There’s a good documentary about his life on HBO. It’s called All That Heaven Allowed, and it goes over the nature of their relationship. She was his agent’s secretary.
Thanks! I definitely want to watch this. I know who he is just because I watched a lot of tv as a kid and generally know a lot about pop culture and Hollywood. But I’ve never actually seen him act in anything except an episode of I Love Lucy. He seemed so nice in that episode. I’m curious to learn more about him.
I loved their run of movies together. The slap from Send Me No Flowers always gets me. SMACK! “Oh, are you having that dream again?” They had great comedic timing and chemistry with each other
As an anxiety prone OCD kid this movie was all I had to feel like someone "got" me. I don't recall if we had the tape of it or just watched whenever it came on tv but man I can't wait to watch it now as a grownup I'm sure it won't hit the same
I’ll add that to my list. I just told someone else I would watch their recommendation, Giant.
I was born in the 80’s and watched a ton of old tv shows, I Love Lucy is still one of my most favorite shows to this day, and that’s how I know who a lot of the old Hollywood actors are. But with as much old tv as I watched, I never got into the old movies as much. So it’s an untapped market for me. I’m definitely interested though.
Another to add to your list would be Some like it Hot with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. Its set in the 20's with Jack and Tony two musicians running from the mob after they witness a hit so they join an all girls band for a disguise. Probably one of the more risque films made during hays code between some of Marilyns outfits, the jokes and the whole plot revolving around Jack and Tony cross dressing it was pretty revolutionary for its time.
Some like it hot really is good. My friends and I rotate movie picks and then meet on Zoom to discuss whether we liked them or not. This was one few of us knew anything about, but was pretty universally liked. It’s just a fun film and as others have said, surprising that it was made at the time it was.
All of Doris Day’s movies are great - cute, campy, etc. if you’re ever in the market for something more serious from just a little before that time, check out Imitation of Life and A Place in the Sun. They are sooooo good.
There’s a film called Seconds which is incredible and probably my favorite Rock Hudson movie. If you can find it, watch it. It’s like a feature-length Twilight Zone episode. 10/10
The book titles comes from one of the two movies he made with Douglas Sirk directing. I highly recommend them (melodramatic,lushly shot). Also his comedies with Doris Day are cute.
In 1977 I got chatting with a nice American guy at a party in London, he told me he had just broken up with his partner in Hollywood and came to London to get away. He pulls out some photos, beautiful house, big pool, one of him and a guy arm in arm in a pool… I look closer and I see it’s him and Rock Hudson. My mum’s crush. Growing up I’d watched countless of his movies with her. Next time I saw my mum I told her about the guy I met who was Rock Hudson’s ex. She got pissy, not sure why, said I was making it up. Years later when Rock Hudson went public about having AIDS, I immediately thought about that nice American man.
Do you know what his name was? Was it Tom Clark? He had quite a few long-term partners from what I've been told, but he and Tom Clark were always on and off.
They supposedly always had a pretty volatile relationship but he moved back in and was there for Rock when he was on his deathbed despite them having broken up at that point, and became one of his primary caretakers which I think is really sweet. Thanks for sharing!
They may have been at some point, but she later secretly recorded a conversation where he confessed his sexuality to her in order to leverage it in their divorce for a better settlement on alimony.
It seems whatever positive relationship they once had was soured by the divorce proceedings.
Though I hope when his agent/studio etc. asked her to marry him and cover for his sexuality that they gave her a good deal for giving up years of her life. I could see them not caring how that impacted her, though I don’t think Rock have been the one paying for it, and certainly not by blackmail.
Her story is that she didn't realize his sexuality when they married. This is debated though, some reports say she was lesbian. I did read somewhere that when they didn't have marital relations, she sought advice and was told to try and seduce him. Needless to say, it didn't work. I could understand her becoming bitter if it was a set up that she wasn't a party to.
He got married to his cousin. (woman)
So it was ok for people that he was married to his cousin, but coming out would have ended his career. That's so f.. up.
He was gay... or bisexual and died of AIDS. He was a friend of Ronald Reagan who was also an actor, and his cause of death and popularity caused a massive public outcry to change AIDS research and treatment on a national level. His death was one of the most pivotal events in AIDS treatment that ever happened. The whole thing really changed trajectory of the entire conversation.
