Tab Hunter [1931-2018]

Artist: Tab Hunter

LP: Tab Hunter

Song: "But Beautiful"
[ listen ]
Song: "My Baby Just Cares For Me"
[ listen ]

His "only five singing lessons" may be fairly apparent when you listen to this 1958 LP, but still, there's something about Tab Hunter's voice that hits me like a bolt of scraped velvet. Or maybe more like a bolt of scraped Polyester. Tab certainly had an interesting life, moving from young heartthrob in the 1950s to senior gay activist with the release of his autobiography in 2005, in which he finally confirmed all the rumors. But what a career! He's probably the only actor ever to have starred in movies with both Linda Darnell and Divine! It was sad news to hear that Tab suddenly collapsed and died or cardiac arrest on Sunday, just a few days before his 87th birthday tomorrow. You can find his obituary in Vanity Fair here, and go here to read more about his life and career. I just learned that Jack Warner created Warner Bros. Records in 1958 partly just to keep Tab from releasing an album with Dot Records as a follow-up to "Young Love," his #1 hit single for that label, which was owned by Paramount. Fascinating!

I'm currently making my way through "The Great Movie Stars: The International Years" by David Shipman, so I'm including Shipman's write-up on Tab Hunter here, though it only covers up until 1980, when the revised edition was published. 

The Great Movie Stars: Tab Hunter

   Of all the pretty-boy teenage idols, Tab Hunter was probably the most appealing—by half an inch or so. He did at least have glimmerings of talent and might have gone further if he had kept his own name (Arthur Gelien) and not been landed with such a silly one. It might also have helped if he hadn't looked so much like a sugar candy-bar. 

   He was born in New York City in 1931. The family moved to Los Angeles, where he was schooled. He planned to be a professional ice-skater, but did various jobs—drug-store assistant, garage-attendant, cinema-usher, sheet-metal worker, packer. He had been interested in drama at school and "when one day"—went a studio biography—"somebody told him he ought to be in pictures, he decided to do something about it. He managed to get a very tiny role in a film." That was The Lawless (1950), but he was edited out on the cutting-room floor. He got himself an agent, Henry Willson, sponsor of some other handsome young male stars, like Rock Hudson, and Willson got him tested by director Stuart Heisler, who wanted an unknown to play opposite Linda Darnell in Saturday Island (1952). He got the part to qualified approval. Variety: "Hunter, as a young marine, displays a healthy torso, but not a great deal of talent." But he now had a toe inside the glamorous door and producer Edward Small signed him to a three-picture deal: Gun Belt (1953), a low-budget Western, as George Montgomery's brother; The Steel Lady, a low-budget war film with Rod Cameron; and Return to Treasure Island (1954), opposite Dawn Addams as Jamesina Hawkins, descendant of you-know-who. The latter pair were directed by E. A. Dupont, the famous German Silent director, now mainly functioning as a Hollywood agent.

   Warners signed him to a long-term contract. He played Robert Mitchum's younger brother in Track of the Cat, cowed at first but manly later. He was one of the male line-up with Van Heflin and Aldo Ray, in Battle Cry (1955), from Leon Uris's best-seller, as a nice young soldier in love with two girls (the one here and the one back home). That one was a big box-office hit, and Hunter was already a big noise in the fan magazines. After playing a German cadet (under John Wayne's command) in The Sea Chase, Warners decided to star him: The Burning Hills (1956), a western, and The Girl He Left Behind, miscast as a spoilt rich kid who resists discipline till he's broken in and becomes as tough a non-com as there is in this man's army. Natalie Wood was the girl in both: Warners saw them as a great new screen team, but no one else did.

   Things weren't good between Hunter and Warners. He had turned down a supporting role in the egregious Liberace Sincerely Yours, and was suspended for refusing Darby's Rangers, reportedly in revenge when Warners refused to release an album he had made (he had some brief success as a singer). On TV he did 'Fear Strikes Out' and 'Hans Brinker on the Silver Skates'; and in 1957 he made this statement, "I'm typical of where publicity is a zillion years ahead of career." Warners took him back and dressed him in uniform again, a member of the Lafayette Escadrille (1958), with Etchika Choureau, but this World War I drama wasn't a success. He was loaned out for a Western with Van Heflin, Gunman's Walk; and then was good in Damn Yankees, just the right side of obnoxious as the all-American youth—Faust as a baseball player—from a hit Broadway musical with the original cast (except for him). Despite much skill and the delicious virtuoso performance of Gwen Verdon, and good notices, it was a so-so hit in the US and a failure elsewhere. None of these films pleased Hunter much; his agent demanded better parts and better terms. According to Jack L. Warner's memoir, Hunter went down on bended knees asking for his release. He got it on payment of $100,000.

