Actor Tab Hunter, ‘Damn Yankees!’ star, dies at 86

Actor and singer Tab Hunter, whose blond all-American good looks made him a matinee idol and poster boy for Eisenhower-era optimism, has died. He was 86.

Just three days shy of his 87th birthday, the 1950s heartthrob went into cardiac arrest on Sunday after a blood clot in his leg traveled to his lung, said Allan Glaser, Hunter’s husband of 35 years, on Monday.

“He collapsed in my arms in the front lawn and I called 911 and we raced him to the hospital,” Glaser told The Times. “It was sudden and unexpected.”

Glaser said Hunter died at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.

“I want people to know what a good man he was,” he said. “It was more important that Tab was known for being a good human being. That was most important to him than being an actor and a recording artist. He didn’t place importance on his movie career or his celebrity.”

Yet Hunter’s wholesome good looks and aw-shucks demeanor embodied an American ideal in the 1950s and helped launch his career.

Discovered as a stable boy, he rocketed to fame as a teen heartthrob in movies such as “Island of Desire” and “Battle Cry,” and as a chart-topping crooner with the hit “Young Love.” Hunter was the aspirational dreamboat for swarms of Baby Boomers and the perfect arm candy for Natalie Wood and Debbie Reynolds, all while hiding his homosexuality.

When he dared challenge his well-crafted persona, the industry cast him aside. Hunter clawed his way back 30 years later by lampooning his former self in campy comedies. Then he gave up on acting altogether to live quietly riding horses in Santa Barbara.

“When you’ve been a product of Hollywood and been subjected to as much crap as I have, it’s not conducive to your own development,” he told the Times in 1976. “It’s see-through plastic of the worst kind.”

Born Arthur Gelien on July 11, 1931, in New York City, Hunter was raised, along with his older brother, by a German immigrant mother. After she divorced their abusive father, they moved to California.

Hunter was a shy introvert who nevertheless sang in the church choir and was a competitive figure skater. Shamed by a priest at 15 when he confessed his homosexuality, he lied about his age to join the U.S. Coast Guard.