Tab Hunter Live at Alamo Drafthouse

Was it hard changing your name?

Well at first I hated it, but then they started making out checks payed to the order of Tab Hunter and I thought, "Oh, I could get used to that rather easily."

Did your mother ever start calling you Tab?

No, no. She always called me Arthur. She was the only person who could call me Arthur without getting hit. I had some friends who called me Art, that knew me as Art, but I never really liked people calling me Art unless they knew me as Art because I thought it was infringing into an area that didn't concern them.

I get the impression from your book that you were a good sport about playing the Hollywood game--getting renamed, going along with the publicity--

That was part of Hollywood. Lana Turner was not Lana Turner, Rock Hudson was not Rock Hudson, Guy Madison was not Guy Madison. Very few people kept their own names.

Going on all those publicity-grabbing double dates with starlets and other stars, did you ever feel overwhelmed?

Well, that was part of your job. When you're under contract, you do whatever they ask you to do. They want you to do a photo layout at the beach, you do a photo layout at the beach. And if you don't do what they ask you to do, they'd just get rid of you and get somebody that would. Those studios were run by movie moguls that conducted their symphonies, and conducted them beautifully. The Harry Cohn at Columbia, the Jack Warner at Warner Brothers, where I was with Natalie Wood and Jimmy Dean, the Darryl Zanuck at 20th Century Fox, where Bob Wagner and Deborah Paget were, and people like that.

They didn't call it the studio machine for nothing.

That's exactly it, that's exactly it. But it was the demise of the studio system that we were a part of which was sorta sad, because it was the end of that whole studio era, which was a fascinating era. That never will be again. Now it's a huge business, and it's lost the personal touch.

And the industry has spun so far beyond that. Especially with the internet, where everything is instantly known as soon as it happens.

Oh, absolutely. With the studio, they just molded your life the way they wanted it to be with the press. And as a wide-eyed kid, you go, "Yeah! Why not?"

In your case they had you "dating" the leading ladies of the day.

Oh, yeah. With Natalie [Wood], they put Nat and I together and joined us for a couple of films because she was hot off of Rebel Without a Cause and I had just been hot off of Battle Cry and so what the heck. She was like my kid sister. She was a wonderful kid. I mean, I was much older than her.

How old was she at that point?

Well, I think she was in her teens, and I was in my mid-twenties.

Was it uncomfortable for you to feel like that disjunct between your public life that was presented to your fans versus what was really going in your private life?

Well, my touch of reality, in that unrealistic world of Hollywood, were my horses. I always felt closest to God with a pitchfork full of crap in my hand, shoveling the real stuff as opposed the Hollywood stuff. I was very uncomfortable in the Hollywood scene. Having a new name, being a product of Hollywood--which was almost the name of my book, "Product of Hollywood"--you know, where does one serve one's apprenticeship? And it's very difficult to have to learn while doing, but I was very fortunate to work with some really incredible people.

It seems like you were able to avoid the pitfalls of other young people who were just as confused by the Hollywood system.

You're constantly struggling with all of that, because it's just so unreal. And nowadays, I don't know how these kids handle it, and this is what you always hear about, I mean, God, these terrible things with young people today, just making a gazillion dollars and they can't handle it.

And certainly all of their missteps are scrutinized a lot more heavily nowadays.

Oh, I think so, I think so. People have such a fascination with all of that nonsense. Too bad they're not more interested in what's happening in the world around them, in real people in real situations with real problems. Hollywood in the old days had an aura of mystique about it. Nobody really knew much about the stars. The P.R., it was just a machine of P.R. that worked to promote the stars as well as the motion pictures they were in for the studios. Of course, the studios were falling apart in those days, or were starting to. They had to get rid of all their theaters around the country, television was coming in in a big way, live TV was major, audiences were changing--younger audiences. So consequently, studios weren't making the money that they were, so they'd loan you to different studios for different pictures. Even though you were under contract to them, they'd loan you for a chunk of money, they would get the money and continue paying you your weekly salary [laughs]. But it was a wonderful experience, and a wonderful training ground, I've got to tell you that.

How did you make the decision to write your book and say, "Hey, I've been gay this whole time"?

Oh, the word wasn't even around in those days. You know, I was brought up by a very religious, strong German mother. And her words were, "Nothing for show." And of course, what do I do? I wind up in show business. I mean, it's ridiculous. I firmly believe that people's lives are their lives, that there's an order to everything.

So what made you decide to speak up about being gay?

Well, it wasn't a matter of that, just a matter of the whole book. I wanted to write it, because I heard some schmuck was going to be doing a book about me, and I figured, get it from the horse's mouth, and not from some horse's ass, after I'm dead and gone. I mean, I've got nothing to hide. What you read is what you get, and that's the way it happened. Now at the time, at the beginning, however, I was terribly frightened. I mean, God, a young kid thrown into starring films, where do you serve your apprenticeship? Who are you comfortable with? Who do you trust? I had very few friends.

Not to mention the fact that gay sexuality was pretty much criminalized in those days.

I never said anything about it to anyone. It was nobody's business.

So what do you think about gossip websites and publications that actively try to "out" people?

