I’m not really Tab Hunter, movie star. But today I may as well be. I’m really Jeremy Madison, movie star. Okay, I’m not really Jeremy Madison, movie star, either. I’m Stanley Trenton, nobody. My agent named me Jeremy Madison the day he signed me, six long years ago. But today, all day, he’s been calling me Tab Hunter. As if being the subject of a false tabloid outing scandal weren’t bad enough, he has to call me names. And I had to Google the name to even get the joke.
Tab Hunter was a closeted box-office star in the fifties whose agent created a phony relationship between him and Natalie Wood to cover up his homosexuality. I don’t fully understand his reference, since the truth is I’m not gay and this publicity fiasco does not involve a bogus relationship. But according to the maniacal mind of my raving-lunatic agent, whom I’m secretly afraid I would be nothing without, the truth is irrelevant and I am the new Tab Hunter. I will give him this: like Tab Hunter’s, my success is closely tied to my looks. I’ve made eight movies in the last six years, a track record that has brought me the overnight success and stardom that I always wished for. Careful what you wish for, I guess.
I wasn’t a child actor, but close to it. I was cast in my first role just days after graduating from Los Angeles High School of the Arts. It turned out I’m quite castable. I’m the boy next door. I’m a high school rebel. I’m a geek. I can even put on a superhero costume and believably save the world from impending doom in the nick of time. I’m also turning thirty next year. So I am afraid. I worry that my days of playing twentysomethings are numbered and that there will be no place for me in the next Hollywood decade. It’s partly because of this that I play the Hollywood publicity game as little as possible—it seems like the best approach to lasting fame. I avoid the paparazzi and a few years back even moved to Manhattan, where it’s easier to keep a low profile. Being publicly outed, even falsely, was hardly keeping a low profile.
I was in a limo heading down Lexington Avenue to the premiere of my latest movie at the Ziegfeld. Hank, my agent, was screaming at me on the phone, making it very hard for me to think. Since his normal talking voice starts at the level of a scream, when he actually screams it’s like he’s screaming through a megaphone.
The fiasco that had him screaming began twenty-four hours ago, when I walked in on my fiancée having sex with her personal trainer. Apparently the trainer-trainee cheating scenario has become commonplace. The lethal mix of innocent touching and tweaking and body-clinging spandex often leads to much less innocent touching, tweaking, and body clinging. After the shock wore off I did what any actor in my shoes would do in that situation: I called my agent. Hank labeled the whole thing boring, adding to my mounting insecurity with this gem of a comment: “The last thing I need is ten percent of boring.”
He claimed that as well as being boring, I would look bad if the truth came out. Can you believe that? She’s unfaithful and I’m the one who’d look bad if the story were to break. He said it implies that I can’t satisfy her. “Sex symbols do not have fiancées who cheat with trainers.” He instructed me to keep the whole unfortunate occurrence among the four of us and attend my premiere tonight alone. When people ask where she is, as they will, because she is a Victoria’s Secret model with celebrity of her own, I should “just say she’s under the weather instead of under the trainer.”
Truth? While it felt really crappy to walk in on that scene, part of me feels like I dodged a bullet. It was tough being with her. One star is hard enough to hide on the streets of New York—it’s almost impossible for me to have dinner without interruption, or even see a movie. Try hiding a star plus a Victoria’s Secret model. Especially one with no desire to be hidden. And two egos like ours would never have made for a happy family life. We both suck so much oxygen from a room that our children would’ve needed nebulizers just to breathe. Throw in my deep-seated trust issues, stemming from my parents’ horrific marriage, and we were doomed from the start. I need a nice girl; a pretty girl, yes, but not one whose pretty is bankable. A girl I can trust with both my heart and my ego. And while my ego is bruised, I’m happy that it was bruised in private. So sure, it sucks to be cheated on, but now I’m free to find the right girl.
I felt like the worst was behind me. Until I woke up this morning and the worst was on the front page of the New York Post.
