All That Heaven Allows

by Mark Griffin

  Even so, Preble would remember his rooming with Hudson as “a blast—one great glorious good time.” He would also describe his best friend as “moody at times, usually when he’s depressed about his work. And he has a temper that simmers for weeks, then comes to a boil and finally explodes. But it’s over in a hurry. He picks up something—anything—and throws it, and a minute later, he’s putting a record on the phonograph.”

  As close as Hudson and Preble were, Rock wanted a friend with whom he could freely be himself. Instead he found two. In January of 1951, Hudson was introduced to actor George Nader and his partner, Mark Miller. For the next thirty-four years, the three would be virtually inseparable. A seemingly endless parade of lovers, short-term boyfriends, and one-nighters would pass through Rock’s life, but Nader and Miller managed to provide him with something more enduring—a sense of continuity and a kind of surrogate family.

  “We were called ‘The Trio,’” says Mark Miller. “We were together from the beginning to the end but never sexually . . . Regardless of how hard people tried, no one ever succeeded in destroying our friendship.” The threesome harkened back to the days when Roy Fitzgerald, Jim Matteoni, and Pat McGuire were haunting the halls at New Trier High School. The Hudson-Nader-Miller bond was forged through a similar sense of humor, a love of music (Rock’s favorite song was the Patti Page hit “Mockin’ Bird Hill,” which he played at every opportunity), and several epic miniature golf competitions.

  An important part of The Trio’s camaraderie involved regaling one another with tales of their frequent sexual conquests—from airline pilots to studio executives. “When sex was involved, Rock loved all the stories and that theme lasted throughout the entire thirty-four years of our friendship,” Miller said. “He was always amused with sexual tales and wanted to know all the details . . . He also told me all of the details of his encounters, which, of course, were fun.”

  On the flip side, there was also the shared misery of the closet. Like Hudson, George Nader didn’t conform to any limp-wristed stereotypes and often found himself in the company of unsuspecting producers or studio executives who regularly cracked fag jokes or openly ridiculed the effeminate hairdressers and choreographers on the lot.

  According to Miller, The Trio instinctively knew when they could cut loose and freely be themselves or when the mask of heterosexuality had to be firmly in place. Rock and his boyfriend of the moment couldn’t ever accompany Nader and Miller to a restaurant. “Because instantly, it’s two couples,” said Miller. “So, we went three—not a problem. Nobody said anything.” But just in case, they all carried briefcases, so that everyone understood their get-together was strictly business.

  Unlike Roy Fitzgerald’s humble beginnings, George Nader had been born into a life of wealth and privilege in Pasadena in 1921. Though very much like Rock, George’s relationship with his father—who was a broker for Signal Oil—tended to the theoretical. A mistress in Santa Barbara occupied most of Nader, Sr.’s leisure time. And as for George’s overly attentive mother, the elder Nader once told his son: “Ignore her . . . I do.”

  Just like the young Roy Fitzgerald, Nader had served in the Navy during World War II. Upon being discharged, George graduated from Occidental College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre. Even out of his uniform and back in civilian clothes, Nader was movie star material. Strikingly handsome and in peak physical condition, he tended to draw attention wherever he went. Reserved and somewhat shy, Nader was often oblivious to the effect he created simply by walking down the street.

  The third member of The Trio—Mark Lincoln Miller—was born in Macedonia, Iowa, in 1926. In sharp contrast to Nader’s posh upbringing, Miller grew up in an abandoned house, built in the 1870s, that offered neither an indoor bathroom nor electricity. Miller’s father, Claude, was a bus driver who worked nine months out of the year.

  Despite the grim circumstances, Miller says that his father never lost his sense of humor and managed to impart to his son an off-the-wall camp sensibility. As they were growing up, Claude would refer to Mark and his younger brother, Philip, as “Phyllis and Nadine.” Amused rather than insulted, Claude’s sons simply returned the favor. “We called him ‘Claudia,’ which always made him laugh,” Miller recalled. “There didn’t seem anything unusual about this at the time, but then again, I have been homosexual ever since I could remember.”

