Film star Tab Hunter was a great idol in the 1950s. Handsome, wholesome and talented, Hunter was put under contract to Warner Bros. studios after he had made a splash in “Island of Desire” with Linda Darnell. Just a scant 19 years of age, Hunter was so handsome he made fans swoon. Over the years, his career had many highs and lows.
Hunter discussed with me his life and his new book, written with Eddie Muller, “Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star,” from Algonquin Books.
Hunter came to the Center for Jewish Culture at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center at the invitation of Jackie Gmach recently to sign copies of his new book. Wonderfully fit, he looks several decades younger than his true age.
“I’m 74 now!” Hunter said with a bit of surprise and a good deal of humility. “La Jolla was a beautiful little area in the ’50s. Now it’s so crowded. I was down here a few months ago. I went into La Jolla for lunch.”
During his heyday in films, there were a lot of small cottages along Prospect Street.
“Oh, yes. I remember that well,” he said. “And there was the little train station in Del Mar. I’d stay at the Del Mar Hotel during the Horse Show and ride the horses along the beach.”
Did he bet on the horses?
“I’m not very good at betting on horses,” he said with a laugh. “Of course, Del Mar is very close to you. We used to show horses at Del Mar all the time at the Horse Show every year. That’s when Del Mar was a little seaside town, which was great.”
Hunter had many wonderful co-stars. Was Lana Turner the ultimate MGM diva?
“I was pretty fortunate to work with some pretty amazing people,” he said. “You know, it was sort of toward the end of when she was doing a lot of films. It was the first film I did under contract to Warner Bros. I was thrilled to be in ‘The Sea Chase’ with John Wayne and Lana Turner.
“Probably the most powerful person I worked with was Geraldine Page. She was brilliant. She told me something I will never forget. I said to her, ‘Gee, Gerry, people love everything you do. They hate my guts!’ And she said, ‘If they don’t like you, that’s their bad taste!’ She was quite an amazing woman.”
Who were some of the other people he liked?
“Oh, there were people like Van Heflin and Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, Fred Astaire and Natalie Wood,” Hunter said. “Those were very interesting people.”
Fred Astaire was a phenomenon. He was a big musical star and then he started doing dramatic roles in his later years.
“What happened to style? He was the epitome of style,” Hunter said with a sigh of regret.
“The Thin Man” series with Myrna Loy and William Powell are the sexiest, wittiest and most stylish films ever made. The audience sees absolutely nothing overt, but the dialogue is so sexy and suggestive, but not smutty.
“She was quite wonderful. I was quite fortunate to work with Myrna Loy on her first live television show, ‘Meet Me In St. Louis,’ for Hallmark Hall of Fame many years ago,” Hunter said. “It was the end of the studio era, and so they would loan you out to live television plays. Those live television days are long gone. There was ‘Playhouse 90,’ ‘Climax,’ Studio One.’ I was just thrown into it all at the studio. I could hardly read my name off a piece of paper. But you could learn your craft there. You had to learn while doing it.”
Critics were not kind to Hunter and didn’t like his acting style.
“I had so many potshots taken at me as I was struggling to learn my craft,” he said. “It was very difficult.”
What this critic misses today are the great stars who are interesting characters.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the studio system ” it created people,” Hunter said. “That all fell apart when the studio system fell apart. The studios had to get rid of the theaters they owned, the audiences were changing and were younger, and television changed it in a big way. The audiences weren’t there. They didn’t know what to do.
“Prior to that they knew how to build stars. You either did it the way they wanted or they threw you out on your ear and the next person was in there.
Does he get affection from horses?
“They are all so distinct,” Hunter said. “They’re like people. Some are smarter than others. They make good associations. My mare was certainly affectionate. I could call her, and no matter where she was, she’d come running. I’ve had so many horses. That’s how I got my name. I showed hunters and jumpers. It’s a good thing I wasn’t called Tab Jumper.”