Tab Hunter Confidential Page #4

(SINGING) What a wonderful

wedding there will be.

What wonderful day

for you and me.

He came along at a

very brilliant time.

It was the beginning of the

teenage revolution in America.

He had a million and one

crushes from the largest group

of teenagers that has

ever lived in the United

States, the baby boomers.

They were the ones who would

make a career overnight,

and they cerainly

did with mine.

I can't help it.

I've got a very bad

case of Tab Hunter-itis.

I know just how you feel.

I had Tab's

pictures on my wall.

We all did.

My wall was covered with

pictures of Tab Hunter.

Young girls just

were crazy about him.

The minute they took a

look he became their guy,

and he was marketed

to those people.

It was the movie

magazines that really

made him a huge star, more than

the flms that he was making.

TAB HUNTER:
The kids

kept demanding all of it,

so I would get things like "Tab

Hunter Buys a Hat," "Tab Hunter

Drives a Car," "Tab

Hunter Cleans a Window,"

"Tab Hunter Goes to the

Beach-J' wee! (LAUGHING)

One of the magazines

had a contest,

and I won a date in Hollywood

with Tab Hunter in 1956.

Was I nervous?

I could hardly breathe.

When I frst saw Tab Hunter,

I was very intimidated.

And he smiled, and that

smile was just truly magical.

Tab Hunter was the

hearthrob that I had

seen in the movie magazines.

And we had dinner and dancing.

I could not believe,

Jo-Ann, here you

are dancing with Tab Hunter.

My date was over, and

he gave me a kiss.

I felt like

Cinderella, and I had

a kiss from my Prince Charming.

It was a dream-come-true.

In the 1950s love and

marriage was the ideal theme.

It's not always very real.

The studios had a system.

And they always wanted their

starlets to go out on a date

with a beautiful, handsome boy.

And the one they

chose was Tab Hunter.

He was a guy that all the

girls wanted to go out with.

Of course I wanted to meet

Tab Hunter because he was

the big young male star

at Warner Brothers,

and I was the big female

star at Columbia Pictures.

And so we had to date.

He was a gentleman.

He always came around

and opened the doors.

He picked up checks.

And my parents liked him.

It was fun.

We did all sors of things.

We did all the things that

normal people do on dates.

But we had a third person who

was a photographer with us.

He was the kind of boy every

mother would want to have

married into her family.

He had an honesty.

He had a simplicity.

He a cerain strength

of character.

He would not let anybody down.

We got along great because

he was always fun and sweet.

And he wasn't after me,

so he wasn't on the make.

And women like that.

I really was a very naive,

young, innocent girl,

and I would never think that the

most handsome boy would be gay.

TAB HUNTER:
I

would never discuss

my private life with anyone.

I was able to get close to

them, but I never really went

that deep in the relationship.

I had the ability to

live behind this wall.

And you only allow people

to break the barrier

if you feel you

can confde in them

and you want to have

that friendship.

INTERVlEWER:
What was your frst

relationship with another guy?

Pfoof.

(LAUGHING) The frst

relationship I had

was when I was ice skating

with a fellow skater.

INTERVlEWER:
Can you

tell me about that?

What do you want to know'?

(LAUGHING) I always

loved fgure skating.

I competed in the regionals,

and I went to the nationals.

I enjoyed just being on the ice.

He was a very good skater and a

very strong competitor as well.

A lot of his friends were

ice skaters- champion ice

skaters with the Ice Capades.

Mouseketeers, meet

Ronnie Roberson.

Hi, Ronnie!

Hi, Mouseketeers.

Hi, Bob.

Ronnie Roberson was known

as a great technician.

His skating was different

than anybody else's skating.

And he could spin faster

than anybody in the world.

Nobody ever spun that well.

He was a major talent.

We had an attraction

for one another.

And I drove him home one

evening after a skiing session.

Nex thing, we were

in a relationship.

I'm sure there was

talk about Ronnie

and myself in the skating

world, paricularly

if you've got a talent and

people are jealous of it.

There were times when I was

cerainly stressed hearing

things that had been said.

But you learn when you're in the

public eye to comparmentalize.

A big issue as

that Tab was around.

And the political game at that

time is you don't do that.

There was one skater

that didn't like the fact

that Ronnie and I were

friends and took a skate blade

to my new car and

just went right

down the side, (SCRATCHING

SOUND) to the paint.

Tab came to the championships

with Ronnie Roberson.

Ronnie was told

that he would not

win the championships unless

Tab would not come along.

And Ronnie said,

it didn't matter.

He wanted him there.

And Ronnie skated- oh,

magnifcent performance.

The fact that I was

there with Ronnie

might have hur his ability to

win, and he should have won.

My mother never really approved

of the Hollywood stuff.

Being private was

very imporant to her.

She only visited me on a set

twice in all of the years

I was in the business.

She did one interview

for a magazine,

but it was like pulling

teeth to get her to do that.

People would say,

oh, Mrs. Gelien,

aren't you excited about Tab'?

And my mother would

say, yes, it's nice,

but Walter's the

intelligent one.

My mother was always

a very intense woman.

She had a lot of

pressure in her life.

She was very high strung.

While I was doing

"Battle Cry" I was

in touch with my mother a lot.

And I noticed a change

in her behavior.

She would fy off the

handle rather quickly.

She was ranting

on behind a closed

door in the bathroom in German.

And she ran out into the street

and collapsed in my arms.

It just got more out of control

and more out of control.

My mother totally lost it,

and I had to commit my mother

to a mental institution.

And it was very diffcult to do.

And on the way there I

said, Mom, please try

to understand what I'm saying.

I really feel bad about this.

And she said, I know.

I know.

I had to commit my mother.

I mean, there was

nothing else that I

could think should be done.

She had to have 37

electroshock treatments.

I went down there to

see her, of course.

I remember walking in,

and she was lying in bed,

and they shaved her head where

she had all the treatments.

And as I walked in she said,

why did you do this to me'?

She was very fragile when I went

to see her, but she was better.

When I saw my mother,

as helpless as she was,

I swore that she would

never have to work

another day in her life.

Hello, I'm Tab Hunter.

Did you know that mental

illness claims more

victims than any other disease?

That's right.

One American in every 10 is

suffering from some disabling

mental or emotional disorder.

In the 1950s being gay was

absolutely not acceptable.

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