Well, I think that's kind of despicable. I don't care much for that. My first line in my book is that I hate labels. And I really do hate labels. People want to label people: She's like this, he's like that, this is like that. I'm more concerned with, you know, we're all human beings. The important thing is the heading right after that: Yeah, but what kind of a human being are you? Are you a decent human being? That's what's important. The rest of it, I don't have time for.

So you believe that someone's right to privacy is more important than standing up to be a role model?

That's how I am, and that's how I always have been. Some people are very out there and in your face, some people have a cause. There are some people that have to do this, have to do that. I think it depends on the individual. I was brought up in a certain way, and those formative years are very important. I think there's an order to everything in life. The sun goes up, the sun comes down. The seasons are there--the leaves come on the trees, the leaves come off the trees. There's an order to everything, and I think our lives need to have an order also. But that's just how I feel.

Speaking of gossip websites, I was sort of surprised to learn there were magazine equivalents like The Confidential back in the 50s.

[Laughs] Oh yeah, Marilyn Monroe and I made the first cover. God! What trash.

I had assumed that the intense celebrity obsession and trying to unearth the dirt about people was more of a modern phenomenon.

Not really. I think a lot of it was happening then, but a lot of stuff was said quietly behind a person's back. I just think people are always talking about it. They always want to hear the worst, not the best, about a person. I mean, look at the news today. It's always breathless headlines. I'm not turned on by that.

I want to ask you about some of your leading ladies.

Oh, I was very fortunate. Leading ladies and leading men, I worked with some of the best.

You starred opposite Natalie Wood, of course, Debbie Reynolds, Sophia Loren--

Well, Debbie I knew as a kid. I mean, Deb and I used to play baseball with her mother's biscuits, they were so terrible [laughs].

Did she grow up to make better biscuits than her mother?

Somehow I can't see Deb in the kitchen making biscuits! She's a great character, and I've known her a long, long time, and I had a lot of fun with her, and finally we did a film together, which was nice.

And then Sophia Loren--

Sophia was fabulous. The great thing about Sophia was that under all that fire and sex she was childlike, and I loved the childlike quality she had. She was a wonderful actress and we had a hell of a lot of fun together. I really enjoyed working with her. Phenomenal woman.

And then there's Divine.

Well, Divine's one of my favorite leading ladies! Divine was really great, it was wonderful to work with him. He was very serious, and very good. I'll never forget when John Waters said to me, "How would you feel about doing a movie with Divine, a 300-pound transvestite?" And I said, "Well, I read the script, John, and I tell ya, I've probably kissed a hell of a lot worse in my life!" John was great fun. He was like your friendly undertaker. And Divine was very, very dedicated. He really was very serious about his work.

From the book it sounds like he was really exerting himself in the desert for Lust in the Dust.

Oh, we had a lot of fun using him. After having worked with Divine earlier, that's why we thought of him for our film Lust in the Dust. He was very good. But my favorite of all the actresses, I would say, had to be Geraldine Page. Geraldine Page said something to me which I will never forget, and I'd like to pass it on to you. I said, "Geri, everyone loves you. You can't do anything wrong. And wonderful people hate my guts. They're always taking potshots at me and it's really terrifying." She grabbed hold of my arm and said "Let me tell you something, Tab. If people don't like you, that's their bad taste." Well, I looked at her and I said, "Geri, I will never forget that." And furthermore, I pass that on to everyone. If people don't like you, that's their problem, not yours, as long as you're going down the road doing the best you possibly can. She was an amazing woman.

Are you still friends with John Waters?

I see John on occasion, yes. I just saw him last year in Atlanta--he came down and introduced the book and we were down there doing a book promotion. And we see him on occasion. He's great fun. He's like your friendly undertaker.

Do you see many movies today?

Not many. Last thing I saw was The Painted Veil--Naomi Watts and Edward Norton.

Any favorite actors and directors?

I do have favorite directors. Of the past, I have some great directors that I've loved that I've worked with. And of today, there are certain ones that really move me, yes. Robert Allan Ackerman I think is very, very good. I like the independent films, and the directors that do the independent films. I don't like studio films any longer--they're just a ton of money that, as far as I'm concerned, is just thrown away. It's a different type of machine...In the old days, my favorites were Luchino Visconti, Sidney Lumet, John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn. Those were the greats. A lot of them came out of live television. Those were pretty terrific days.

And now, you and [partner] Allan Glaser have a production company, right?

We do have a production company. Yeah, we've produced a few films. Lust in the Dust was our first one. Then we did a family film called Dark Horse based on a little girl and a horse. The little girl learns to accept her handicap through the handicap of a horse. It was quite an interesting film that got some nice comment on it. I was really pleased about that.

What projects do you have on the horizon?

We have a couple. We have the Evelyn Keyes novel, based on her coming to Hollywood in the thirties, called Blues In The Night, a beautiful story of a young girl coming of age in Hollywood. And Evelyn is quite a character, you know--she was married to Artie Shaw and John Huston. She's one hell of a salt, just a great great character and a very dear friend. And so she did our screenplay for us and she's a very fine writer. And somebody approached me about my book, doing a film from that...It's an era that's long gone, and a fascinating time, a time that never will be again.

If you hadn't become Tab Hunter, what do you think you'd be doing?

I'd be with the horses, just like I spend every free minute I can--with my horses.

TAB HUNTER Live in Person!
Sunday, June 3rd
The Alamo Drafthouse Downtown
7:00pm
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