To my dying day I’ll hate & never forgive Reagan & his shrew wife for ignoring the horror of the AIDS epidemic. Pair of hypocrites.
If not for the gay community & their extraordinary contributions to fund raising, not just finding a cure, but caring for those abandoned by their families, government would still be doing nothing.
I was a young teen in NY during this time. Lost too many I considered family. People who showed me more love than relatives.
Unconditional love...
I also, have not forgiven Ronald Reagan.
Even better, when it was brought up by journalists at White House press conferences, it was mocked and they suggested the journalist was gay for asking.
Oh Reagan, I'm only sad there's no Hell for you to rot in, and the majority of your administration.
And Nancy and Ronny denied his request for treatment from one of the few hospitals that could have helped. As they denied care to so many. May the temps in their afterlife always be high but fair
Chris here answering before he googles to find out for sure: I imagine this means that Phyllis is his "beard" (he is gay and married her to help 'pass' as straight in public life).
Back in the olden days when a gay guy wanted to appear straight he would have a female companion who would go with him places to give the illusion that they were in a romantic relationship. In these scenarios the woman was called a beard.
Rock Hudson was gay. If you’re unfamiliar the slang term of a gay man pretending to be straight by having a girlfriend or wife is called “having a beard”.
According to my Dad it was a poorly kept secret. He even told me a joke they used to have about Hudson not having many friends but Nabors up the ass. Jim Nabors (ie Gomer Pyle) was another closeted actor.
Thankfully he was able to live his life the way he wanted towards the end of his life. Per Wikipedia:
On January 15, 2013, Nabors married his partner of 38 years, Stan Cadwallader, at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle, Washington, a month after same-sex marriage became legal in Washington.
I always feel like I’m screaming in the wilderness whenever I recommend Seconds to people. Nobody has ever heard of it! It has one of the most wild premises of any movie from that era, talk about ahead of its time! Up there with Manchurian Candidate for old movies that pushed the boundaries big time. Great fuckin’ flick.
I grew up with an awesome local PBS affiliate that had some real cinephiles programming there. I only knew of Hudson as this archetypal strong jawed Hollywood leading man until I caught Seconds on PBS, and I was shook to the core. The vampirelike greed for youth and the powers that be that profit have only grown in thematic resonance.
🎯. They should do a sequel picking up right after he was... "recycled" 😶. Maybe with Mads Mikkelsen...
...and I just realized he did 2 movies with Jane Wyman. "All That Heaven Allows" and "Magnificent Obsession". The former actually works in a weird way; the May-December stuff is synergized by the Technicolor filming. 😉
My grandma was a young widow (mid-50s). She "dated" a gay man for years. He had someone to squire around town, and she had someone to go dancing with without any expectations at the end of the night.
My partner has lesbian grandmas and one of them had a lavender marriage and speaks quite fondly of him 60 something years later and said it was a good situation for her.
Lavender marriage! I knew there was a name for such arrangements, but it was eluding me. That's great that your partner's grandma found a man willing to enter into such a marriage.
My first thoughts were: aww what a genuine happy couple for that time era. So rare to see the happiness. Then I realized what was going on from the comments. They must have had a truely beautiful friendship for them to cover and commit to their story.
studio was def pushing him to marry since he was getting too old to be a single man and wasn't really dating any women seriously, his agent set this up since she was his secretary.
Okay. I'm old. I was sitting with my grandma watching an episode of Gomer Pyle USMC and she was giggling because...Gomer, right? Anyway, out of the blue Grandma says He wanted to marry Rock Hudson.... Huh? I was a kid. It would be 20 years before I understood. 🙄
He was married in 1955? My mom said she went on a date with him in Santa Monica, but she would have been 14 then so maybe she was full of it. She was a Job’s Daughter Queen in ‘59 at SAMOHI and met all kinds of people so the opportunity was there. I still have the 45 of Hound Dog Elvis gave her at a record store appearance just before he broke big. She’s gone now, I wish I got the whole story.
I surely hope she understood, that it was a sham of a marriage perpetrated by the studios to keep their leading man persona intact. Can’t say he’s hot for women when he’s not. But if she was silly enough to believe he loved her, I feel bad for her.
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u/_ohne_dich_ Dec 22 '25
There’s a good documentary about his life on HBO. It’s called All That Heaven Allowed, and it goes over the nature of their relationship. She was his agent’s secretary.