Rock Hudson

Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. on November 17, 1925, in Winnetka, Illinois, the only child of Katherine (née Wood), a homemaker and later telephone operator, and Roy Harold Scherer Sr., an auto mechanic. His father was of German and Swiss descent, while his mother was of Irish ancestry. He was raised as a Roman Catholic. During the Great Depression, Hudson's father lost his job and abandoned the family. Hudson's parents divorced when he was four years old; a few years later, in 1932, his mother married Wallace Fitzgerald, a former Marine Corps officer whom young Roy despised. Roy was adopted by Fitzgerald, and his legal name then became Roy Harold Fitzgerald. The marriage eventually ended in a bitter divorce and produced no children. Hudson attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, the same high school as fellow movie stars Charlton Heston and Ann-Margret. At some point during his teenage years, he worked as an usher in a movie theater and developed an interest in acting. He tried out for a number of school plays, but failed to win any roles because he could not remember his lines, a problem that continued to occur through his early acting career. == Career ==

1943–1948: Military service to acting debut Hudson graduated from high school in 1943, and the following year enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. In 1946, he returned to San Francisco aboard an aircraft carrier, and was discharged the same year. In 1948, Hudson made his acting debut with a small part in the Warner Bros. film Fighter Squadron directed by Raoul Walsh; according to a 21st-century source, it took 38 takes for Hudson to successfully deliver his only line in the film. Universal-International Hudson was signed to a long-term contract by Universal-International. There he received coaching in acting, singing, dancing, fencing and horseback riding, and began to be featured in film magazines where, being photogenic, he was promoted. In 1950, he acted in One Way Street, Shakedown, I Was a Shoplifter, Peggy, ''Winchester '73, and The Desert Hawk.'' In 1951, Hudson was billed third in William Castle's The Fat Man. He played an important role as a boxer in Joseph Pevney's Iron Man. Other acting credit in that period include Bright Victory, Tomahawk, and Air Cadet. Leading man Hudson was promoted to leading man for Scarlet Angel (1952), opposite Yvonne De Carlo. He co-starred with Piper Laurie in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952), the first of his films directed by Douglas Sirk. He also appeared as a gambler in Bend of the River (1952). He supported the Nelson family in Here Come the Nelsons (1952). In Horizons West (1952) Hudson supported Robert Ryan, but he was star again for The Lawless Breed (1953) and Seminole (1953). In 1953, he appeared in a Camel commercial that showed him on the set of Seminole. He and De Carlo were borrowed by RKO for Sea Devils (1953), an adventure set during the Napoleonic Wars. Back at Universal he played Harun al-Rashid in The Golden Blade (1953). There was Gun Fury (1953) and ''Back to God's Country (1953). Hudson had the title role in Taza, Son of Cochise'' (1954), directed by Sirk and produced by Ross Hunter. Magnificent Obsession and stardom Hudson was by now firmly established as a leading man in adventure films. What turned him into a star was the romantic drama Magnificent Obsession (1954), co-starring Jane Wyman, produced by Hunter and directed by Sirk. The film received positive reviews, with Modern Screen Magazine citing Hudson as the most popular actor of the year. It made over $5 million at the box office. Hudson returned to adventure films with Bengal Brigade (1954), set during the Indian Mutiny, and Captain Lightfoot (1955), produced by Hunter and directed by Sirk. In 1954, exhibitors voted Hudson the 17th most popular star in the country. Hunter used him in the melodramas One Desire (1955) and All That Heaven Allows (1955), which reunited him with Sirk and Wyman. in Giant (1956), the film that led to his only Academy Award nomination Forming of 7 Pictures Corporation and Giant On September 9, 1955, Hudson formed his first film production company, 7 Pictures Corporation, with partners producer Henry Ginsberg, his agent Henry Willson, and his lawyer Greg Bautzer. Hudson owned only 36% of the company's stocks, with Ginsberg owning the second-largest share with 35%, Wilson with 16%, and Bautzer with 5%; the remaining 8% was owned by Hudson's then-wife Phyllis Gates. Though Hudson's exclusive contract with Universal-International Pictures allowed him to produce