   Which only goes to prove you never know when you're well off. At first he did okay: he was a young GI seeking to take That Kind of Woman (1959) Sophia Loren from George Sanders, not knowing she was That Kind—only his heart didn't seem to be in the part. He was better in They Come to Cordura, supporting Gary Cooper and Heflin, as a meanie; and excellent in The Pleasure of His Company (1961), as a country boy bewildered by the prospect of losing bride Debbie Reynolds to the long-lost father who reappears at the wedding. In Italy he made La Freccia d'Oro/The Golden Arrow (1962), some Oriental claptrap with Rosanna Podesta, playing the head of a gang of thieves. In New York he appeared in Tennessee Williams's flop 'The Milk train Doesn't Stop Here Any More' with Hermoine Baddeley. All Hollywood offered was an AIP war movie, Operation Bikini (1963), supporting Frankie Avalon. In Ride the Wild Surf (1964) he supported Fabian; the British Troubled Waters never seems to have been shown; in The Loved One (1965) he was one of the stars in cameo roles, as a cemetery guide. Then he was in a British cheapie, City Under the Sea, supporting Vincent Price. Things didn't get better: he supported TV comic Soupy Sales in Birds Do It (1966). 

   In Spain he made a low-budget comedy-thriller for PRO, The Fickle Finger of Fate (1967). It occasioned this review in Variety: "Hunter is the major surprise, and his timing and momentum are mainly responsible for the film's fluid pace. More relaxed and charming than he's been for years, he seems to have conquered the stiffness he so awkwardly projected in his Warners contract days." He was in an A. C. Lyles Western, Hostile Guns, with George Montgomery, and was then inactive. On his way to Europe to make Quel Maledetto Ponte sull'Elba (1969)—as a veteran sergeant—he said this was the best time of his life: he wasn't under contract and could pick and choose his vehicles. Like La Porta del Cannone, a second Spanish-Italian war film, and A Kiss From Eddie (1971) with Isabel Jewell. Then he had a featured role in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) with Paul Newman, and he was rather good as a crook. He didn't film again till he did one of the cameos in Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976).

Tab Hunter

[ July 11, 1931 — July 8, 2018 ]

We will miss you, Tab.

Richard Swift [1977-2018]

Artist: Richard Swift

LP: 7" single

Song: "Artist & Repertoire"
[ listen ]

I first happened upon Richard Swift when I bought his 2003 "The Novelist" CD, sound unheard, at Easy Street Records in Lower Queen Anne, just because I liked the look of him on the cover. It turned out to be a terrific set of tunes and I instantly became a fan. That Easy Street Records is gone (replaced by a branch of Chase Bank), and now Richard Swift is gone too. He died earlier this week down in Tacoma, after being hospitalized for something or other in the middle of last month. So now the brilliant Mr. Swift is suddenly dead, and yet Jeff Sessions lives on forever. I'm telling ya, it's getting so that I just can't feel at home in this world anymore. You can read about Richard Swift here, visit his website here, and go here to find his obituary.

Richard Swift

[ March 16, 1977 — July 3, 2018 ]

We will miss you, Richard.

Bauhaus

Artist: Bauhaus

LP: 12" single

Song: "Telegram Sam"
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With the arrival in my mailbox yesterday of this 1980 Bauhaus 12" single from my new friend Philippe in Poitiers, France, my early-4AD catalog collection is complete! Originally a popular single released in 1972 by T-Rex, this Bauhaus version—catalogue no. AD 17(T)—was very popular with the people of New Zealand, going all the way to #12 on their charts.

[ Bauhaus ]

Randy Bell

Artist: Randy Bell

LP: 7" single

Song: "Don't Do Me"
[ listen ]

The instructions on the cover say to cut along the dotted yellow lines, and then you end up with a sexy mini-poster of singer Randy Bell exposing his hairy chest and torso, attractively tanned. You also end up with nowhere to properly store your record. (Using the modern miracle of Photoshop, I was able to create the sexy poster of Randy without cutting on dotted lines, see below.) The poster does seem decidedly at odds with the title of the song, especially as performed by someone called "Randy." Reverse psychology, perhaps? Randy Bell's "Don't Do Me" single peaked at #90 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in July of 1984. 

