DAMN YANKEES Star Tab Hunter Dies at 86

Tab Hunter, star of the film Damn Yankees and Hollywood gay icon of the 1960s and 70s, has died. The news was announced on Facebook. The actor was 86 years old.

Hunter starred in the 1958 musical film Damn Yankees, in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington, D.C.'s American League baseball club. The film had originally been a Broadway show, but Hunter was the only one in the film version who had not appeared in the original cast. The show was based on the 1954 best-selling book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Douglass Wallop. Hunter later said the filming was hellish because director George Abbott was only interested in recreating the stage version word for word.

Hunter appeared on Broadway once, opposite Tallulah Bankhead in Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, in 1964.

For a short time in the late 1960s, after several seasons of starring in summer stock and dinner theater in shows such as Bye Bye Birdie, The Tender Trap, Under the Yum Yum Tree and West Side Story with some of the New York cast, Hunter settled in the south of France, where he acted in spaghetti westerns, including Vengeance Is My Forgiveness (1968), The Last Chance (1968) and Bridge over the Elbe (1969).

Most of Hunter's fame was found on stage, appearing notably in "Battle Cry," "The Burning Hills," "The Girl He Left Behind," and many more.

Hunter had a 1957 hit record with the song "Young Love," which was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for six weeks (seven weeks on the UK Chart) and became one of the larger hits of the Rock 'n' Roll era.

Hunter's failure to win the role of Tony in the film adaptation of West Side Story(1961) prompted him to agree to star in a weekly television sitcom.

The Tab Hunter Show had moderate ratings (due to being scheduled opposite The Ed Sullivan Show) and lasted only one season (36 episodes) but was a huge hit in the United Kingdom, where it ranked as one of the top situation comedies of the year.

In 2005, Hunter came out as gay with the publication of his autobiography Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star.