Jeffrey Hunter. Most beautiful man ever put on film

Played Christ in "King Of Kings", but never made it big. Maybe he was too pretty for the screen. He died a mysterious death too.

John Derek as "Joshua" in the "Ten Commandments" is certainly in the Top Five.
Your right - in a sense, Derek was more classically beautiful. Hunter was the one you could relate to more.
OP
Shatner said that part of the reason Hunter was dropped when "Star Trek" went from pilot to series was that his wife was on set all the time and a nightmare to work with.
I think I read somewhere that his wife at that time was also his manager and she was determined that he would not become a lowly TV star. She was sure that the movies still wanted him for starring roles. It's really a shame he didn't overrule her and go with Star Trek. I am sure it would have revived his career and made him an even bigger star. He looked so fine in that uniform. His last wife was Emily McLaughlin of "General Hospital" fame, but they were married only a short time before he died.
"Trek" would have been much less enjoyable if Hunter had been the star. Shatner may have been a terrible actor, but he always looked like he was having a great time, which added a note of levity to all those deadly serious scripts. Did Hunter ever show any sign of a sense of humor? Not in anything I've seen him, and I've seens several of his bad films.
James Marsden is the most beautiful man in film, and he can be funny too
This guy? He looks like a greasy Jethro Bodean.
http://image1.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2009/56/4987_123565331187.jpg
Hunter had a good 10 years during the 50s when he was a regular 20th Century Fox contract player, along with pal/rival Robert Wagner, theres lots of photos of them hanging out together on movie sets, as they must have done at least 5 films together - there's also a shot of then fooling around in a swimming pool, I wonder just how friendly they were? - curiously RJ hardly mentions him in his book. Jeff is good to in No Down Payment in 1957, and John Ford used him 3 times (The Searchers, Sergeant Rutledge, The Last Hurrah). Wagner tested actually several times for Ford who refused to cast him - so maybe Wagner was miffed that Hunter got those parts. If Wagner got the Searchers role it would be his first pairing with Natalie, but now Hunter will always be Martin Pawley, his best known role. He is good in King of Kings but playing Jesus didn't do anything for him career-wise, it fact it may have finished his film career. He was also a good marine in several films - like Sailor to the King where he looks terrific in uniform.
He give Chung Ho the yucky case. Did he have the AIDS? Or was the gayness in him not true
Chung%20Ho
[quote]Did Hunter ever show any sign of a sense of humor? Watch him as Martin Pawley in "The Searchers." He was most beautiful in "No Man is an Island." Also, I think that Owain Yeoman looks a lot like him.
That Jethro pic is awful of him.Get one when he was younger.
This one's better. He's very good looking, but there's just something weak and unappealing about his face.
http://i2.listal.com/image/946076/600full-jeffrey-hunter.jpg
He looks a bit "wall-eyed" in that pic, R11.
Is this better?
http://content8.flixster.com/photo/10/94/87/10948774_ori.gif
Better pics.
http://community.flixster.com/photos/jeffrey-hunter-jeffrey-hunter-and-robert-wagner-9424453
Very handsome. Looks like the son of Matt Bomer with "Charmed" actor Drew Fuller.
They said in person he was extraordinarily beautiful. They said his pictures didn't do him justice. People used to joke with his first wife that her husband was more gorgeous than she was. He was so well liked because he was such a nice man. his wife who he married, who was a bitch from hell, drove him to depression and drink which he become an alcoholic. His friends were astonished why he stayed married to the witch. Sadly, he had a stroke at the top of his stairs, and collapsed tumbling down them which ultimately killing him.
Wasn't his first wife the lovely Barbara Rush when she was till a young starlet? I think she costared with him in No Down Payment. She's still with us. I remember seeing her photo in the Cabaret film revival red carpet photos just last week.
Alcoholic. Sad. What a beautiful man he was.
[quote]his wife who he married Did he have another wife that he didn't marry?
You know the man knew how to party! He was a cajun from New Orleans.
He was quite gorgeous when he was young.
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=jeffrey hunter&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&qscrl=1&nord=1&rlz=1T4TSND_en___US438&biw=1105&bih=496&tbm=isch&tbnid=0HtawVMgoqB6OM:&imgrefurl=http://www.filmbug.com/db/345152&docid=2d-Qt3dzLjwRJM&imgurl=http://cache2.artprintimages.com/LRG
The pic at R6 makes me think he could be Larry Hagman's better looking brother.
Looks like Cheyenne Jackson.
He was very handsome, but strangely bland and not compelling, to me.
I think his nose was too small for his face - almost feminine... Which wife made his life so difficult?
