10 Hollywood Legends You've Probably Never Heard Of

Born Arthur Kelm, later Gelien, the boy who would become known as Tab Hunter was a competitive figure skater as a teenager before signing up to join the coast guard at fifteen years old, lying about his age to enlist. While his peers were getting wasted in bars on leave, Kelm was going to the movies, earning him the nickname ‘Hollywood’.

By 1955, the newly-minted Hunter had become one of Tinseltown’s biggest young leading men, appearing in eighteen features in that decade alone. In 1956, despite innuendo-laden tabloid articles trying hard to out him as gay, Hunter received 62,000 Valentines cards from fans. The takedown stories - which were based in truth: Hunter had been in a relationship with fellow actor Anthony Perkins for several years - had been okayed by his former agent, in exchange for said tabloids laying off his more established client Rock Hudson.

None of it mattered. For that short period, Hunter’s rise was undeterred by scandal. A top recording star, as befitted a teen idol, his 1957 single ‘Young Love’ was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks, eventually selling over a million copies. That was the impetus for Jack Warner to create Warner Bros Records, insisting that Hunter’s contract player status with the studio meant that any future records should be released through them.

That’s music history for you, right there - but Hunter’s legacy wouldn’t be musical. Teen idols may not have vast staying power, but between 1955 and 1959, with quality movies like Battle Cry (1955), Damn Yankees (1958) and Gunman’s Walk (1958), Tab Hunter was Warner’s top grossing star. And he still looks like a matinee idol today, at eighty-five years old.