by Mark Griffin
Undeterred, Harrison assigned photographers to surreptitiously trail Hudson wherever he went. Confidential spies phoned in if Rock seemed to linger at Montgomery Clift’s table at the Mocambo or if he seemed a bit too familiar with Victor Mature at a premiere. The information Confidential collected through its regular channels was more than enough to expose Hudson, but Harrison had heard rumors that some truly damning evidence existed. A gold mine, in fact. A former boyfriend claimed that he was in possession of an incriminating photo of Rock. The image may have been grainy and blurred but it was unmistakably the star. In a compromising position. This was exactly the kind of irrefutable proof that Confidential would need to legitimize their story on “Rock Hudson’s Magnificent Obsession . . . After Hours.” Harrison hadn’t seen the photo, but if it actually existed, he was willing to pay a small fortune to obtain it.
“It was really terrifying living in Hollywood before Stonewall and the advent of gay liberation,” says photographer Michael Childers, the longtime partner of director John Schlesinger. “When I met John in 1968, it still wasn’t accepted for two men to go to a premiere or an industry party together without a woman along as a beard. The expected thing would be for him to take a friend, like Natalie Wood, as a cover. There was this curtain up in terms of what was considered acceptable behavior. I can see why the cover-ups and the hiding happened with people like Rock and Tab Hunter. It was just a mean, scary time to be gay. Magazines like Confidential and even certain gossip columns would pay huge money to get all the smut on stars that they could. They’d do everything possible to destroy you.”
When Henry Willson was tipped off that Confidential was planning a cover story on Rock, panic set in. Hudson was a leading contender for an epic that Warner Brothers was preparing. And there were already back-to-back projects lined up for Hudson at Universal, MGM, and 20th Century-Fox. If Willson was going to kill the Confidential story on Rock, he knew that he had to move swiftly and with great precision.
So is the legend true? Did Henry Willson sacrifice a couple of former clients to Confidential to preserve Rock Hudson’s reputation? Some insiders swear that this is exactly what happened, while others wonder whether Confidential was open to that kind of boardroom-style “negotiation.” Mark Miller insisted that it was Universal’s head of publicity, Jack Diamond, who intervened. Others have said that the type of bartering involved was quintessential Willson. Some accounts claim that the mob was called in. Another rendition says that hush money was exchanged. Whatever the case, instead of the planned front-page exposé of Rock Hudson, Confidential blew the whistle on two other popular heartthrobs.
In May of 1955, the magazine’s cover story featured the headline, “Rory Calhoun, But For The Grace of God, Still a Convict!” The exposé dished the dirt regarding Calhoun’s armed robbery conviction, which dated back to 1940. Then it was Tab Hunter’s turn: “It is the racy story of a night in October, 1950 when the husky Hunter kid landed in jail, along with 26 other good-looking young men, after the cops broke up a pajama party they staged—strictly for boys.” As Hunter had fired Henry Willson only a few months prior to the pajama party story hitting newsstands, many feel this implicated the agent as a stool pigeon.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, rumors persist to this day that it was George Nader who was the sacrificial lamb. As Hudson made Nader the primary beneficiary in his will, some observers have suggested that this was payback—on a grand scale. But not only was George Nader never a client of Henry Willson’s, Confidential magazine never outed the actor in its pages. Something which also proved to be true for Hudson. “Every month, when Confidential came out, our stomachs began to turn,” Nader recalled. “The amazing thing is that Rock, as big as he became, was never nailed. It made me speculate that Rock had an angel on his shoulder, or that he’d made a pact with the devil because he seemed under supernatural protection.”
Although Confidential had been pacified—at least for the moment—Henry Willson knew that there was only one way to silence all of the rumors about Hudson’s homosexuality. It was time for Rock to get married. And fast. Though who was truly worthy of being the king’s consort? Surely, there had to be a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild who would be ideal casting as Mrs. Rock Hudson. And if the young lady didn’t happen to exist in precisely the same way the public may have envisioned, Willson could always redesign her to his own specifications. To hear Henry tell it, the task of finding a wife for Rock had been comparable to the exhaustive search that Willson’s former employer David O. Selznick had undertaken to find the perfect Scarlett O’Hara.