Jeremy Madison, GAY.
Seriously, that was the headline. I was enraged for so many reasons. First, over my complete lack of privacy. Second, that GAY is still news—front-page all-caps news, no less. Third, that it wasn’t bad enough that she cheated on me and lied to me. To cover it up, she chose to lie to the whole world about me! Apparently she had no problem appearing barely clad on the pages of a magazine but wanted to appear saintly in her “real” life.
Since no one told her I was going to remain silent—though Hank claims he told her agent, who promised to tell her manager, who was supposed to tell her publicist—she had obviously felt the need to get her story in the press first. The article went on to describe how she had been my supposed beard, covering for me to protect my multimillion-dollar career. (Enter Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood, once nicknamed Natalie Wood and Tab Wouldn’t!) She cried about how difficult it was to be engaged to a closeted gay man. Night after night of rejection left her feeling ugly and empty, and she had to fill herself with…well, we all know what she filled herself with.
The reason my agent was just screaming at me is that I was refusing to take a shill to the premiere and refusing to make a statement. I don’t think my sexual orientation or anyone’s sexual orientation is news unless they want it to be.
I told my agent that I’m not interested in talking to the press.
His response: “I’m glad that talking doesn’t interest you, because if you don’t talk now, pretty soon no one will want you to talk at all. At least not onscreen opposite a leading lady for the ten mil you got for your last film!” He stopped screaming for a split second and said, relatively calmly, “Did you wear the pink tie I sent over?”
I laughed. “So we’re embracing the gay angle now? You want me to wear a pink tie?”
“No!” he yelled. “I mean yes. Yes, it’s October first, breast cancer awareness month—I told you this, the whole cast is wearing them.” I had totally forgotten. He continued, “Are you looking to give the press more evidence that you don’t like breasts? You are to walk into that premiere with a woman on your arm and a pink tie around your neck or so help me god you will never work in this town or the other town again!” He hung up.
I looked out the window at the street sign—63rd and Lexington, just a few blocks away from hundreds of ties. I alerted the driver. “Sir, I need to stop at Bloomingdale’s to pick up a pink tie.”
I entered the store at around six-thirty, with only half an hour to go until the premiere. My plan was, I would walk down the red carpet at the last minute, alone, and avoid an inquisition from reporters. As I reached the tie counter my phone rang again. This time it was my publicist, Albert. He comes across much tougher on the phone than in person. Face-to-face he’s a bit of a mush.
Our conversation unfolded like the setup for a meet-cute in an eighties romantic comedy script.
ME: Albert, what took you so long?
ALBERT: I spoke to Hank. I’ve been waiting for you to come to your senses.
ME: What senses? I stand at no comment.
ALBERT: No comment means you’re gay.
ME: So? You’re gay.
ALBERT: That’s correct, but you’re not. If you were, I would be your biggest cheerleader. But you’re not.
ME: Did I ever tell you that my brother’s gay?
ALBERT: The first day I met you.
ME: Oh, sorry about that. Well, anyway, how would it look to him if I made a big deal of denying that I was gay?
ALBERT: It would look like you’re not gay.
ME: I think it would hurt his feelings.
ALBERT: You’re being ridiculous, Stanley.
He always calls me Stanley when he is very serious about something. He thinks it grounds me. It doesn’t.
ME: Don’t you appreciate my attempt at solidarity?
ALBERT: What solidarity? You’re not gay! Go solidate somewhere else and leave your brother and me be.
ME: I don’t think solidate is a word. Hold on, I’m getting a pink tie.
ALBERT: A pink tie? Is that a joke? Are you trying to kill me?
I put the phone on the counter and asked the saleswoman, whose name tag read Lillian, for a pink tie. She was an older black woman with beautiful silver hair who looked eerily like my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Glass. It was clear that she had already recognized me and had been listening to every word of my conversation. She was slightly giddy, the way some people are when they see a famous person.