He was the dad on Flipper? Is that why OP is so fixated?
He and Barbara Rush are both in NO DOWN PAYMENT but not cast opposite each other, I think they were divorced by then.
Surprise anal from Robert Wagner?
http://content7.flixster.com/photo/94/24/45/9424453_gal.jpg
He had nice looking feets in King of Kings.
Brigid Bazlen, exciting new screen personality as Salome
Matt Bomer should really play him in the movie. It's too bad his life wasn't interesting enough to make a movie. My favorite Jeffrey Hunter anecdote is how he begged Sherwood Schwartz to cast him as the dad in "The Brady Bunch" but Shwartz didn't want him because he was too goodlooking.
Thats the picture I was referring to - r28. They are certainly larking around ...
r7
R28, it looks as though Wagner is the surprised one. Perhaps because he's on top for a change. Hunter was beautiful, but there was never much strength or intelligence in his face. And shaving under his arms to play Jesus was sort of creepy, although it wasn't his decision. The actual Jesus, of course, had hair under his arms. And elsewhere.
He was married three times. Barbara Rush was wife one and they had a son. Number two wife was named Joan "Dusty" Bartlett. He adopted her son and then they had two more kids. She was the manager and driving force behind his later career. Wife three was Emily McLaughlin, no kids together. At one point he was engaged to Sally Ann Howes. Lots of pics at the link. Check out the various albums. Rock Hudson and Rory Calhoun show up in a couple of the pics.
http://www.jeffreyhuntermovies.com/NewSite/photogalleries.htm
To me Jeff Hunter's story is not unusual, but it is still a tragedy. His career was basically finished off by his second wife who was not only money hungry but wanted him to make movies, and the fact that they were both alcoholics, as was Emily McLaughlin. In fact, Hunter married Emily while in a blackout - this is a true story. He had four sons, one adopted, and his bio was to be published, but one of his sons threatened this small publisher with legal action - which is ridiculous - and the publisher refused to go ahead with the book. He was nice, but he had a dark side that the alcoholism brought out. I don't think the second marriage helped. He was definitely attracted to the wrong type of woman. He was an only child (both his parents survived him) and when he didn't come home at the time he said he would, his mother would call the cops. He was good friends with R.J. Wagner, whom I believe wrote the intro for the book that will never see print. They made several films together. I think once Hunter started working in Europe, they lost touch - in fact, Wagner actually didn't know the details of Hunter's death until he was interviewed for this book. It's a sad story. In the '50s, when he was up and coming, Hunter was in the inner circle of Hollywood with important friends, and he got a lot of attention. Then it all ended. I can imagine how devastating it was. While living in Europe, once he was divorced from his second wife, he became engaged to a Hawaiian woman, but that ended. He was also heavily involved with Sally Ann Howes, who refused to be interviewed about him because it was such a sad time in his life.
He has a supporting role in "Belles on Their Toes," the sequel to "Cheaper By the Dozen." He plays a doctor and looks great in the white doctor's outfits. The white matches his teeth. It's a slight role but he is so purty in this film.
His role in "King of Kings" was dubbed "I Was a Teenage Jesus" by some critics at the time.
great photos of Hunter, Wagner, all the '50s guys in the book Dreamboats: Hollywood Hunks of the '50s, which is written in the mode of a fan magazine, but with a little more information. The text isn't the point, though.
r24 nailed it. He was absolutely perfect-looking, truly beautiful, but utterly uninteresting either sexually or intellectually. Brad Pitt has the same "meh!" effect on me, even in the days before he was started fighting the pretty.
I was going to write.... All those pretty boys of the late 50s (who were mostly clients of Henry Willson, though Jeffrey Hunter wasn't) found their careers in peril as the 60s brought a desire for more real and ethnic looking leading men like Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman and Elliott Gould. But then I realized that Paul Newman and Robert Redford did mighty well throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. I guess they clearly showed a depth, despite their beauty, that Jeffrey Hunter could not muster.
Any verificatia of size meat?
BUMP
Was he bisexual?
Written on the Wind was on TCM yesterday and I told my sister that Jeff Hunter was better looking than Rock Hudson (also John Gavin of Psycho was VERY handsome) but she disagreed. Hunter was simply gorgeous.
[quote] it looks as though Wagner is the surprised one. Perhaps because he's on top for a change. Hah! I'll say!
