The Not So Secret Now History of Hollywood

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Even though they came out seven years apart I personally read Tab Hunter's autobiography right around the same time that I read bisexual pimp to the stars Scotty Bower's book, and so they're pretty mashed-up in my head. That's not that weird, given the fact that they're both about The Closet in Classic Hollywood. And then they each got turned into buzzy documentaries, too. Anyway it seems Hollywood itself has them mashed up in their minds as well because not even a month after announcing a film is being produced about the secret romance between Tab and Anthony Perkins comes word that Bowers' book is itself being bio-pic-ized. 

The director of the Bowers documentary is producing the bio-pic but that's all we've got so far, name-wise; still it's a pretty juicy chance given all the huge Hollywood stars that Bowers says used his services - Rock Hudson, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (!!!), oh and that threesome Scotty says he had with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott. Not to mention that Bowers himself was movie star handsome - it'd be a killer role for an up and comer. Who might you cast?

Fear Strikes Out Gays

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The relationship between the actors Anthony Perkins & Tab Hunter in the mid-1950s is one we've covered here at MNPP plenty over the years - here's a little post but really just scroll through our Tab Hunter Archives and you'll see Tony all over the place. These classic Hollywood gay romances (see also Cary Grant & Randolph Scott) fascinate me, as I think they do any movie-loving homosexual so it was only a matter of time before Hollywood, full of movie-loving homosexuals itself, caught up. And by "caught up" I mean "gave a gay person enough power to produce something of this sort." 

Enter Zach Quinto! He's teaming up with his Star Trek buddy JJ Abrams to produce a movie about those two titled Tab & Tony, which will apparently take its inspiration from Tab Hunter's (wonderful) autobiography of a couple years back and which had a couple of chapters devoted to their time together. What I think is especially interesting about this is those two have never really seemed like they had the great love affair we might want to ascribe to them - it always seemed like they probably had some really good sex but that was followed by just a couple of deeply difficult years together, made all the harder by a business that refused to let them just be, but also by a mis-matched clash of personalities.

Those two factors fed one another, obviously - their relationship fell apart when Tony pursued a film role, that of baseball player Jimmy Piersall in the 1957 film Fear Strikes Out (and a terribly, terribly apt title, that; that could probably be the title of the bio-pic itself), which was a role Tab had just played for TV; basically Tony swept in and stole Tab's big role out from under him. 

Anyway as soon as this news broke last night everybody on Twitter was throwing out casting ideas - this was a good one, I thought...

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Well because it should be Andrew Garfield and Billy Magnussen.

— Ryan (@sortathatguy) June 6, 2018

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... although they're both 10 years older 

than Tab & Tony were at the time. 

I thought maybe you could go this way:

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I have to think about it more but you could probably just throw a couple of random twinks from Dunkirk in there and call it a day pic.twitter.com/Rshf733ogO

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 7, 2018

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But I am putting it to y'all!

Give up some casting ideas in the comments...

Good Morning, World

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The actor Randolph Scott was born on this day 119 years ago (that comes out to the year 1898, in case you're math impaired) -- Mr. Scott had plenty of career on his own but he's probably most often thought of as Mr. Cary Grant these days, and for good reason.

It's a thought worth thinking. They'd have been the Brad and Angelina of their day, if they'd been able to. We've posted some of the pictures of the two of them cavorting before - click here for those. Homo History did a good job recapping their long relationship right here - the two were married several times to women (most likely entirely for publicity's sake but who knows) but they always came back to each other. Anyway this morning we're gonna focus in on the one movie they made together...

... the delightful 1940 comedy My Favorite Wife with Irene Dunne. Love this passage about the making of the movie from the just linked recap of their love affair:

"... the script supervisor Bert Granet for My Favorite Wife recalled Cary and Randolph's unusual behavior on set: “We shot the pool sequence at the Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. Cary and Randy Scott arrived as a pair and, to the total astonishment of myself, the director, and the ultra-macho crew, instead of taking separate suites moved into the same room together. Everyone looked at everyone else. It seemed hardly believable.”"

And as per usual with Grant everybody on set being in on his "little secret" led to the movie blaring his gayness in the audience's face while totally getting away with nobody in the audience getting that in the slightest.

(Well a few members of the audience would have, but a select few.) That's how the movie introduces the two - with Cary practically doing a Tex Avery wolf-whistle while watching Randolph flop around in his itty bitty shorts. And the very next scene we get a Great Moment In Movie Shelves out of it!

Cary just can't get that fella out of his head.We've all been there, dude. Anyway somebody was kind enough to cut all of their scenes together right here but you really should see My Favorite Wife if you haven't - it is very funny and Irene Dunne, as usual, is the best. Happy birthday, Randolph! I know there's not an afterlife but it's still a nice thought thinking of you and Cary forever swinging together all the same...

Which is Hotter?

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Did anybody else catch the 1933 Western To the Last Man on TCM last night? I started watching just to kill time before Game of Thrones and Randolph Scott looked so dashing in his cowboy couture, and had so much chemistry with his brother Buster Crabbe...

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Ooh Randolph Scott & Buster Crabbe DEFINITELY did it pic.twitter.com/bgOs73ABlI

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 23, 2016

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... I couldn't quite stop watching it. It was pretty great, as far as 1933 Westerns go -- there's a rather amazing scene where someone shoots the head off of Shirley Temple's dolly that shouldn't be missed by anyone who reads that sentence and immediately thinks "That should not be missed." And there's a terrifying rock avalanche that kills like twenty people at once that I should probably do for our "Ways Not To Die" series some day.

Anyway naturally I found myself looking up pictures of Randy during the movie and lord knows I have seen (and posted) some pictures of him and his "roommate" Cary Grant before, but never this rather spectacular shot below...
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Randolph Got The Power

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I know it's not fair to Randolph Scott, he had his own accomplished acting career and everything, but since I came to know him first as Cary Grant's "roommate" my first instinct upon seeing him anywhere is to think instant homosexual shenanigans. And so this picture of him and Tyrone Power on the set of 1939's Jesse James, well, all I could think of was what I'd give to have been a fly on the wall of their trailers during that shoot.

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Gratuitous Grant & Scott

Shameful admission time: Cary Grant has never done it for me. Oh I get that he was a charmer, and I've always enjoyed him in everything I've seen him in. But as far as getting my engine going? Notsomuch. I get a lot of grief at home for this; the boyfriend's ideal man I do imagine would be Roger "The 'O' stands for nothing" Thornhill. But... no. Just ain't there. Ain't never gonna be there at this point (the closest he ever came was in The Awful Truth for the record.) Anyway I saw a few minutes of To Catch A Thief over the weekend - I would happen to turn on TCM during the fireworks scene; how could I possibly change the channel during that? - and so my thoughts turned to Mr. Grant, and then from there my mind chugged along to his longtime "roommate" Randolph Scott. Naturally. So why not throw together all the pics I could find of the two of them?

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