Several candidates could be instantly eliminated as they were either too old or too bobby-soxer. If a contender had even one divorce on her resumé, Willson ruled her out. Same for party girls, peroxide blondes, and gum-snappers. If Rock Hudson was the boy next door, his wife should be the sort of all-American girl who reminded one of church socials and county fairs. Someone sweet, unspoiled, and down-to-earth. Ordinarily, Vera-Ellen or Betty Abbott Griffin would have been ideal, but the fan magazines had already exhausted their supply of stories in which Rock had wined and dined them. All of that seemed like old news. And when Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor finally tied the knot, it had to be front-page news.
It was clear to Willson that a fresh face was needed; a dewy ingénue that the public wasn’t too familiar with and yet felt like family. As it turned out, the best candidate wasn’t smiling back at Henry from the cover of Modern Screen but sitting right under his nose. Willson’s secretary, Phyllis Gates, was a thirty-year-old native of Dawson, Minnesota, whose background was so quintessentially Middle American it almost seemed scripted. The youngest of five children, Gates grew up in a farmhouse equipped with only one oil-fed heater.
By the time she was a teenager, Phyllis was handling most of the chores on the family farm, including driving the tractor. As she recalled in her memoir, “I spent my entire summer bouncing and jiggling over those dusty fields.” When she wasn’t milking cows or baling hay, Gates taught Sunday school classes at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. So far, so good.
If Rock Hudson’s dream girl should read as down-home as possible, this did not mean that she should be dull. A natural beauty was required and once again, Gates didn’t disappoint. Phyllis had placed second in the Dayton Company’s annual beauty contest and, during her years as a secretary in New York, she had caught the eye of the young Marlon Brando.
The first time Henry Willson met her, he told Gates, “I shouldn’t hire you as a secretary. I should get you a studio contract.” And Willson wasn’t the only one who thought that Phyllis exhibited genuine star quality. When Gates accompanied one of Henry’s clients to an audition at 20th Century-Fox, the casting director took one look at her and decided that it was Phyllis, and not the young hopeful by her side, who should be screen-tested. Gates declined the offer, explaining that she had no interest in becoming an actress.
Despite this, Henry Willson had big plans for her, which did not include opening his mail. From the moment Phyllis joined the agency, Henry seemed extremely eager to introduce her to Rock, though that would have to wait. Gates had never met Willson’s most important client as Hudson was halfway around the world shooting Captain Lightfoot. Even so, that wasn’t going to stop Willson from playing matchmaker. Demonstrating why he was considered one of the craftiest agents in the business, Henry decided it was time to get the show on the road. Literally.
“Why don’t you and Phyllis take a trip? Rock’s away. And you’re just sitting there,” Willson said to Jack Navaar. He convinced Jack that escorting Phyllis back to Minnesota so that she could visit her family made perfect sense. Why worry about what Rock might think? He was away on location doing god only knows what. It was no secret that the bisexual Navaar had a crush on Gates, so spending several days alone with her sounded pretty terrific. And as Henry was quick to point out, Rock’s yellow Lincoln Convertible, which had been loaned to the actor by the Ford Motor Company for publicity
purposes, was just sitting idle while its owner was away. Why not put it to the test by driving it cross-country?
As Navaar had already palled around with Gates and considered her a friend, heading out on the road with her seemed like a great idea. As they drove along, Navaar found himself strongly attracted to the woman who was, in a sense, his rival. “I enjoyed her company,” said Navaar. “And I felt secure doing this because Henry had proposed it. Later, I realized Henry had instigated the trip to alienate me from Rock.” It seemed that whenever Henry Willson was handling the negotiations, there was always some sort of catch.
Before reaching Phyllis’s very conservative hometown, she suggested to Jack that they shout out every four-letter word they knew. Better to get the cussing out of the way before they had to play it straight in front of the folks for a few days.
Navaar recalled that on the way back to L.A., Gates requested a detour to Kansas City. Phyllis wanted to catch up with some old friends she had met during her days as a stewardess for Mid-Continent Airlines. Gates took Navaar to a party where women danced with one another and there were very public displays of affection. To Navaar, this was hardly surprising. Months earlier, Phyllis, Jack, and Mark Miller had spent a weekend in Laguna Beach. At a bar called Camille’s, which catered to gays of both genders, Gates met a woman at the bar and promptly disappeared for the rest of the weekend. “I’ll catch up with you . . .” was Phyllis’s reply whenever Jack and Mark invited her to hit the beach or join them for dinner. Despite her repeated promises, Phyllis never did seem to catch up.