Barbara%20Stanwyck
I had a friend who was in show business in the '50s, and he said if you didn't look like Rock Hudson there was no hope for you. That started to change with Brando, at least the more intense style of acting, but it was really The Godfather where the more ethnic, antihero leading man really came in. And around that time, Humphrey Bogart achieved cult status. Newman was of that intense acting school, and a brilliant actor. Redford had actually been around awhile once he became a true star. I remember reading in Newsweek back then something to the effect of, despite antiheroes, "the movies always needs Tyrone Power types and Elizabeth Taylor types" - the beautiful people - so I suppose Redford was an answer to that. Jeffrey Hunter was a good actor, better than Wagner, and he could have developed into either the older, handsome man type or a character actor. He was derailed by a bad marriage and alcohol. Wagner was by far the better businessman; Hunter wasn't at all. He was definitely at his most drop dead gorgeous in No Man is an Island and also the earlier Princess of the Nile and The Searchers. Ford was very impressed with his acting.
OMG, John Gavin! I haven't thought of him in years - my grandmother had a thing for him, and thought he was the handsomest man ever on film. "Oh, he was just the living end!" she would say. It was so funny to see a woman in her 70's act like a teenage girl again. Thanks for jogging my memory, R43.
http://www.meredy.com/johngavin/wpjg04.jpg
You're welcome R46! And I don't blame your grandmother, she has good taste. [quote]Wife three was Emily McLaughlin, no kids together. They seemed to be an odd match. I didn't even know he was married to Barbara Rush.
R43
[R43] I'll say, he married her while in an alcoholic blackout as I stated in an earlier post.
Rock Hudson never did anything for me.However, many of the others sure did!
OP, if you had said Commander Pike, I would have known who you were talking about:
http://mimg.ugo.com/200710/15372/pike-hunter.jpg
My mother told me that the stairway in his home was being worked on by construction workers and that he was so drunk and took so many pills that he forgot and went to walk down the stairs in the middle of the night ... and bumpity bump. He aged badly.
[R47] The studio was planning to publicize his marriage to Barbara with lots of pomp, so the two of them eloped. Their son was a photographer in LA for a long time, but now he does something involving computers.
Despite the spur of the moment marriage, he was happy with Emily- she had her own career on "General Hospital" as nurse Jessie Brewer, and she was very much in love with him. Unfortunately he had injured his head while doing a stunt on a foreign movie months earlier and I believe it went unchecked or it was misdiagnosed. He was suffering from periods of bad headaches and disorientation and his drinking only masked the symptoms. Jeff suffered his fatal fall at home while Emily was at the GH studio. By all accounts she never really got over losing him as she thought she had finally found a good man after a painful divorce from actor Robert Lansing a few years earlier. Ironically, if Jeff hadn't turned down the chance to do the second "Star Trek" pilot at Dusty's insistence, he wouldn't have done the movie shoot that ultimately killed him AND he would have done the series instead of Shatner, doing the episode "Assignment: Earth" with guest star Robert Lansing!
Herb%20Ritzcracker
[quote]The studio was planning to publicize his marriage to Barbara with lots of pomp, so the two of them eloped. Smart move.
[R51] It was a couple of steps leading into the den, and it was actually during the day that it happened. He knocked over a planter when he fell. It definitely happened because he was drinking but also because of the undiagnosed concussion he got overseas. He suffered some bizarre accidents after that.
I remember Barbara Rush from No Down Payment, Strangers When We Meet (as the wronged wife of Kirk Douglas who is having an affair with Kim Novak) and as the Maid Marian character in the Rat Pack's Robin and the Seven Hoods. She always seemed to have a lot of class and apparently left the business in the 1960s.
Considering that Hunter died in 1969 at age 42, it looks like 'Star Trek' made the right decision to go with Shatner who has lived a long life and is still going at 80+. If they had gone with Hunter then Captain Kirk would have been dead in 1969 and would have had to be re-cast for all the big screen films that came in the 70's and 80's.
[quote]I remember Barbara Rush from No Down Payment, Strangers When We Meet I love her in both of those movies, especially "Strangers". She was also in Sinatra's Come Blow Your Horn. And oh wait a minute, Jeffrey Hunter was in No Down Payment too, they were married at the time?
[R56] Barbara didn't quit work until 2007 - she has a heart condition and no longer works.
He was gorgeous in those Western movies but started to look like an attractive used car salesman by the time he was 30.
Why was Robert Lansing a bad husband? He was fired from a series in which he starred, but the show continued...was it '12 O'Clock High'? He was so cool as Gary Seven but I read that had the episode spun off to series neither he nor Teri Garr would have been cast.