  Whenever the rest of the family was away on shopping expeditions, “Phyllis and Nadine” would turn the living room into a low-rent version of the Cotton Club. “We would get in drag,” Miller recalls. “By using black shoe polish on our faces, we’d imitate the great black singers, Lena Horne and Ethel Waters . . . since the family was gone about two hours and it took an hour to get the shoe polish and our sister’s Tangee lipstick off, it was a fairly short concert. During one songfest, I said to Philip, ‘We’ve got to get out of Iowa and off this farm and get to New York or Hollywood, I don’t care which!’”

  After relocating to California, Miller met George Nader in 1947 while both were performing in a production of Oh, Susannah! at the Pasadena Playhouse. “There he was, my Prince Charming! I said to myself, ‘I don’t care if he’s straight,’ I’ll make him ‘one of the boys,’” Miller recalled. After introducing himself, Miller asked Nader, “‘Did you see my picture on the front page of the Times Mirror today? I’m Miss World Trade Queen. I was crowned in Long Beach two days ago.’ [He] shrugged and turned away. We didn’t speak again that evening but I knew he was mine . . . A week later, I got him in the back seat of his father’s 1937 Buick sedan . . . I did him in the parking lot of Biggars Furniture Store and we were together from that moment on, only to separate for work.”

  At the time that Nader befriended Hudson, neither had made much progress in terms of their respective film careers. Though at least Rock was under contract to one of the majors, whereas George found himself bouncing from one studio to another as a freelancer. Later, when George was cast in lead roles, they tended to be in Poverty Row productions like Robot Monster or the so-bad-it’s-brilliant Sins of Jezebel, which had been shot in only three days.* In his best films, Nader turns in perfectly respectable performances but he is devoid of the one quality that Rock Hudson had in spades . . . star charisma. According to Mark Miller, even after Nader signed with Universal, there were reasons why his screen career never flourished in the same way that Hudson’s did.

  “Rock went much further at Universal Studios than George because George refused to play the sexual game. Rock played it to the hilt. Therefore, Rock got all the good parts, the best costars, and the best directors. George got just the opposite—mediocre scripts, and not a single top director. None of the directors gave any direction to him at all. He was known as the one-take actor. Rock, on the other hand, was given every chance to improve a scene. Of course, George had a master’s degree in theatre arts and had done twenty-five stage plays before he arrived at Universal. Rock had a master’s degree in truck driving.”

  If Rock was single-mindedly determined to become a major film star and was willing to do whatever it took to achieve the dream, Nader had a loathing of publicity and tended to keep a low profile. He was willing to work hard but not that hard. And no matter how many hours Hudson put in at the studio, his paycheck always seemed to be coming up short. “Rock was under contract to Universal for $75 a week, but only for forty weeks a year,” Mark Miller says. “He was always strapped for money because he couldn’t make enough to cover the three months he had off in a year.”

  In the early 1950s, Hudson was renting a house in Sherman Oaks owned by Nader’s Aunt Marilyn. The $150 a month was often hard to come by. “He couldn’t always pay the rent,” says Miller, who claimed, “In those days, I had to pay the rent for both Rock and George.” Miller’s generosity to Hudson at the beginning of his career further cemented their friendship, though it may have also created a feeling of eternal indebtedness. Years later, when their circumstances were reversed, Rock would pay Mark back—and then so
me.

  Looking the way he did, Hudson found plenty of quick sex available but not the kind of emotionally fulfilling partnership that Nader and Miller shared. In so many ways, Hudson’s friendship with the couple helped fill the void.

  ROCK’S NEXT ASSIGNMENT for Universal was The Fat Man, adapted from a popular radio drama of the same name starring J. Scott Smart. The title refers to Brad Runyan, rotund gourmet-detective, who solves capers between generous forkfuls. In a storyline best described as highly original, Runyan investigates the murder of an eminent dentist and the subsequent disappearance of an incriminating X-ray plate.

  Making his way through a shadowy underworld populated by “two-timers,” “two-bit phonies,” and thugs named Shifty, The Fat Man’s deductive reasoning takes him all the way to the circus, where he meets a clown played by Emmett Kelly and things get even weirder.