films outside his obligation to the studio, he was not allowed to appear in them unless he was granted permission for each film. Hudson was reunited with the producer, director and two stars of Written on the Wind in The Tarnished Angels (1958), at Universal. He then made Twilight for the Gods (1958) and This Earth Is Mine (1959). Romantic comedy star and forming Gibraltar Productions in Darling Lili, one of the many romantic comedies he filmed in the 1960s Ross Hunter teamed Hudson with Doris Day in the romantic comedy Pillow Talk (1959), which was a massive hit. Hudson was voted the most popular star in the country for 1959 and was the second most popular for the next three years. Hudson told the press that he wanted to co-star in ''Let's Make Love'' with Marilyn Monroe but Universal-International Pictures denied him permission; the role went to Yves Montand. In late 1959, Hudson formed a new film production company, Gibraltar Productions. Now that his contract with Universal-International Pictures was about to end, he used his company to lease his acting services to Universal-International Pictures (and others), retaining a percentage of his film's profits, and with the added freedom to pick his own roles. The previously formed 7 Pictures Corporation was only briefly used because its assets were co-owned by Hudson's ex-wife Phyllis Gates; after the divorce, Hudson only produced through Gibraltar Productions, but Gates sued for a share in that company, too. Hudson later sold his assets of 7 Pictures Corporation to MCA, in exchange for stock in MCA/Universal-International Pictures. After The Last Sunset (1961), co-starring Kirk Douglas and produced for Douglas' company Bryna Productions, Hudson made two comedies: Come September (1961) with Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, directed by Robert Mulligan; and Lover Come Back (1961) with Day; both films were produced through his 7 Pictures Corporation. He also tried his hand in the action genre with Tobruk (1967), directed by Arthur Hiller. After the comedy A Fine Pair (1968) with Claudia Cardinale, he starred in the action thriller Ice Station Zebra (1968) at MGM, a role which remained his personal favorite. The film was a hit but struggled to recoup its large cost. In November 1969, Andrew V. McLaglen's The Undefeated, a western with Hudson starring opposite John Wayne, was released. He co-starred as a World War I flier opposite Julie Andrews in the Blake Edwards musical Darling Lili (1970), a film notorious for its bloated budget. In 1971, he starred in another unsuccessful film, Roger Vadim's Pretty Maids All in a Row. Television During the 1970s and 1980s, he starred in a number of TV movies and series. His most successful television series was McMillan & Wife opposite Susan Saint James, which ran from 1971 to 1977. Hudson played police commissioner Stewart "Mac" McMillan, with Saint James as his wife Sally, and their on-screen chemistry helped make the show a hit. During the series, Hudson appeared in Showdown (1973), a western with Dean Martin, and Embryo (1976), a science-fiction film. Hudson took a risk and surprised many by making a successful foray into live theater late in his career, and the best received of his efforts was I Do! I Do! in 1974. After McMillan ended, Hudson made the disaster movie Avalanche (1978) and the miniseries Wheels (1978) and The Martian Chronicles (1980). He was one of several stars in ''The Mirror Crack'd (reuniting him with Giant co-star Elizabeth Taylor) (1980) and co-starred in The Beatrice Arthur Special'' (1980). Later years In the early 1980s, following years of heavy drinking and smoking, Hudson began having health problems which resulted in a heart attack in November 1981. Emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery sidelined Hudson and his new TV show The Devlin Connection for a year, and the show was canceled in December 1982 soon after it aired. His health problems forced him to turn down the role of Col. Sam Trautman in First Blood. Hudson was the first to narrate for Disney's Candlelight Processional at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World for its opening year in 1971. His final appearance as narrator was in 1984. Hudson recovered from the heart surgery but did not quit smoking. He continued to work, appearing in several TV movies such as World War III (1982). He was in ill health while filming the action-drama The Ambassador in Israel during the winter months from late 1983 to early 1984. He reportedly did not get along with his co-star Robert Mitchum, who had a serious drinking problem and often clashed