Tab Hunter

He was the younger of two boys. His brother, Walter John Gelien (born August 18, 1930), was killed in Vietnam on October 28, 1965, leaving seven children.

Hunter was born Arthur Kelm on July 11, 1931 in New York City, to Gertrude (Gelien) and Charles Kelm. His father was Jewish and his mother was a German Catholic immigrant. Following his parents' divorce, Hunter grew up in California with his mother, older brother Walter, and maternal grandparents, Ida (Sonnenfleth) and John Henry Gelien. His mother changed her sons' surnames to her maiden name, Gelien. Leaving school and joining the Coast Guard at age fifteen (he lied about his age), he was eventually discharged when the age deception was revealed. Returning home, his life-long passion for horseback riding led to a job with a riding academy. Hunter's fetching handsomeness and trim, athletic physique eventually steered the Californian toward the idea of acting. An introduction to famed agent Henry Willson had Tab signing on the dotted line and what emerged, along with a major career, was the stage moniker of "Tab Hunter. " Willson was also responsible with pointing hopeful Roy Fitzgerald towards stardom under the pseudonym Rock Hudson.

During a verbal contest to re-name "Art Gilien," Art, sitting between his actor-agent friend Richard Clayton and talent agent Henry Willson, the pair of agents trying to come up with a re-branding for Art Gilien's new show-biz name; a serious amused dead-pan Art interjected - "what about Male Kelm" into their name choice debate; ignoring Art, Henry Willson remarked: "We have to get a tab on this new name! ... What are your interests, Art? - hobbies?" Dick Clayton, who (in 1943) had first met a twelve year old stable boy at the Du Brock's Riding Academy, at the corner of Riverside Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard, interjected, "he likes horses! riding and hunting" Willson pounced, "horses, hunting .... that's it ... TAB -- HUNTER".

In early November, 1946, after he turned fifteen years old in July, Arthur Andrew (Kelm) Gilien, lying about his age, joined the U.S. Coast Guard Service located in San Pedro, California. He was assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Minnetonka. nicknamed the Mighty Minnie. His Coast Guard mates nick-named him "Hollywood" because of his penchant for going to movie palaces alone rather than going to bars with his ship-mates while on liberty, and for his knowledge and avid interest in the movie industry. Two months after enlisting, applicants were being taken for yeoman's school. Heading east on the Union Pacific Railroad, bound for the Coast Guard Training Center in Groton, Connecticut, Art had stowed actor-friend Richard Clayton's contact information since Dick (in his late 20's) had scored a spot in an Olson and Johnson comedy revue, "Pardon My French," produced on Broadway. "Art, if you get to New York, anytime soon, be sure to look me up." Weekend liberty in Manhattan left Los Angeles in the shade. Art would barge into Clayton's Greenwich Village apartment on Friday nights, sometimes with a couple of buddies in tow, and they would set out to take New York by storm. Art rode horses in Central Park, ice-skated at Rockefeller Center. Dick Clayton bought Art his first ticket to a Broadway show, "Mrs. McThing," starring the First Lady of the Broadway stage, Helen Hayes. Dick Clayton recognized the energy, the excitement, the glamour, the intoxicating experiences in Art's eyes and spirit. Clayton talked for hours on end about acting. Before long, Clayton invited Art to cocktail parties with his theatrical friends, a constant, bubbling current of talented, urbane men and witty, sexy women. Coast Guard boot camp was a breeze compared to the sink-or-swim challenge of keeping his head above water in this crowd. At one of these parties, Art heard a familiar song. Eager to share his new-found musical knowledge, he said, "Hmm, that sounds like Cole Porter." "Why, yes, dear," he was informed," - he's right over there." Cole Porter! Playing the piano and singing in someone's apartment - as if he had gotten out of his seat in one of those Hollywood Boulevard theaters and walked right into the movie. Impressed about show people, men and women, wasn't their sexual bias, but their elegance, sophistication, intelligence, and style. As if that wasn't enough, show people were talented. They were contributors. Art wasn't sure he would fit in, but at only fifteen years of age, he did his damnedest to stay afloat in this crowd. After graduating as a yeoman third class from the training program, returning in November, 1947 to his service assignment in San Pedro, the Coast Guard discovered Art's real age, sixteen years old, booting him out of the Coast Guard service ranks.