He looked great either as a cowboy, marine or guy in a suit. Another good early one is 1952's Dreamboat with Clifton Webb who surely found Jeff interesting, just like he did Wagner in that '53 Titanic film they did. He and Natalie in The Searchers are so perfectly 50s, and so inonic - he has a nice bath scene too when Vera Miles walks in !
John Gavin was gorgeous as Trevor Graydon in "Thoroughly Modern Millie."
What in the world was Barbara doing in show biz in the 2000s? Or even the 1990s?
Apparently there is a bio of Jeff all ready to go, but somebody put a stop to it by threatening to sue. He looked good with a little touch of gray in his hair.
http://www.jeffreyhuntermovies.com/NewSite/InPrint/AfterDeath/Screenplay0969.pdf
R46, John Gavin is still alive and is in his 80's. He's one of the only stars from 'Spartacus' left other than Kirk Douglas and Herbert Lom.
I read somewhere that John Gavin is half Mexican.
I think I heard he's part-Latino, yes, R67. Some sites list him as uncut too.
R 68's comment. Only on DL would someone put those 2 facts together !
Constance
John Gavin was the US Ambassador to Mexico for many years, anyway. His wife (think she's still with us!) is former Broadway and Hollywood star Constance Towers.
LOL! And so true. Marry me, R69.
I was in a production of Mame starring Constance.
Constance is still working. She is on General Hospital playing Helene, a role initially played for a brief time by Elizabeth Taylor.
Helena Cassadine is still on General Hospital? Is it a recurring character? I don't think she's on regularly.
[R73]Yes, Helena is a recurring character. Towers still does stage work as well. [R65]Unfortunately the book is with a small, easily intimidated publisher, and his son made threats so they decided not to do it. He has no grounds to sue at all. [R64] I'm not sure I understand your question. Why wouldn't she be working? She had a recurring role on Seventh Heaven. She's also done quite a bit of stage work. She looks sensational.
R57 apparently doesn't get it. If he had been Captain Kirk, he wouldn't have wound up doing the movie that gave him the injury that ultimately contributed to his premature death. Dipshit.
Jeffrey Hunter had the most beautiful blue eyes, which were only exploited on film or in pictures every once in a while. He never got the same degree of build-up that RJ Wagner did at Fox. There are a few examples of his pretty baby blues on this site, but do enlarge them for the full effect.
http://neptsdepths.blogspot.com/2009/12/sweet-jesus.html
I agree R77, Jeff did have beutuiful blue eyes. I remember seeing King of Kings on the big screen when I was a kid and being mesmerized by those blue peepers. Seeing some of the pics on this thread just made me realize how uch he looked like the love of my life. Except his eyes were green not blue.
Part of the problem with King of Kings is that as a Hebrew, Jesus presumably wouldn't have had piercing BLUE eyes.
R78, the Roman Empire was very cosmopolitan, and full of Franks and Gauls, so who knows? And it's well known that the Holy Spirit has blue eyes.
[italic]A Kiss Before Dying[/italic] is available on Amazon Prime. I watched it the other night. Hunter and Robert Wagner were both gorgeous in it.
The most beautiful man EVER is Alain Delon...gorgeous and CAPTIVATING!! Redford once said,"there are alot of good looking people who are shallow and vapid and who don't succeed." There is a nice pic of JH with Tab Hunter-also hot- in Tab's autobio. Delon & Redford became SUPERSTARS.....Jeff & Tab did not.
Anonymous
Jeffrey in 'A Kiss before Dying'', with Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward
http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Hunter%2C%20Jeffrey/Annex/Annex%20-%20Hunter%2C%20Jeffrey%20%28A%20Kiss%20Before%20Dying%29_01.jpg
His first wife, actress Barbara Rush was very beautiful. She is also alive and kicking! High five to her~
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_OQmEa5OKyOI/S_VoT5DWReI/AAAAAAAAUs4/jFEAlMwbox8/s1600/BarbaraRush0101.jpg
Barbara Rush was a very very beautiful woman! She is still charming for her age. She has played with many great stars and actors in many great movies.
http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/21900000/barbara-rush-classic-movies-21977233-475-514.jpg
BARBARA RUSH!
http://rootdigger2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/barbararush11.jpg
He is beautiful but kind of boring beautiful.
His eyes were spectacular.
His wife was more interesting than him by far.
In #85's pic, Rush looks like latter - day Loretta Young.
Withered%20Jean%20Louis
R89 ok...however Barbara was far more elegant than Loretta. She aged gracefully too.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lra2xgizzr1qf826yo1_500.jpg
I miss Chung Ho.
R91 irrelevant. Fuck you very much.
