Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star

A very interesting true tale of a gay actor's life in the 1950's when he had to hide his sexuality. Tab Hunter seems like a very likeable down to earth guy with a serious work ethic. This is a fun read with serious undertones, as "Tab" (born Arthur) had to live closeted, in spite of having several long running relationships. There's a glimpse of Hollywood glamour as well family difficulties with a mentally unstable single mother. This book made me want to check out some of the actor's movies and I definitely want to see the new documentary based on this book.

this is the fascinating story of a hollywood-constructed pretty boy who had to hide his queerness from the people who held his reigns. tab hunter, himself, comes across as kind of a conservative jerk at the end, but it's really interesting to hear about his life, especially about his deep and tumultuous relationship with anthony perkins.

3.5 stars

Tab Hunter was a 1950s movie star and heartthrob; he was also gay. This is his autobiography that tells of a fatherless, good-looking, but extremely shy boy who was approached at 14-years old as he was working in a stable to ask if he was interested in being a movie star.

I don't often read celebrity bios. I wasn't born till the 70s, and to be honest, I hadn't heard of Tab Hunter until this book. I realized as I read the book that I have seen him in one movie – he had a small part as one of the teachers in Grease 2. However, his story interested me, so that's why I wanted to read it.

I really liked the first half of the book, but I didn't enjoy the second half quite as much. In the second half, he talks a lot about the movies show more and his work. I actually found his life more interesting than his work – his love for horses and dogs, his relationships, and he was also a figure skater. All the talk of the movies and the acting got a little boring, to be honest. But overall, I still liked it enough to rate it good. show less

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Welcome to Hollywood, circa 1950, the end of the Golden Age. A remarkably handsome young boy, still a teenager, gets "discovered by a big-time movie agent. Because when he takes his shirt off young hearts beat faster, because he is the picture of innocence and trust and need, he will become a star. It seems almost preordained. The open smile says, "You will love me," and soon the whole world does.

The young boy's name was Tab Hunter: a made-up name, of course, a Hollywood name and it was his time. Stardom didn't come overnight, although it seemed that way. In fact, the fame came first, when his face adorned hundreds of magazine covers; the movies, the studio contract, the name in lights all that show more came later. For Tab Hunter was a true product of Hollywood, a movie star created from a stable boy, a shy kid made even more so by the way his schoolmates both girls and boys reacted to his beauty, by a mother who provided for him in every way except emotionally, and by a secret that both tormented him and propelled him forward.

In Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, Hunter speaks out for the first time about what it was like to be a movie star at the end of the big studio era, to be treated like a commodity, to be told what to do, how to behave, whom to be seen with, what to wear. He speaks also about what it was like to be gay, at first confused by his own fears and misgivings, then as an actor trapped by an image of boy-next-door innocence. And when he dared to be difficult, to complain to the studio about the string of mostly mediocre movies that were assigned to him, he learned that just like any manufactured product, he was disposable "disposable and replaceable."

Hunter's career as a bona fide movie star lasted a decade. But he persevered as an actor, working continuously at a profession he had come to love, seeking and earning the respect of his peers, and of the Hollywood community.

And so, Tab Hunter Confidential is at heart a story of survival of the giddy highs of stardom, and the soul-destroying lows when phone calls begin to go unreturned; of the need to be loved, and the fear of being consumed; of the hope of an innocent boy, and the rueful summation of a man who did it all, and who lived to tell it all."

My Review: Memoir of 1950s movie heartthrob Tab Hunter, his Southern California sun-kissed boyhood, his coming of gay age, and the effects of being part of the star-maker machinery of Hollywood as it existed at that time on a modestly talented, very very pretty boy. It's obvious that Mr. Hunter paid attention to the business of Hollywood...he gives a real and thorough account of the whys and wherefores of the last gasp of the studio era's decisions.

Not as salacious as some, and a whole lot sweeter than most. Mr. Hunter says very few unpleasant things about others in his memoir, and is in fact so generous to his exes that I wonder how large a role the Algonquin legal department played in the setting of the tone. Either that or this is one of the NICEST old stars ever born. The photos are all nicely chosen to illustrate Mr. Hunter's textual points. I liked this book, but I don't think anyone not interested in Hollywood, gay Hollywood, or the Fifties would do anything more than yawn through a Pearl-Rule 50pp. show less

Once I started this memoir I could not put it down. I was not a Tab Hunter fan because I was too young when he was very famous but reading about his life, the people he met, old Hollywood, etc., was fascinating. Now I want to see some of the movies he's talked about.

The 1950s heartthrob has penned a brave, surprising and sad memoir about depression (his mother's), repression (his homosexuality) and redemption (a career revival and meeting his partner of 20-plus years). Hunter (b. 1931) was a good-looking 19-year-old with no acting experience when he was molded into a movie star, later stumbling into a hit record (1957's Young Love) and a two-year affair with Anthony Perkins. Although his acting improved over a decade of mediocre films, by the early 1960s he was scrambling for parts in movies starring Soupy Sales and going overseas to film spaghetti westerns. His career was reborn when he co-starred with Divine in John Water's Polyester (1981) and again in Lust in the Dust (1985), which introduced show more Hunter to a new generation and turned him into a gay icon. Hunter, who is virtually alone among actors of his era and stature to write about living a closeted gay life in Hollywood's spotlight, is honest about his shortcomings and missteps. He's made an admirable choice to chart his life through friendships and hardships (emotional and financial), rather than just his career trajectory. This is an illuminating, emotionally charged and important piece of Hollywood's hidden history. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. (Publishers Weekly review,displayed on Amazon.com) show less

Superficial autobiography missed its potential: a handsome young man with moderate acting ability was made into a star by the Hollywood studio system. He had a difficult time coping with pressures of profession, family, and relationships. Gay, he was unhappily in the closet for much of his life. Details of his emotional and inner life are scant. There is no style in the writing.