Hunter himself appears content with his present and at peace with his past-which is wonderful for him, if sometimes less than gripping in a movie. Tab Hunter was created by the Hollywood studio Dream Factory in its final years and filled the needs on. But while there’s interesting material in Hunter’s clandestine relationships-including with Anthony Perkins-both the details of his pre-celebrity life and the ebbs and flows of his career hold far less interest, except as an example of how so many celebrities deal with becoming “where are they now” items. 'Tab Hunter Confidential' isn’t about secrets, it is the truth about a business, society and popular culture that wants only to idolize and profit from manufactured assumptions, assembly line expectations and a packaged persona. That’s where the film is at its most fascinating, digging into the promotional machine that paired rising stars together to create a fantasy for the public, while doing everything possible to keep dirty secrets out of the public eye. In this revealing and sympathetic documentary, clean-cut matinee idol Tab Hunter candidly addresses in an intimate series of interviews what it was like to be a closeted gay actor during 1950s.

The undercurrent throughout the narrative is how the boy who was Art Gelien was turned by the Hollywood studio system into something fully manufactured and marketed-including hiding his homosexuality. By Dennis Harvey Like the autobiographical tome it’s based on, Tab Hunter Confidential provides a colorful, likable and unpretentious look at the 1950s Hollywood dreamboat who was living a.

And, perhaps predictably, some parts of that life are far more compelling than others. As Hunter related in both his 2005 autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, as well as in Jeffrey Schwarz's excellent 2015 documentary, Tab Hunter. Tab Hunter was a teen idol in the mid 20th century: he starred in dozens of films, appeared on countless magazine covers and recorded the 1 pop song Young Love in 1957.Yet the entire time. Director Jeffrey Schwarz mostly just lets his subject-1950s “All-American boy” heartthrob Tab Hunter-open up and talk about his own life. In 2005, Hunter came out officially with his Hollywood memoir, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, in which he mentioned past lovers such as Perkins and the dancer Rudolf.

Tab Hunter Confidential by Hunter