This vintage celebrity beefcake moment is brought to you by some genius of a studio exec at Warner Bros. who thought it would be a good idea to do a publicity photo shoot of Tab Hunter and Roddy McDowall together for Movies magazine. The photo above shows them cooking up wieners wearing nothing but shorts. See the full spread for Calling All Girls from June 1953 here.
Although McDowall never officially came out, the fact that he was gay was one of Hollywood's best known secrets. Overwhelmed by the Hollywood publicity machine, Hunter struggled to keep secret the fact that he was gay. Hunter came out publicly in 2005 with his book Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star
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5 comments:
Tab's book is a great read and peek into one man's life. I spent a lot of afternoons wondering what it would be like growing up in those times, facing the pressures he did, not just from his peers and work but society as a whole. A different world for sure. I am thankful as a young gay man to be living now and am excited and hopeful for the future we are helping build while standing on the shoulders of those LGBT pioneers who have gone before and gave so much.
daemon
PS: And yeah...Tab was a total hottie. :)
Haha, you said "weiner."
daemon is right...excellent book and a nice insight into all the gays of the time, the hollywood machine and a one man's struggle with his good looks and sexuality. He was also an excellent figure skater and had olympic potential. I still love his #1 hit Young Love. http://youtu.be/fDI-daG7NEE
Tab was one of the first crushes of my boyhood, along with Rock Hudson and the father of one of my friends who lived in the building opposite mine and wore his summer shirts with three buttons undone. :-)
The picture of Tab and Roddy is a classic gay image and yes, Tab's book is excellent as is Farley Granger's.
Thanks for posting the title of the magazine ( MOVIES MAGAZINE, June, 1953 ). I have seen these images of Roddy and Tab for years, and NEVER knew where they came from. It's fascinating what passed for "innocent" photos back in the 1950's. Similar to the photos of "room mates" Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, back in the 1930's.
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