I found my copy at Bill's Records when I was in Dallas, Texas, for the AIRS conference last month. The single was mixed in among about a million others that were all scattered helter-skelter on the shelves at Bill's, not in neat little stacks as shown in the photo here. Bill had warned me when I first asked if he had any 45s: "Just be sure when you're looking at them that they don't slide off the shelves and onto the floor." The man doesn't know me, clearly. Of course I put them in neat stacks after I had sorted through them, partly so they would look neat and I could tell which ones I'd already sorted through, and partly because I was hoping Bill would notice and give me a discount for helping to organize his store.

Anyway, Bill showed me his shelves of 45s, gave me a chair, and I sat down and began sifting. I found some neat things, though nothing was priced. I'd arrived at around 9pm and the store closed at 10, but Bill said he was willing to stay if I was still shopping. Finally at 10:25pm I decided I'd better head back to the hotel so I'd be fresh for my early morning at the conference the next day. (I hadn't even made it through half of Bill's singles; I could have stayed 'til 10am.) I went to the counter and handed Bill the 20 singles I wanted and he counted them several times. There were 20 every time. While I was waiting, a portly young man with the strongest, cutest Texas-hick accent I've ever laid ears on came up to the counter to purchase a single record. (He said he had traveled to the big city from a small town about an hour away.) Since all Bill had done with my order so far was count my records three times, I suggested he ring this other fellow up before he continued helping me. 

Bill looked at the record the guy wanted, flipped it over, then noted, "Al B. Sure...and it's a promo 12" single, those are rare. It doesn't have a cover..." (it's true, the guy was buying a record in a plain white paper inner sleeve, with no cardboard outer cover. And the white paper sleeve was even bent at the corners!) "...how about ten dollars?" The rural Texas Al B. Sure fanatic handed over a $10 bill as my knees buckled and I fainted to the floor. If Bill was overcharging this poor fellow by $9.85 for some stupid Al B. Sure single with no cover, what would he want me to pay for my stack of 7" singles, all with picture sleeves? 

Well, I didn't find out for about another 45 minutes. Bill instead went on to discuss his dinner (his friend had gotten it for him from McDonald's), the history of his store (Echo & the Bunnymen once played there in the '80s!), the way his clothes fit (he prefers a looser fit), his long history in the record store business (he's had a store for years!), etc...all of which was fascinating, but none of which got me any closer to my bed at the hotel, with or without these 45s. I figured this must be the Texas way of doing business, so I just nodded and smiled, nodded and smiled. Bill finally did get around to naming a price, which he told me was a deal. I'm not even going to tell you what it was, but let's just say I made a counter offer, which was rejected. I even mentioned my straightening of the shelves, but to no avail. Bill pointed out that a few of the items I wanted were imports that were new when he'd obtained them, which I have to admit is true. Bill didn't want to lose money on them. But another thing that's true is that these valuable imports had been gathering dust, stuffed in among scuffed copies of Debbie Gibson, Carly Simon, and Huey Lewis 45s on his plywood shelves since the year 1990, so they probably should have been priced to move about 22 years ago. 

I then tried to negotiate by reducing the number of singles I was buying, but after I removed some from the pile (brand new Erasure imports from the late '80s) Bill began counting and re-counting the records again and I realized I was back to square one. I finally agreed to buy all 20 singles after talking Bill down from the absurd dollar amount he was asking to a slightly lower amount that was merely ridiculous. Anyway, I'd had such a weirdly wonderful visit during my extended time there, I figured I probably owed Bill at least a little bit of money for that.

My cell phone battery had died right when I got to Bill's Records, which is why I've had to borrow photos of Bill and his store from the web. Not only was I bummed that I had no means of snapping my own pictures there, but I also had no way of radioing a Lyft driver to get a trip back to my hotel. I was planning to walk. Bill wondered aloud if this was safe, since several police officers had been assassinated just down the street several months ago. He consulted with the friendly fellow who was taking the trash out from the bar next door, and they agreed that I should walk several blocks in a different direction to catch the train instead, since it would take me downtown and drop me near my destination. The trains were running until midnight, so I still had 25 minutes. I ended up back at the hotel just after midnight. 

If you're ever in Dallas and you collect vinyl, I definitely recommend you go to Bill's...after stopping by an ATM to withdraw way more money than you'd ever imagine you would need to buy a few records.

 [ Bill's Records — Dallas, Texas ]