Showpeople: Young Hollywood dating habits ...

An occasional series (see label) highlighting the camp glamour side of show-business and those who toil therein,  featuring lots of our favourite people ...

Amusing looking back at the '50s fan magazines on the dating habits of young Hollywood then - surely it is a whole lot different today, or is it ? Here we see Tab and Tony on their various double-dates with those obliging gals Venetia Stevenson, Natalie Wood, Terry Moore and the other girls who knew the score and how to get publicity ... the boys seem a bit bored with it all though, such are the perils of being a teen heart-throb. 

They also of course tried their hand at singing, Tab in particular having several hits, like "Young Love". I liked his 2 movies with Natalie, capturing that mid-'50s teen period perfectly, after James Dean, but before Elvis and Sandra Dee.

Perkins probaby had the better career, I remember first reading about in him a fan magazine "Screen Album" when he was doing LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL on Broadway, and was an interesting intense new actor, and we liked him in FRIENDLY PERSUASION and the others (like my favourite THE SEA WALL in '58, as label), and then working not only with Hitch but also all those European ladies in the '60s (see Perkins label for GOODBYE AGAIN with Ingrid). He died aged 60 in 1992, he had married Berry Berenson (who perished in the 9/11 attacks) and they had 2 sons;  but Tab is still here and looking good in his mid '80s (as per that new 'Vanity Fair' photograph) ... his biography was a good read too on Hollywood back then ... The boys must have been photographed together almost as many times as pals and frequent co-stars Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter; or Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun, or Cary Grant and Randoloph Scott back in the '30s.

They also too both starred with Italian import Sophia Loren in her early American films: Perkins with her in DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS in 1958, rather risible now, as per review at label - and in 1962's FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT, a routinely effective thriller. Tab was the marine falling for her in Lumet's 1959 THAT KIND OF WOMAN, where our old pal George Sanders (see last 2 posts below) was her rich protector! It was a find recently. 

Tony visits Sophia & John Wayne on LEGEND OF THE LOST.  Could he look gayer?