Screen idol of the 1950s who led a double life

“Six feet of rugged manhood Tab

to stir the heart of every Hunter

woman.” That was the 1931-2018

“breathless” tag line that accompanied one of Tab Hunter’s films in the 1950s, said Glen Weldon on Npr.org. And indeed, the blonde, blue-eyed actor was strikingly handsome. But the more savvy female filmgoers will have realised that even if he stirred their hearts, that feeling was unlikely to be reciprocated: that the teen idol was gay was one of Hollywood’s worst-kept secrets.

Shortly after Hunter, who has died aged 86, starred in his first big film in 1955, the scandal sheet Confidential broke the news that he’d once been arrested at a “limp-wristed pajama party”. At that point, he assumed his career was already over, but he’d misjudged the power of the studio system, and the determination of Jack Warner, who quickly set him up on dates with the likes of Natalie Wood (his co-star in The Burning Hills) and Debbie Reynolds, to distract attention from his relationships with the skater Ronnie Robertson and his fellow “dreamboat” Anthony Perkins. It worked: in the gossip columns, innuendo remained rife, yet Hunter received 62,000 Valentine cards in 1956, and a year later he released a song, Young Love, which became one of the biggest-selling singles of the decade. Such was his effect on teenage girls, he became known as the “sigh guy”. Arthur Andrew Gelien was born in New York in 1931, the son of a German Catholic immigrant mother and a Jewish father, who was rarely present. One of his earliest memories was of begging his father to stop beating his mother. Later, he moved with his mother to California, where he was enrolled in various boarding schools. It was, he said, a hard and lonely childhood. However, he discovered two passions: riding and figure skating, and found some success in both. Then, in 1949, he was introduced to an agent who specialised in “pretty boys”. Having been given a new name (inspired by his love of horses), he made his screen debut in 1950. He went on to star in a host of films in that decade, including the musical Damn Yankees.

Signed to Warner Bros in 1954, Hunter was one of the last stars of the studio system, and when it began to crumble, so did his career. For 20 years, he barely scraped a living. Then, in 1981, he became a cult star, thanks to John Waters casting him opposite Divine in Polyester. In 2005, he wrote a bestselling memoir, Tab Hunter Confidential, in which he came out as gay and described the loneliness of his double life, as well as naming some of his former lovers. As he wrote: “Better to get it from the horse’s mouth and not from some horse’s ass after I’m dead.” In 2015, it formed the basis of an acclaimed documentary produced by Allan Glaser, his partner of 35 years.