  In one of his most assured early performances, Hudson played Roy Clark, a petty criminal whose molars and incisors seem to hold the key to the entire mystery. “Is the doc around?” Hudson asks no-nonsense nurse Jayne Meadows. “This toothache’s killing me.” Killing being the operative word. Many years after The Fat Man’s release, Rock screened the film at his home for some friends. An unintentionally hilarious scene inspired a major Hudson laughing jag. In a sequence in which his ex-con character meets up with his girlfriend, played by Julie London, he admits to a laundry list of misdemeanors, capping the confession with, “I did time in the state prison for six years.” Without missing a beat and apparently unfazed by her boyfriend’s extensive criminal history, London’s character dreamily responds, “I love you, Roy. I want to cook for you.”

  Under the direction of William Castle, The Fat Man started production in August of 1950, with a breakneck eighteen-day shooting schedule and a proposed budget of $354,600 that seemed modest even by Universal standards. When it opened, the New York Times gave The Fat Man a surprisingly positive review, deciding that “its heavyweight hero is a man who should be seen as well as heard.” The Hollywood Reporter wasn’t impressed with the film in general (“It has all the elements of a top murder mystery except an exciting story”), but one of the supporting players was singled out for praise: “Rock Hudson . . . in his most important role to date, shows exceptional talent.”

  Just as Rock was beginning to make some headway—slight though it may have been—there was suddenly a crisis to contend with. Publicist Roger Jones would never forget the day when Sam Israel, Universal’s publicity director, called Jones into his office and delivered some unwelcome news: “Stop whatever you have working for your boy, Rock—we’re letting him go!”

  Although Hudson’s contract option still had three months to go, Universal executives decided that they had given the actor more than enough time to prove himself. Tony Curtis, who had received the same training and publicity buildup as Rock, had recently scored a hit with The Prince Who Was a Thief. Despite some encouraging reviews, Hudson didn’t seem to be taking off in the same way.

  “I remember Rock saying, ‘I’ll never be a star at Universal. They’re doing everything they can for Tony Curtis,’” remembers actress Joyce Holden. “I used to say, ‘Aw, come on, Rock, you’ve got more going for you than Tony. Don’t be down-hearted.’ I tried my best to build his confidence but he was starting to wonder if his career was ever going to happen the way he wanted.”

  Roger Jones remembered that he was “totally devastated” when he found out that the studio was cutting Hudson loose. Jones thought of himself as a surrogate father, a trusted advisor. “Sam, you can’t do this!” Jones pleaded with his boss. “This studio has never had its own male star. We always borrow them. The only female star we ever made was Deanna Durbin and she brought this studio out of the red and into the black. Rock Hudson can do the same!”

  Sam Israel waved Jones away. He returned to his office. Maybe it was time to resign. After all, MGM had recently made him an offer to handle publicity for two of its most important stars, Gable and Garland. As he was weighing his options, there was a soft tap on the door. It was a totally despondent Rock, needing to talk. After a few minutes of exchanging hopeless glances, Jones suddenly blurted out, “Do you want to be a star?” Without a moment’s hesitation, Rock responded, “Yes!”

  Decades after their conversation took place, Jones could still vividly recall Rock’s “goddamned soulful eyes” welling up with tears, moved that Jones was willing to make a last-ditch effort to resurrect his career at Universal. “I felt so sorry for him,” Jones recalled. Right then and there, I made my decision to stay with Universal and fight for him. I said, ‘O.K., we go!’ I had three months to make Rock Hudson a star.”

  Over the course of several months, Hudson’s face would grace the pages of countless national magazines. There was a Saturday Evening Post profile entitled “How to Create a Movie Star.” This was followed by a feature in Cosmopolitan. An interview with Redbook. None of this was lost on Universal’s front office, which started to reconsider its decision to drop Rock from their roster of contract players.

  Unbeknownst to Hudson, there had also been some divine intervention from someone else at the studio. When Rock had received word that Universal was through with him, he shared his miseries with fellow contract player Piper Laurie, who by then had graduated to some starring roles. “He was very unhappy, really very depressed,” Laurie recalled. “He expressed it to me and I had the ear of an important producer there.”