Upon being discharged from the U.S. Coast Guard Service, Art Gilien returned to Los Angeles, sharing a rented room in Hollywood with his brother Walt. During his absence serving in the U.S. Coast Guard, their mother had moved back to San Francisco. Dick Clayton, after returning from New York, began working in the mail room at Famous Artists Agency. His boss, Charlie Feldman, one of the most respected agents in the film industry, and his colleagues encouraged Dick to become a sub-agent. Dick encouraged Art to pick up his education. Art enrolled in the Del Powers Professional School. The school, just off Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood, was run by actress Mala Powers's mother and was crammed with kids who wanted to be in movies. Art graduated with a high school diploma. Art supported a new athletic course, figure skating, where he lived at the Polar Palace, an ice rink on Van Ness near Melrose in Hollywood. Besides horse training, Art began training to be a professional ice skater, gaining trophies on his ice-skating abilities and talents. In this new endeavor, he met an entirely new group of people, who became his extended family of friends. Bob Turk, who became a choreographer, a director, and producer for the "Ice Capades;" Bobby Specht became an Ice Capades skating star; Joyce Lockwood, who became his skating partner in pairs; Catherine Machado and Richard Dwyer, both became stars on ice; the extraordinary Ronnie Robertson. Art loved the athleticism of ice skating, the rigorous training, practicing figures and diligently skating through levels of tests, ranked in the nation's amateur standings. Art skated both singles and pairs. Joyce and Art won the California Junior Pair Figure Skating Championship in 1949, and the state's Senior Pair Championship the following year in 1950. During this period, Art supported himself by employment at the Orange Julius stand across from Hollywood's Musso and Frank restaurant; ushered at the Warner Bros. Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, making seventy-five cents an hour, where Art met a young girl named Carol Burnett, also working as an usher. Dick Clayton kept hounding Art about taking an acting career seriously, except Art wanted to skate, not waste time in a stupid acting class. Then one day Dick brokered the introduction that radically changed his life. "There's this agent, Henry Willson, who can really help your career. Willson is more of a personal manager than an agent. Willson handles all aspects of a client's career: discovering them, pitching them to the film studios, negotiating their contracts, counseling them - everything." Dick said, "Henry's specialty is finding new talent. He represents the greatest-looking guys in town." Henry Willson after arriving in Hollywood established himself as the chief talent scout for producer David O. Selznick; He had discovered future star Rhonda Fleming, Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones among others, for Selznick. Major film actresses, such as Lana Turner, Jeanette MacDonald, and Ann Southern, had Henry as their agent. But Willson's real attention was focused on his list of male clients, specifically young, good-looking, all-American guys. Henry believed that young women craved a male equivalent of the pinup stars who'd boosted the troop's morale during the war. Acting skill was secondary to chiseled features and a fine physique. Prompted by Dick Clayton, Art was accompanied to Henry Willson's Bel Air residence, located on Stone Canyon Road. Clayton was a nervous hen mother. "I have to warn you, Art, Henry doesn't have the most sterling reputation. People are always making jokes about Henry and his boys".

Dreamy Tab Hunter stood out in film history as one of the hottest teen idols of the 1950s era. With blond, tanned, surfer-boy good looks, he was artificially groomed and nicknamed "The Sigh Guy" by the Hollywood studio system, yet managed to continue his career long after his "golden boy" prime.

With no previous experience Tab made his first, albeit minor, film debut in the racially trenchant drama The Lawless (1950) starring Gail Russell and Macdonald Carey. His only line in the movie was eventually cut upon release.

It didn't seem to make a difference for he co-starred in his very next film, the British-made Island of Desire (1952) opposite a somewhat older (by ten years) Linda Darnell, which was set during WWII on a deserted, tropical South Seas isle. His shirt remained off for a good portion of the film, which certainly did not go unnoticed by his ever-growing legion of female (and male) fans. Signed by Warner Bros.

The Ford Motor Company delivered their first pony car in late fall of 1954 - the1955 Ford Thunder Bird, Ford's answer to General Motors' Chevrolet 1953 Corvette sports car. The '55 Ford Thunder Bird automobile, only built in Detroit, was delivered in either a gloss-white or gloss-black-ebony painted finish. One of the earliest owners on the West coast, in Hollywood, Tab Hunter (at age 24) purchased a black-ebony Thunder Bird with a red leather interior. The Ford Thunder Bird pony car became very popular for the young talented impressionable Hollywood movie-colony performers as their favorite chariot. Tab's Warner Brothers co-star Natalie Wood (at age 17) had her '55 white T-Bird with a white leather interior custom painted by the Ford dealer a Pepto-Bismo-baby-pink color. Tab's actress girl friend Lori Nelson (at age 22) had her white T-Bird custom painted canary yellow. New York actor Anthony Perkins (at age 23), nick named "Ma Perkins" by his fellow actor friends, who was under contract at Paramount Pictures filming "Friendly Persuasion" - after learning how to drive, had his white T-Bird custom painted baby-blue.

, stardom was clinched a few years later with another WWII epic Battle Cry (1955), based on the Leon Uris novel, in which he again played a boyish soldier sharing torrid scenes with an older woman (this time Dorothy Malone, playing a love-starved Navy wife). Thoroughly primed as one of Hollywood's top beefcake commodities, the tabloid magazines had a field day initiating an aggressive campaign to "out" Hunter as gay, which would have ruined him. To combat the destructive tactics, Tab was seen escorting a number of Hollywood's lovelies at premieres and parties.

In the meantime, he was seldom out of his military fatigues on film, keeping his fans satisfied in such popular dramas as The Sea Chase (1955), The Burning Hills (1956) and The Girl He Left Behind (1956)--the last two opposite the equally popular Natalie Wood. At around this time, Hunter managed to parlay his boy-next-door film celebrity into a singing career.

On St Valentine's Day 1956 he allegedly received 62,000 cards.

