Arthur Andrew Kelm (born July 11, 1931, in New York City, New York) is an American actor and singer known professionally as Tab Hunter.

His father Charles Kelm was Jewish, and his mother Gertrude Gelien was Lutheran, but he was raised as a Roman Catholic. Within a few years of his birth, his parents divorced, and his mother moved with her two sons to California and all three took her maiden name of Gelien. Hunter's older brother, Walter, a medic, was killed in Vietnam. As a teenager, Hunter was a figure skater, competing in both singles and pairs.

He was signed to a contract at Warner Bros. and renamed "Tab Hunter" by his first agent, Henry Willson. His good looks got him pegged as a teen idol. He landed a role in the film Island of Desire opposite Linda Darnell. Although he believed that he had a mediocre singing voice, he had a 1957 hit record with a cover of the Sonny James song, "Young Love," which was #1 for over a month. His success lead Warner Bros to form Warner Bros Records.

While doing The Tab Hunter Show (1960-1961), he was one of the finalists for the lead in West Side Story, but didn't get the part, because the producers felt he was "too old" at 29. On July 9, 1960, he was arrested by Glendale, California police for beating his dog. He was acquitted by a jury, but the incident dealt a severe blow to his squeaky-clean image.

Hunter settled, for a short time in the late 1960s, in the south of France, where the spaghetti westerns he was appearing in at the time were filmed.

His career was revived in the 1980s when he starred opposite transvestite actor Divine in John Waters' Polyester (1981) and Paul Bartel's Lust in the Dust (1985). He also wrote and starred in Dark Horse (1992).

In his autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star (ISBN 1565124669), he admitted his homosexuality, confirming rumors that had circulated since the height of his fame; it became a best-seller. Hunter lives in Montecito, California, near Santa Barbara with his partner of 23 years, film producer Allan Glaser. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6320 Hollywood Blvd.

Filmography

• The Lawless (1950)
• Saturday Island (1952)
• Gun Belt (1953)
• The Steel Lady (1953)
• Return to Treasure Island (1954)
• Track of the Cat (1954)
• Battle Cry (1955)
• The Sea Chase (1955)
• The Burning Hills (1956)
• The Girl He Left Behind (1956)
• Lafayette Escadrille (1958)
• Gunman's Walk (1958)
• Damn Yankees! (1958)
• They Came to Cordura (1959)
• That Kind of Woman (1959)
• The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
• The Golden Arrow (1962)
• Operation Bikini (1963)
• Man with Two Faces (1964)
• Ride the Wild Surf (1964)
• War-Gods of the Deep (1965)
• The Loved One (1965)
• Birds Do It (1966)
• The Fickle Finger of Fate (1967)
• Hostile Guns (1967)
• Vengeance Is My Forgiveness (1968)
• The Last Chance (1968)
• The Legion of No Return (1969)
• The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
• Sweet Kill (1973)
• Timber Tramps (1975)
• Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
• Polyester (1981)
• Pandemonium (1982)
• Grease 2 (1982)
• Lust in the Dust (1985)
• Grotesque (1988)
• Out of the Dark (1989)
• Dark Horse (1992) (also producer and writer)
• Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996) (documentary)

External links

• Brian's Drive-in Theater

1931 births | Living people | American male singers | American film actors | Gay actors | Hollywood Walk of Fame | People from New York City