For decades, the gay love affair between heartthrobs Tab Hunter and Anthony Perkins was one of Hollywood’s best and simultaneously worst kept secrets.
Their romance was the subject of the 2015 documentary Tab Hunter Confidential and is currently being made into a movie called Tab & Tony, which is being produced by Zachary Quinto and J.J. Abrams.
Related: The secret love affair between Tab Hunter and Anthony Perkins is getting the Hollywood treatment
Now, in a new essay published by Attitude, Hunter recalls the very first time he laid eyes on Perkins:
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It was a hot day so I swung by the Chateau Marmont for a swim. And that’s when I first saw Tony. He was there with a songwriter friend, and they were all around the pool. He had just been filming Friendly Persuasion with Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire. I went for a swim and when I came out my friend Venetia Stevenson said, “Oh I want you to meet Tony – do you know him?” We hadn’t met, but I already knew that he was a very fine actor. He was at Paramount and I was with Warner Brothers. We just chatted and got on and soon we were starting to see each other.
Since they couldn’t be seen in public together, Hunter says he and Perkins had to be very discreet.
“We couldn’t just go out for dinner together or go see a movie because we were both getting so popular back then,” he says, adding: “One summer we took a little beach house with his family and friends, it was quite wonderful. But it was always out of the public eye.”
Hunter also recalls how different studios had different policies regarding gay actors:
Warner Brothers never said a word about my sexuality, and that’s just the way I wanted it. However, Paramount did have something to say about my relationship with Tony, and they told him they didn’t want him to see me anymore. Every studio was run by an executive who had their own policies and their own ways of doing things. And Paramount ran a really tight ship.
As well as their inevitable breakup, which actually happened over a movie role:
I was pitching for a movie called Fear Strikes Out, about a famous baseball player, but Tony got Paramount to buy it and went for the role. It made a difference to our relationship. I felt betrayed; I was really disappointed by that. It was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back. We sort of separated, I guess we just outgrew each other and then we lost touch for a while.
Looking back, Hunter describes Perkins as “a special part of my journey.”
“He wanted to be a movie star more than anything,” he writes. “I wanted that too, but not with the same kind of drive he had. We were such opposites–but then maybe that was the attraction.”
Related: EXCLUSIVE CLIP: Tab Hunter Was So Cute It Was “Like A Flying Saucer Landed”
crowebobby
Anthony Perkins and Andrew Garfield look very much alike. And both are super how without being classically handsome or pretty.
crowebobby
I meant super “hot” obviously (?)
Mandrake
I agree both were/are hot, but I don’t think they look that much alike at all.
crowebobby
Mandrake: Okay.
Mandrake
It must have been a tough break for Tab when Tony got the role in “Fear Strikes Out” because Tab was much more athletic, but actually, Tony was the better actor.
e.c.
It was actually a major betrayal on Tony’s part. Tab had played the roll on stage and was working to get the studio to make the film for him when Tony snagged it for himself.
mujerado
“Fear Strikes Out” was never adapted to a stage play. Tab Hunter played the role on a half-hour TV adaptation, part of the “Climax!” series, before the movie was made. Whether it was a “betrayal” or not I leave to others.
Agent9902
Perkins was “eerily” hot to this closeted teenage tv watcher back in the early 80’s. By this time, Psycho was legend – and showing up on late night tv. Hunter was before my time, however. Very proud of them both! ????
Agent9902
The question marks at the end of my comment above were supposed to be a pride flag emoji. 🙂
Moritz
Anthony Perkins always had a certain brooding charm, but Tab was unnervingly beautiful. In some photos he is so beautiful that he almost doesn’t look real. And that body.
Perkins was more the skinny, thoughtful type while Tab was the wholesome boy next door. Too bad Tony had to marry a woman. I hope it wasn’t societal pressure that lead him to it.
johnnymcmxxx
The best actor to be Perkins is the great young actor Andrew Garfield. I think of Anthony each time I see Andrew Garfield. For the stunningly beautiful Tab, only a Colton Haynes, with his perfectly beautiful yet wax-like perfection of face and body, could work. The rest of today’s young male actors are scruffy messes. None of them are pretty enough except for a few who are both physically and spiritually wrong for the part.
Squeak
None of them IS . . .
ptb2016
I have the documentary at home. When I first watched it, I kept thinking how good looking Tab Hunter still is. Dorian Grey came to mind with me asking if Tab has a portrait up in the attic!
Dont think Andrew Garfield anything like Perkins except that both are tall and skinny. But isn’t that the trouble making movies about icons, they are icons and I don’t think we have any any more. Not in movies anyway. A TV movie last year with Helena Bonham Carter playing Elizabeth Taylor was awful, as Elizabeth had so much charisma, and those incredible eyes.
Chris Hemsworth has loads of charisma, but though he could read the phone book and I’d pay to watch him do it, he’s not an icon.
winemaker
Tan Hunter had a 30 minute show in the very early 60’s called appropriately, ‘the Tab Hunter Show’, duh. I don’t recall much of it but it might be on U-TUBE. Sadly he passed away a few years ago. He was in his early 80’s