Tab Hunter set for tell-all doc

Actor to bare H'w'd secrets in film

By MICHAEL FLEMING

In what could be the most honest performance of his career, Tab Hunter will appear in "Tab Hunter Confidential," a documentary in which he promises to candidly describe what it was like to live a lie.

The docu, titled after Hunter's 2005 autobiography, in which he discussed keeping his homosexuality secret so he could be sold as a heterosexual matinee idol, will be directed by Jeffrey Schwarz. Schwarz has directed Hollywood docus including "Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon"--about gay adult film star Jack Wrangler's marriage to singer Margaret Whiting -- and "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story," on the genre filmmaker.

Pic will be produced by Allan Glaser and Neil Koenigsberg.

Koenigsberg said Hunter's pledge to cooperate with the film came out of interviews Hunter and Glaser (Hunter's longtime partner) did with Schwarz for "I Am Divine," a docu that Schwarz is directing about the cross-dressing star of the John Waters films. Hunter starred in (and Glaser produced) the Divine starrer "Lust in the Dust." Schwarz and Hunter agreed to tell the story of Hunter's own transformation from a teenage stable boy to famous actor under contract to Warner Bros. at a time when Hollywood carefully controlled the images of its stars.

Christened Arthur Gelien, Hunter was given his stage name by rep Henry Willson, and soon he had a hit record in "Young Love" and starred in films including "Damn Yankees." Magazine covers and gossip columns had him romancing young beauties, and Hunter didn't dare reveal his sexuality, and relationships with the likes of closeted actor Anthony Perkins.

"This will be as frank as Tab's book," said Koenigsberg. "While he and Tony Perkins were lovers, they were on the covers of magazines that asked which of them would get married first. Has it changed that much in Hollywood? If a virile old-fashioned movie star came along like Tab, how would the studios, the financiers and the public respond to the idea he might be gay? Would that star not have to stay in the closet, like Tab and Rock Hudson?"

What about Neil Patrick Harris, the openly gay actor who plays a rambunctious hetero bachelor in the top-rated CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother?"

"You still think of Neil as the child actor, cute and adorable, but with Tab, it was all about selling flesh," he said. "The film will also explore Tab's relationship with Henry Willson, this manager who had a stable of stars he exploited. Tab talks about the studio machine, how the publicists and the execs would lock the door and say, 'There are rumors.' They were basically told who to romance, and when Rock Hudson was told to get married, he did. Tab has plenty of stories about the old studio system, about being under contract and how they swept everything under the rug."

Koenigsberg said he and Glaser are in conversations with financiers and distributors.