off-camera with Hudson and other cast and crew members. From December 1984 to April 1985, Hudson appeared in a recurring role on the prime time soap opera Dynasty as Daniel Reece, a wealthy horse breeder and a potential love interest for Krystle Carrington (played by Linda Evans), and biological father of the character Sammy Jo Carrington (Heather Locklear). While Hudson had long been known to have difficulty memorizing lines, resulting in his use of cue cards, his speech began to visibly deteriorate on Dynasty. He was scheduled to appear for the duration of the second half of its fifth season; however because of his progressing ill health, his character was abruptly written out of the show and died off-screen. ==Personal life==

While his career developed, Hudson and his agent, Henry Willson, kept the actor's personal life hidden from the public. In 1955, Confidential magazine threatened to publish an exposé about Hudson's secret homosexuality. Willson stalled this by disclosing information about two of his other clients: Rory Calhoun's years in prison, and the arrest of Tab Hunter at a party in 1950. According to some colleagues, Hudson's homosexual activity was well known in Hollywood throughout his career, and celebrity friends Julie Andrews, Mia Farrow, Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Saint James, Audrey Hepburn, and Carol Burnett claimed to have known about his homosexuality and kept it a secret for him. Soon after the threat from Confidential, Hudson married Willson's secretary Phyllis Gates. Gates later wrote that she dated Hudson for several months, lived with him for two months before his unexpected marriage proposal, and married Hudson out of love and not (as it was reported later) to prevent an exposé of Hudson's sexual past. Press coverage of the wedding quoted Hudson as saying: "When I count my blessings, my marriage tops the list." Gates filed for divorce after three years in April 1958, citing mental cruelty (a standard practice at the time to bypass the mandatory wait for divorces to be approved). Hudson did not contest the divorce and Gates received alimony of $250 per week for 10 years. She also owned assets in Hudson's independent film production company, 7 Pictures Corporation, which was formed during their marriage, and later sued the actor to obtain shares in his new film production company, Gibraltar Productions, which he had formed after their divorce. According to the 1986 authorized biography Rock Hudson: His Story by Sara Davidson, Hudson was good friends with novelist Armistead Maupin, who states that the two had a brief fling. The book also names some of Hudson's lovers, including Jack Coates, Tom Clark (who published the memoir Rock Hudson: Friend of Mine), actor and stockbroker Lee Garlington, and Marc Christian (born Marc Christian MacGinnis), who later won a suit against the Hudson estate. In 2005, Bob Hofler published a biography of Hudson's agent Henry Willson, titled The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson. He told The Village Voice that Phyllis Gates attempted to blackmail Hudson about his homosexual activities. The LGBTQ news magazine The Advocate published an article by Hofler, who claimed that Gates was actually a lesbian who believed from the beginning of their relationship that Hudson was gay. An urban legend circulated in the early 1970s that Hudson had "married" actor Jim Nabors, who was also secretly gay, and the subject of rumors to that effect. Hudson and Nabors were nothing more than friends. Hudson, after briefly pursuing legal action, mostly brushed off the rumors and said "some people are going to believe whatever they want to believe". Nabors was deeply hurt by the rumors, considering them to be "horrible." Politically, Hudson was a conservative Republican; he campaigned and voted for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election. ==Illness and death==

and First Lady Nancy Reagan at a May 1984 White House state dinner, less than three weeks before he was diagnosed with AIDS. Unknown to the public, Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS on June 5, 1984, three years after the emergence of the first cluster of symptomatic patients in the United States, and a year after the initial conclusion by scientists that HIV causes AIDS. Over the next several months, Hudson kept his illness a secret and continued to work, while at the same time traveling to France and other countries seeking a cure or treatment to slow the progression of the disease. During a visit to London in 1984, he gave a rare solo TV interview; appearing gaunt on BBC's Wogan