He topped the charts for over a month with the single "Young Love" in 1957 and produced other "top 40" singles as well. Like other fortunate celebrity-based singers such as Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen, his musical reign was brief.

Out of it, however, came the most notable success of his film career top-billing as baseball fan Joe Hardy in the classic Faustian musical Damn Yankees (1958) opposite Gwen Verdon and Ray Walston, who recreated their devil-making Broadway roles. Musically, Tab may have been overshadowed but he brought with him major star power and the film became a crowd pleaser. He continued on with the William A.

Wellman-directed Lafayette Escadrille (1958) as, yet again, a wholesome soldier, this time in World War I.

More spicy love scenes came with That Kind of Woman (1959), an adult comedy-drama which focused on soldier Hunter and va-va-voom mistress Sophia Loren demonstrating some sexual chemistry on a train.

Seldom a favorite with the film critics, the 1960s brought about a career change for Tab. He begged out of his restrictive contract with Warners and ultimately paid the price. With no studio to protect him, he was at the mercy of several trumped-up lawsuits. Worse yet, handsome Troy Donahue had replaced him as the new beefcake on the block.

With no film offers coming his way, he starred in his own series The Tab Hunter Show (1960), a rather featherweight sitcom that centered around his swinging bachelor pad. The series last only one season. On the positive side he clocked in with over 200 TV programs over the long stretch and was nominated for an Emmy award for his outstanding performance opposite Geraldine Page in a Playhouse 90 episode.

Following the sparkling film comedy The Pleasure of His Company (1961) opposite Debbie Reynolds, the quality of his films fell off drastically as he found himself top-lining such innocuous fare as Operation Bikini (1963), Ride the Wild Surf (1964) (1965), City in the Sea (1965) [aka War-Gods of the Deep], and Birds Do It (1966) both here and overseas.

As for stage, a brief chance to star on Broadway happened in 1964 alongside the highly volatile Tallulah Bankhead in Tennessee Williams's "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. " It lasted five performances. He then started to travel the dinner theater circuit.

Enduring a severe lull, Tab bounced back in the 1980s and 1990s -- more mature, less wholesome, but ever the looker. He gamely spoofed his old clean-cut image by appearing in delightfully tasteless John Waters' films as a romantic dangling carrot to heavyset transvestite "actress" Divine.

Polyester (1981) was the first mainstream hit for Waters and Tab went on to team up with Allan Glaser to co-produce and co-star a Waters-like western spoof Lust in the Dust (1984).

Hunter and his life partner Allan Glaser met in 1983, and stayed together until Hunter's death in 2018. The couple co-produced the films Lust in the Dust (1984), Hollywood on Horses (1989), and Dark Horse (1992).

Co-starring with "Exorcist" star Linda Blair in the bizarre horror film Grotesque (1988), Tab's last on-camera appearance would be in a small role in the film Dark Horse (1992), which he produced. He preferred spending most of his time secluded on his ranch and breeding horses.

He co-executive produced and hosted the cable television series Hollywood on Horses (1989).

James Dean at age 21 (b: 02.08.1931; d: 09.30.1955; deceased at age 24), a New York stage and television actor, was put under contract by Warner Brothers, arriving in Los Angeles with Richard Clayton acting as his agent. James Dean and Tab Hunter were the youngest male stars under contract at Warner Bros. Studio. Warner Brothers - in preliminary casting of the film Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - originally considered Tab Hunter and Debbie Reynolds, but the studio ultimately cast James Dean and Natalie Wood in the film's lead roles. Agent-actor Dick Clayton brought the newly arrived New York actor James Dean to the Warner Bros. studio Burbank lot, first introducing him to Tab Hunter on his first studio introduction tour. Dean frequently waited beside Hunter's studio lot portable dressing room trailer, sitting on the step-up, catching Hunter between his film set-up shots to talk, to learn about, to discuss Tab's film experiences, acting challenges on film-movie studio and location sets!.

In the early 1950s, nineteen year old Debbie Reynolds (b: 04.01.1932) was twenty year old Tab Hunter's first date; both Debbie Reynolds and a young 19 year old Lori Nelson (b: 08.15,1933) were constantly linked with Tab Hunter as his romantic - and dating - companion by the movie colony's fan magazine reporters, with photographs of either actress with Tab during their studio film coupled appearances. When Debbie Reynolds became engaged to crooner Eddie Fisher. Lori Nelson became his primary studio dating partner. Upon the success of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - Natalie Wood was matched with Tab Hunter by Warner Bros. casting and publicity department as the new generation Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Natalie Wood engaged Tab Hunter's agent Henry Willson as her agent just so she could meet Willson's actor-client Robert Wagner, who she soon married.

In 2005, he returned to the limelight when he "came out" with a tell-all memoir on his Hollywood years. His long-time partner was film producer Allan Glaser.

Married in 2008 with Allan Glaser, his partner since 1983, shortly after same sex marriage was legalized in California.

On October 21, 2018, he was honored with a Sketch of the Day caricature on the website Star Portraits by a United States based artist known as Odoxesky.

On March 12, 2019, he was honored with a Sketch of the Day caricature on the website Star Portraits.