Recline yourself, resign yourself

Exactly what I feel about Mondays...

Yup. Here we go again...

To ease the old ennui on this Tacky Music Monday, let us marvel at the va-va-voom that was Miss Gwen Verdon, trying desperately to get her mitts on the (unsurprisingly uninterested) Tab Hunter...

Gwen Verdon - Whatever Lola Wants

Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets? Unlikely...

Have a good week, dear reader!

Pulling the Tab

“He had a face that was so handsome that it didn’t look real. He could have been a composite man created by God … or the devil!” - George Abbott, director of the musical Damn Yankees.

How sad. One of the sexiest stars to come out [excuse the phrase - he eventually did; but not until he published his memoirs in 2005] of the Henry Willson stable in the 50s [alongside the likes of Rock Hudson, Rory Calhoun, Troy Donahue and Robert Wagner], the lovely Tab Hunter has died, a few days short of his 87th birthday.

After the flurry of "dreamboat" roles that made his name, his star declined until the 1980s - when a certain John Waters secured him a role starring opposite none other than Divine in Polyester. After that, his "camp cult icon" status was assured... His aforementioned autobiography Tab Hunter Confidential [its title itself a reference to the Hollywood gossip-rag that attempted to expose his sexuality at the height of his career; a libel lawsuit later, he survived the scandal - all the while maintaining a real-life relationship with Antony Perkins] was even made into a film in its own right by his own long-term partner (and director of Tab's other Divine collaboration, Lust in the Dust) Allan Glaser.

Tab Hunter Confidential trailer

By all accounts a genuinely lovely man, he will be missed for all that - but by heavens, he truly was gorgeous!











RIP Tab Hunter (born Arthur Gelien, 11th July 1931 - 9th July 2018).

Read my previous blog about Tab Hunter.

Young love, first love - filled with true devotion

Happy 79th birthday today to the (former) Queen of Closets, 1950s heart-throb Tab Hunter!

Discovered and re-named by by the infamous Hollywood agent Henry Wilson, the young Artie Gelien was subject to gossip and innuendo for much of his career (with alleged affairs with Tony Perkins and Rudolph Nureyev) - but managed to sustain his success in more than forty films and had his own TV show.

A passable singer, too (Jack Warner created Warner Bros Records just for him), his album When I Fall In Love is a treasured oddity here at Dolores Delargo Towers.



Once his closet doors began to creak open in the 1970s and 80s, he progressed from heart-throb to "cult" figure, appearing in episodes of The Love Boat and Charlie's Angels (among others), and on the big screen opposite Divine in both Polyester and Lust In The Dust.

His 2005 autobiography finally put into words what he had been trying to tell the world for a long time, and spoke in full of what it was like to be a gay actor in the restrictive world of Hollywood. Mr Hunter continues to work to this day (with a film biopic of Divine and one of his own life story both in production as we speak)...

Happy birthday, sexy!

Tab Hunter - Young Love

Tab Hunter Confidential - The Making of a Movie

Tab Hunter website