talk show, he reviewed his career, declaring that fate had played a huge part in his success. On July 16, 1985, Hudson joined Doris Day for a Hollywood press conference, announcing the launch of her new cable TV show ''Doris Day's Best Friends'', for which he was the inaugural guest. His emaciated appearance was such a shock that clips of the reunion were broadcast repeatedly over national news shows that night and for days to come, with media outlets speculating on Hudson's health. Later, Day acknowledged that Hudson "was very sick. But I just brushed that off and I came out and put my arms around him and said 'Am I glad to see you. Two days later, Hudson traveled to Paris for another round of treatment. After he collapsed in his room at the Ritz Hotel in Paris on July 21, his publicist Dale Olson released a statement claiming that Hudson had inoperable liver cancer. Olson denied reports that Hudson had AIDS and said only that he was undergoing tests for "everything" at the American Hospital of Paris. In Paris, Hudson was denied access to the Hôpital d'instruction des armées Percy, where he was hoping to receive experimental treatment, on the grounds that he was not a French citizen. On July 24, Olson sent a telegram to the Reagans, with whom Hudson had been friendly, to ask for their intervention. They were hoping that “a request from the White House or a high American official would change [the head of the hospital’s] mind”. On the same day, a White House staffer responded that "Mrs. Reagan [...] did not feel this was something the White House should get into" and advised them to contact the U.S. Embassy in Paris instead. Hudson was later admitted to the hospital thanks to an intervention from French defence minister Charles Hernu. On July 25, Hudson's French publicist Yanou Collart confirmed that Hudson had AIDS. He was among the earliest mainstream celebrities whose diagnosis was reported to the public. Hudson flew back to Los Angeles on July 30, chartering a plane because airlines refused to transport a patient with AIDS. He was so weak that he was moved by stretcher from the Air France Boeing 747 he had chartered; he and his medical attendants were the only passengers. He was flown by helicopter to UCLA Medical Center, where he spent nearly a month undergoing further treatment. He was released from the hospital in late August 1985 and returned to his home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles for private hospice care. At around 9 a.m. on October 2, 1985, Hudson died in his sleep from AIDS-related complications at his home in Beverly Hills at the age of 59. Hudson requested that no funeral be held. His body was cremated hours after his death and a cenotaph later was established at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, California. His ashes were scattered in the channel between Wilmington, Los Angeles and Santa Catalina Island. The disclosure of Hudson's AIDS diagnosis provoked widespread public discussion of his homosexuality. In Logical Family: A Memoir (2017), gay author Armistead Maupin, who was a friend of Hudson, writes that he was the first person to confirm to the press that Hudson was gay in 1985. Maupin explains that he confirmed it to Randy Shilts of the San Francisco Chronicle and that he was annoyed that producer Ross Hunter, also gay, denied it. In its August 15, 1985, issue, People magazine published a story that discussed his disease in the context of his sexuality. The largely sympathetic article featured comments from show business colleagues, such as Angie Dickinson, Robert Stack, and Mamie Van Doren, who claimed they knew about Hudson's homosexuality and expressed their support for him. as a result of this and other stories, Hudson's homosexuality became public. Hudson's revelation had an immediate impact on the visibility of AIDS and on the funding of medical research related to the disease. Shortly after Hudson's press release disclosing his infection, William M. Hoffman, the author of As Is, a play about AIDS that appeared on Broadway in 1985, stated: "If Rock Hudson can have it, nice people can have it. It's just a disease, not a moral affliction." In a telegram that Hudson sent to a September 1985 Hollywood AIDS benefit, Commitment to Life, which he was too ill to attend, Hudson said: "I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive worth." Organizers of the Hollywood AIDS benefit Commitment to Life reported that it was necessary to move the event to a larger venue to accommodate the increased attendance following Hudson's announcement that he was suffering from the disease. Shortly