute teacher in Grease 2, who sang "Reproduction." Hunter had a major role in the 1988 horror film Cameron's Closet. He also wrote and starred in Dark Horse (1992).

A documentary about Tab's life called "Tab Hunter Confidential" is being developed by producers Allan Glaser, Neil Koenigsberg, and Jeffrey Schwarz of Automat Pictures.

In January 2012, Tab Hunter appeared opposite Joyce DeWitt in A. R. Gurney's play Love Letters at Judson Theatre Company in Pinehurst, North Carolina.