I just watched Jeffrey Hunter in A Kiss Before Dying on TCM yesterday. He was even cute with glasses. I love Barbara Rush. She was in one of my favorite movies sort of obscure movies "Strangers When We Meet" with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak and a couple of Sinatra movies I like.
Barbara Rush did some sort of public service tv ad in Chicago around the time of the Bicentennial and talked about Rush Street being named for her Declaration of independence-signing ancestor, Dr. Benjamin Rush.
Just%20bragging%20that%20I%20am%20old%20and%20have%20a%20weird%20memory.
[quote]I just watched Jeffrey Hunter in A Kiss Before Dying on TCM yesterday. He was even cute with glasses. I saw that too and thought he would have made a terrific Clark Kent/Superman.
[quote]Part of the problem with King of Kings is that as a Hebrew, Jesus presumably wouldn't have had piercing BLUE eyes. It was even more unbelievable how they showed him speaking in modern English and everyone around him understanding it and answering him back in the same language.
Barbara Rush has played with the most beautiful men of classic Hollywood: Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman, Rock Hudson, Richard Burton, John Derek, Tony Curtis, Rory Calhoun, Sterling Hayden, Stewart Granger, Ryan O'Neal. She also shined along two of the greatest actors of all times, Fredrich March and James Mason. In addition, she played alongside Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, David Niven! As an actress,this woman appeared in so many things...let alone that she married one of the most beautiful men of cinema. Jeffrey Hunter was beautiful indeed, however he wasn't as resilient as Barbara and he met death too soon because of that difficulty he had to copy with life and art. R93, i believe that in ''A Kiss before Dying'', Jeffrey was at his handsomest.
http://therockhudsonproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Rock-Hudson-and-Barbara-Rush-rehearse-for-their-dancing-scene..jpg
R95, you're right, he would've been perfect for that. [quote]i believe that in 'A Kiss before Dying', Jeffrey was at his handsomest. He was also especially handsome in No Down Payment (with Barbara Rush) and in this creepy episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents with Vera Miles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DAOUDfxe7rR0
R98 thank you very much for your link! :)
You're welcome R99!
So what are the mysterious circumstances of his death? Didn't he fall or something? Or was he "pushed"?
His fall was an accident. He didn't get pushed. He was also a heavy drinker... After the cancellation of his television western series "Temple Houston" (1963) in 1964 and his decision not to continue in the lead role of the new series "Star Trek" (1966) in 1965, his career took a downturn, and Hunter eventually wound up in Europe working on cheap westerns, at the time a sure sign of a career in trouble. In 1969 Hunter suffered a stroke (after just recovering from an earlier stroke), took a bad fall and underwent emergency surgery, but died from complications of both the fall and the surgery.
[quote]If they had gone with Hunter then Captain Kirk would have been dead in 1969 and would have had to be re-cast for all the big screen films that came in the 70's and 80's If Hunter had been cast as Captain Kirk, future events would have changed, he wouldn't have died *and* he would have ended up doing Priceline commercials. Haven't we learned anything from Looper?
My Future Self
Jeffrey Hunter with Rock Hudson... I detect some gay vibes in here
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/young-rock-hudson-juls-adams.jpg
Barbara Rush (actress and Jeffrey Hunter's first wife)with Paul Newman in 'The Young Philadelphians'. This movie has some very charming scenes in it.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3167/2958335896_c6d263bf00.jpg
A great scene from 'The Young Philadelphians' with Barbara Rush and Paul Newman.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq9hvrdmqu1qbsjqno1_r1_500.gif
Ray Liotta looks like he could have been Jeff Hunter's love child.....
To me, Jeffrey was a big fool that he let Barbara go.
http://cdn.chud.com/5/5c/500x1000px-LL-5cefce49_vlcsnap-2011-01-23-17h48m36s155.png
Rock looks like the cat who is about to swallow a blue eyed bird in that pic at r104. But, it was said that Rock liked them big, blond, dumb and full of cum, so maybe not so much with seducing Mr. Hunter.
Jeffrey was probably in the closet and he couldn't accept that. There was something that was intensely homosexual in him.
http://img2.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/g/g/ggaue4opie4g4epg.jpg
Robert Mitchum and Jeffrey Hunter try the local baguette on the location of 'The Longest Day' Lolz!
http://acertaincinema.pemomo.com/workspace/media/mitchum-hunter-break-day_opt.jpg
In # 104's pic , Hudson seems the more masculine of the 2 - maybe cause he's just a bigger guy, and Hunter's features are more 'pretty' than Rock's, I.e. delicate nose, beautiful eyes. Both stunning.
Mark%20Christian
He looks like Cheyenne Jackson.