before his death, Hudson made the first direct contribution, $250,000, to amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, helping launch the non-profit organization dedicated to AIDS/HIV research and prevention; it was formed by the merger of a Los Angeles organization founded by: Michael S. Gottlieb, Hudson's physician, his friend and co-star in two films Elizabeth Taylor, and a New York-based group. However, Reagan did phone Hudson privately in his Paris hospital room where he was being treated in July 1985 and released a condolence statement after his death. After Hudson revealed his diagnosis, a controversy arose concerning his participation in a scene in the television drama Dynasty, in which he shared a long and repeated kiss with actress Linda Evans in one episode (first aired in February 1985). When filming the scene, Hudson was aware that he had AIDS but did not inform Evans. Some felt that he should have disclosed his condition to her beforehand. At the time, it was incorrectly thought that the virus was present in low quantities in saliva and tears, but there had been no reported cases of transmission by kissing. Later in the same year, the guild issued rules requiring that actors be notified in advance of any "open-mouth" kissing scenes with a provision that they could refuse to participate in such scenes without penalty. Linda Evans appears not to have been angry at Hudson, and asked to introduce the segment of the 1985 Commitment to Life benefit that was dedicated to Hudson. She later stated that she had been puzzled at the time by Hudson's dispassionate performance in the kissing scene, and attributed it to an abundance of caution. ==Legacy==

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Hudson was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (located at 6116 Hollywood Blvd). Following his death, Elizabeth Taylor, his co-star in the film Giant, purchased a bronze plaque for Hudson on the West Hollywood Memorial Walk. In 2002, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. ==Lawsuits==

Following Hudson's death, Marc Christian, Hudson's former lover, sued his estate on grounds of "intentional infliction of emotional distress". Christian claimed that Hudson continued having sex with him until February 1985, more than eight months after Hudson knew that he had HIV. Although he repeatedly tested negative for HIV, Christian claimed that he suffered from "severe emotional distress" after learning from a July 25, 1985, newscast that Hudson had been diagnosed with AIDS. Christian also sued Hudson's personal secretary Mark Miller for $10 million because Miller allegedly lied to him about Hudson's illness. In 1989, a jury awarded Christian $21.75 million in damages, later reduced to $5.5 million. Later, Christian defended Hudson's reputation in not telling him he was infected: "You can't dismiss a man's whole life with a single act. This thing about AIDS was totally out of character for him", he stated in an interview. In 1990, Hudson's live-in publicist, Tom Clark, and publicist Dick Kleiner published Rock Hudson, Friend of Mine. In the book, Clark said he believed Hudson acquired HIV from blood transfusions during quintuple bypass open-heart surgery in 1981, never acknowledging that their relationship went beyond being roommates, and characterized Christian as disreputable. Christian filed a $22 million libel suit against the authors and publisher, charging that he had been labelled "a criminal, a thief, an unclean person, a blackmailer, a psychotic, an extortionist, a forger, a perjurer, a liar, a whore, an arsonist and a squatter". In 2010, Robert Park Mills, the attorney who represented the Hudson estate against Christian in court, released a book titled Between Rock and a Hard Place: In Defense of Rock Hudson. In the book, Mills discusses details of the trial and also questions Christian's allegations against Hudson. ==Filmography==

Hudson was parodied as actor Rock Quarry in The Flintstones episode "The Rock Quarry Story" (1961). Hudson has been the subject of three plays: Rock (2008), starring Michael Xavier as Hudson, For Roy (2010), starring Richard Henzel as Hudson, and Hollywood Valhalla (2011), starring Patrick Joseph Byrnes as Hudson. The story of Hudson's marriage was depicted in the 1990 TV film Rock Hudson, starring Daphne Ashbrook as Gates and Thomas Ian Griffith as Hudson. Hudson is portrayed by Jake Picking in the 2020 miniseries Hollywood, a revisionist tale of post-World War II Hollywood. Kelly Clarkson has a song of her tenth album Chemistry called "Rock Hudson". Released in 2023. ==See also==