Tab Hunter, the rugged 1950s heartthrob who played Joe Hardy in the Damn Yankees! film, scored a number one hit, and co-starred in two wacky movies with the drag queen Divine, has di*d.
After making an unusual comeback in a very un-Hollywood picture at the age of almost 50, Tab Hunter, a tall, blond, blue-eyed movie star who was one of the final products of the Hollywood studio system as an adolescent idol in the 1950s, perish*d on Sunday in Santa Barbara, California.
What Is The Cause Of De@th Of Tab Hunter?
Allan Glaser, Hunter’s longtime boyfriend, told The Hollywood Reporter that Hunter di*d of a heart att@ck caused by a blood clot on Sunday night in Santa Barbara. Glaser called Hunter’s de@th “unexpected and sudden.”
His de@th was also reported on a Facebook page associated with him, which simply stated, “SAD NEWS: Tab passed away tonight three days shy of his 87th birthday. Please honor his memory by saying a prayer on his behalf. He would have liked that.”
The leading man finally addressed speculations about his se*ual orientation in his 2005 book, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, after decades of silence.
Hunter claimed that Glaser informed him of a book project centered on him. “I thought, ‘Look, get it from the horse’s mouth and not from some horse’s ass after I’m dead and gone,’” he told THR‘s Scott Feinberg in 2015. “I didn’t want someone putting a spin on my life.”
THR reported in June that Zachary Quinto and J.J. Abrams were developing a film about the friendship between Hunter and Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
The following links will satisfy your curiosity about other famous people who have di*d suddenly:
- George Michael Cause Of Death: How Did George Michael Die?
- Johnny Cash Cause Of Death: How Did Johnny Cash Die? Was It Heartache?
Tab & Tony is a film based on Hunter’s memoir about coming out as g@y in 1950s Hollywood. Quinto, Glaser, and Neil Koenigsberg serve as producers alongside J. J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions.
Hunter, a blond actor who gained fame in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to his boy-next-door good looks and a stage name created by Henry Willson (who also represented Rock Hudson), was a staple on the covers of teen and fan publications at the time.
After Hunter was cast as a young Marine in Raoul Walsh’s Battle Cry (1955) over James Dean and Paul Newman, Warner Bros. signed him to a seven-year contract that included roles in The Girl He Left Behind (1956) and Burning Hills (1956).
Jack Warner, CEO of Warner Bros. Studios, had Hunter play Washington Senators slugger Hardy in the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Damn Yankees! (1958). He took over for Stephen Douglass, the only major character actor who did not make the leap to film.
Reviewer Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said of Tab Hunter, “Tab Hunter may not have the larynx that Stephen Douglass had as the original hero, but he has the clean, naive look of a lad breaking into the big leagues and into the magical company of a first-rate star. He is really appealing with Miss [Gwen] Verdon in the boogie-woogie ballet, “Two Lost Souls,” which is done in a smoky, soft-lit setting and is the dandiest dance number in the film.”
The troublesome Boston Red Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall was portrayed by Hunter in a 1955 episode of the CBS anthology series Climax! It was adapted from the baseball player’s autobiography, Fear Strikes Out, like the 1957 film starring Anthony Perkins.
The Dot Records recording of “Young Love” by Hunter in 1957 was so popular that it spent six weeks at the top of the charts, dethroning Elvis Presley’s “Too Much” and inspiring the founding of Warner Bros. Records.
We're sad to hear of the death of Tab Hunter today, three days shy of his 87th birthday. pic.twitter.com/fldr5bgHFN
— FilmStruck (@FilmStruck) July 9, 2018
His first film was 1950’s The Lawless, and he wore nothing but a swimsuit for 1952’s Island of Desire, a romantic South Seas adventure starring Linda Darnell. Before contracting with Warner Bros., he worked on films like Gun Belt (1953) and Return to Treasure Island (1954) while studying with renowned acting instructor Jeff Corey at United Artists.
When Warner Bros. signed Hunter, Dean, and Natalie Wood in the dying days of the studio system, they gave him a huge public relations boost. He was Warners’ highest-grossing star from 1955 to 1959, earning the nickname “The Sigh Guy.”
Even though the studio held “Win a Date With Tab Hunter” events, Hunter didn’t tell anyone he was g@y, even though he was seen with celebrities like Natalie Wood, Sophia Loren, and Debbie Reynolds. Hunter told Feinberg that he was never asked about his se*uality while working at Warner Bros. However, he was in a committed relationship with Perkins.
In a 2015 column for THR, Hunter said that Louella Parsons of the Los Angeles Examiner and Hedda Hopper of the Los Angeles Times “would never openly discuss my se*uality—they couldn’t in those days—but both occasionally made subtle references to it in their columns, wondering when I was going to settle down with a nice girl and then, after the studio started putting me on fake d@tes with my dear friend Natalie Wood, asking if I was “the kind of guy” she wanted.”
Shortly after he moved to Hollywood, Confidential magazine published a story about how he had been arrested at a party frequented by g@y people.
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