I had no idea what kind of fan she was: the kind who would keep her mouth shut, completely containing her excitement; the kind who would say, “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I loved you in Bridge and Tunnel” (my last movie, in which I played a one-eyed serial killer, so it’s odd for people to say they loved me in it). Maybe she was the kind who would ask for a selfie with me, which I doubted; there must be some kind of rule in the Bloomingdale’s employee handbook against that. Or maybe she was the kind who mistakes her familiarity with me as one that goes both ways. This is more common than you might think. It’s amazing how many fans will chat you up as if you know them as well as they think they know you.
Albert had not adhered to my request to hold on and was now shouting, a very non-Albert thing to do. He was so loud he might as well have been on speakerphone. The eighties rom-com continued.
ALBERT: Stanley, buy a masculine tie!
I laughed for the first time in two days. I picked up the phone for a second.
ME: I’m supposed to buy a pink tie. You and Hank really need to communicate better.
ALBERT: Please, Stanley, you need to bring a girl. I will bring one for you.
ME: I don’t mind you picking out my tie, but a girl? Forget it.
LILLIAN: I know the perfect girl for you.
Bingo. Lillian was the familiar kind. The kind who thinks my public and private personas are one. She thinks from watching me on The Tonight Show and reading about me in People magazine that she knows me well enough to fix me up. Albert heard her as well. He shouted.
ALBERT: Who’s that?
ME: The lady who’s selling me the tie.
I looked at her name tag again.
ME: Lillian.
ALBERT: Take the girl too, Stanley. Take the girl.
ME: Albert, this is nuts!
LILLIAN: What’s nuts? She’s a nice girl. Better than the big-mouthed tramp you were engaged to. I read the papers. Who’s Albert, your agent?
ME: My publicist. She wasn’t always a big-mouthed tramp.
LILLIAN: Not my business. Let me talk to him.
This couldn’t get any more ridiculous, so I gave her the phone.
LILLIAN: Albert, let me bring him up to my friend Ruthie on three. She’s like our resident consigliere. She can fix anything.
It had been a long twenty-four hours and somehow, after the betrayal and all the screaming, turning my life over to the Bloomingdale’s mafiosi seemed like a reasonable course of action. Besides, I trusted them; unlike my publicist and agent, they were only making commission on the tie. Lillian, still talking to Albert on my phone, motioned for me to follow her up two escalator flights to the third floor. There she approached three other salespeople: a woman around her age who seemed to be the fixer, name tag Ruthie; a Latin-looking guy around my age, name tag Tomás; and a younger woman whose back was to me. At least she looked younger; I couldn’t totally tell from behind.
They listened to Lillian intently, the consigliere eyeing me rather obviously, the younger one taking a quick peek over her shoulder, the guy staring openly. Her quick peek in my direction revealed that the younger woman was in fact younger. And she was pretty—unconventionally pretty and kind of sexy. I watched as she turned back to the group and emphatically shook her head: No way. She was refusing a date with a movie star. This just made her seem even sexier. But then Lillian whispered something in her ear. Whatever it was sealed the deal. She turned, walked over to me, and smiled. “I’m Natalie.” (I tried not to dwell on the coincidence.) “Give me ten minutes. I assume a little black dress is appropriate?” I smiled and nodded. She smiled back and was off.
Up close she was quite beautiful. Not model beautiful, thankfully. The kind of beautiful that radiates from her smile. The kind of beautiful I remembered from high school. Back then, before I was famous, I could trust that a smile was a smile with no further agenda. Now when a girl is nice to me, I have to question her motives. I hate being so distrusting, but fame has its downsides. Lillian handed me back the phone and I told Albert I had the date and the tie and that he should tell Hank I would be there soon. I promised to hold her hand, and when the press shouted questions at me I would just sweep by with my pretty date, saying that I was late.
“Just calmly late, though, not White Rabbit late,” he warned.
I promised to act calm and Albert was happy. Natalie returned in an elegant little black dress, and quite surprisingly, for the first time in a long time, I felt happy too.