  Whomever Laurie met with—and all signs point to Ross Hunter—he obviously agreed that Rock was being wasted in throwaway roles. What he needed was a substantial part in a thoughtfully planned production that would really showcase his abilities. Between Piper Laurie pulling strings behind the scenes and Roger Jones’s publicity barrage, Universal renegotiated Rock’s contract.

  * * *

  “I’ve found making lots of friends here not easy,” Hudson revealed to columnist Hedda Hopper in the early 1950s. Although the fan magazines had him out on the town virtually every night of the week and in the company of Hollywood’s beautiful people, Rock’s grueling schedule—up at four, home by nine—left next to no time to cultivate meaningful friendships. Superficial, agent-arranged, good-for-your-career friendships, yes. Genuine, emotionally fulfilling, mutually supportive friendships, not so much. George Nader and Mark Miller being the exceptions, of course.

  So, when Rock’s teenage cousin, Jerry Scherer, needed a change from the day-to-day back in Illinois, Hudson didn’t hesitate to extend an invitation. During their time together, Rock introduced Jerry to his fellow Universal contract player, James Best. They chatted up Piper Laurie and visited with Raoul Walsh and his wife. Though the one celebrity who made the most lasting impression on Scherer was Vera-Ellen. “Rock was dating her at that time and it seemed like a real romance but I can’t say for sure,” Scherer says. “But she was such a gentle, sweet lady. I had my eighteenth birthday out there and Rock and Vera-Ellen took me to the Tail o’ The Cock to celebrate. The night we were there, who’s sitting at the bar but John Wayne. He didn’t know who I was or even who Rock was in those days but he sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, which is not the kind of thing you ever forget.” Scherer also remembers that that evening Rock and Vera told him that they intended to get married but they had not yet set a date.

  Scherer also recalled visiting the set of Rock’s latest effort, a boxing picture entitled Iron Man. “I remember the guard at the studio gate questioned Rock as we drove in, ‘What are you here for? What set are you working on?’ and so forth. After we did get in, Rock said, ‘I’ll bet you one of these days, he won’t be stopping me and asking me who I’m bringing in here. He’ll just wave me through.’ And, of course, that came to pass, just like he said.”

  “A FIGHT STORY . . . all that slugging and grunting business” is how star Evelyn Keyes remembered Iron Man. The New York Times also found the film shrug-worthy, finding it only “standard for the course.” Yet Iron Man was the movie that would finally gain Rock Hudson bot
h widespread attention and lifelong fans. Among the new converts was a nineteen-year-old movie buff from Colfax, Washington, named Robert Osborne. “I’d say the first time that I really noticed Rock on screen was in the movie Iron Man,” Osborne remembers. “He had a secondary role in it, but he was very impressive as the young prizefighter. Terribly handsome, of course, and he really stood out. The other thing that I liked about him—and at this point, I wasn’t aware of whether he was a good actor or not—is that he didn’t seem to push the performance further than his talents allowed him to. So, he never came off as dishonest in what he did. There was always a sincerity there.”

  Iron Man was Universal’s remake of its own ringside melodrama. The original, which had starred Lew Ayres and Jean Harlow, had turned a tidy profit for the studio in 1931. In director Joseph Pevney’s updating of the story, Jeff Chandler is Coke Mason, a poor Pennsylvania coal miner who is persuaded to earn some quick cash prizefighting. The ordinarily docile Mason becomes a ferocious fighting machine once he steps inside the ring (“I’m like an animal . . . I want to kill”). Having at last graduated to fourth billing, Rock was granted a decent amount of screen time.

  As Tommy “Speed” O’Keefe, a friend of Mason’s who ends up pitted against him in a bout for the heavyweight title, Hudson finally made a genuine impression on-screen. Clearly, some of the attention was attributable to the fact that in Iron Man, Rock’s sex appeal was on full display. Shirtless and outfitted in form-fitting boxing shorts, “The Beefcake Baron” was unleashed.