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The book has been quite successful and now, we hear, you’re turning it into a documentary
that, if finished in time, may screen at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. How did all
that happen?
(Allan)
Tab Hunter Confidential
has been a
New York Times
best-seller; it was a best-seller
in paperback. It’s still in print. We’re doing the documentary on it right now.
(Tab) The documentary was Allan’s idea, and he’s producing it. We’ve interviewed some
incredible people: Robert Wagner, Debbie Reynolds, Terry Moore…When we were in New
York, we also got Gary Cooper’s daughter, Maria, who I was very close to. We got Robert
Osborne from Turner Classic Movies, who never does interviews outside of Turner Classic, and
dozens of others.
(Allan) If they’re alive, they are in it.
(Tab) Including Mother [she is now a Roman Catholic nun] Dolores Hart who gave Elvis
his first screen kiss [in “Loving You,” 1957]. She’s written a book and she’s an old friend. I
dated her many years ago.
Conversations:
(Allan) The documentary is based on Tab’s book and
it takes his journey through life with his friends and people
that he interacted with.
(Tab) It talks about the Hollywood then, which is a
totally different Hollywood from today.
Are you talking about a series, or is this a one-off; will
there be more
Tab Hunter Confidential
?
(Allan) There are two projects; one is a ninety-
minute feature film, the documentary, and then we are in
development right now on a mini-series based on the book
(It would be like
Madmen
meets
Entourage
) with Michael
Sucsy directing, who won a Golden Globe and Primetime
Emmy for
Grey Gardens
, a TV movie that starred Drew
Barrymore. He also did
The Vow
with Channing Tatum and
Rachel McAdams.
Looking around your living room, I’m searching for the
photos of you with Natalie Wood, Elvis, whatever. There is
virtually nothing. What gives?
(Allan) Tab has no ego. If he sees an old movie of his
on television that he hasn’t seen in forty years, he clicks
right through it just as if it were an ad on the Home
Shopping Network…
(Tab) But, once in a while it’s nice to stop and see an
old friend, like, “Oh my God, there’s Tuesday Weld…”
(Allan) And, if he hears one of his songs on the radio,
he’s more apt to turn to another station than he is to listen
to it. It’s part of what makes him who he is. That’s the
charming part of him. If you’d have said, “Oh, I loved
‘Young Love,’” he’d say, “Oh, Sonny James had [a better
version] of that song.”
Tab, you had a heart attack at the age of forty-nine. You
were a relatively young man.
I’ve always been an active person. I just did too much.
I’d been doing a lot of dinner theater and I had
Christmas off, so I went to Taos, New Mexico. I love
skiing and overdid it, and the second day I was up on the
mountain I had a heart attack. I had been pushing myself
hard and got really tired. I thought I’d better go down the
mountain and take it easy, but I got sick to my stomach
Variety ad for what was
billed as a comedy-
western,
Lust In The Dust,
with Divine, 1985