Upon returning to the West Coast, Navaar and Gates discovered that news of their cross-country trip had somehow traveled overseas. A furious Hudson phoned long distance to chew out his young lover. Rock had discovered that after Jack had hosted some wild parties at the Grand View house, it had been ransacked. And not only had Jack taken the yellow convertible without Hudson’s permission, but there had been disturbing transatlantic reports that Navaar had been seen cruising around in it, yelling out obscenities with a female companion. Was this any way for Rock Hudson’s “roommate” to behave?
“I wasn’t even in town!” Jack bellowed. “You son of a bitch, how dare you ask me those questions.” But it was too late. Coming so soon after Navaar’s post-premiere tantrum, these latest offenses sealed his fate. Suddenly, Jack’s monthly allowance disappeared. As did Phyllis. Rock wouldn’t return any of his phone calls. Henry Willson washed his hands of the once promising “Rand Saxon,” informing him: “The studio is capable of taking extreme measures to protect a property.” Jack’s mind was reeling. Had this whole trip been set up by Henry Willson in an effort to get him out of the picture so that Rock could hurry up and marry Phyllis Gates? Was Hudson complicit in all of this? Had that whole angry tirade over the phone been . . . rehearsed? Understandably confused, yet all too aware that he had fallen out of favor, Navaar moved out of the Grand View house while Hudson was still away.
If Jack Navaar was out, Phyllis Gates was in. Once Captain Lightfoot wrapped and Rock had returned home, Henry Willson saw to it that Hudson became much better acquainted with his secretary. “I gave Rock a nice background on Phyllis Gates,” Henry recalled, making it sound as though he had handed his client an especially favorable investment portfolio.
Prior to meeting Hudson, Gates claimed that she had seen only one of his films—Magnificent Obsession—though it made an indelible impression. It was, she said, “a movie that made me weep like a school girl.” Phyllis’s first evening out with Hudson was just as memorable. Cocktails at the Cock ’n Bull included a meet-cute sequence straight out of a Frank Capra comedy. As Rock made his way through the dimly lit barroom to the table that Gates was occupying, he tripped over a chair, nearly landing on the floor. Later at dinner, Henry Willson held court while Hudson made some fumbling attempts at small talk.
“I discovered that Rock Hudson in person was nothing like Rock Hudson, the self-assured hero of the movie screen; he was terribly shy,” said Gates, making the same surprise discovery that scores of Hudson’s male partners would over the years. This sheepish, submissive guy was . . . Rock Hudson, the idol of millions of moviegoers? Whatever happened to Taza, Son of Cochise?
An innate shyness, which masked a driving determination, was a trait that Hudson and Gates shared. And like Rock, Phyllis could be irresistibly charming and seductive, especially if it might help to open some doors. “I could understand why Rock thought he could fall in love with her because I could have,” said Jack Navaar. “She knew how to make a guy feel fabulous. She had a marvelous laugh and an incredible personality. You’d meet her and in ten minutes, you’d feel you were the most important person in her life.”
In the early days of their relationship, Gates would see Hudson at the office, on his way in to a meeting with Henry. Along with contract negotiations and P.R. strategies, was Phyllis part of what they discussed behind closed doors? Had it already been decided that Gates answered the question Is Rock Hudson Afraid of Marriage?
Years later, Phyllis would claim that she had no idea that she was being “manipulated” into a relationship with Rock. Others insist that Gates not only knew the whole score but that she compliantly moved as directed by her employer. Whether she was aware of it or not, Phyllis’s first dates with Rock, which the press would later describe as “impromptu, spur-of-the-moment” get-togethers, were all carefully engineered by Henry Willson. And Willson’s involvement didn’t end there. To observers who found the Hudson–Gates pairing dubious, the fact that Henry usually tagged along on their dates only confirmed their suspicions. And if being a constant presence in his client’s life wasn’t already enough, Willson was now insisting that Hudson had to get married.
After Rock made and canceled several dates with Gates, she wasn’t feeling quite as starstruck. Hudson had cited professional commitments, though it’s possible that Rock may have been having second thoughts about becoming involved with his agent’s secretary. True, he always did as Henry instructed, but the thought of marrying Gates—as opposed to just being photographed with her—qualified as above and beyond, even if his career was at stake. Couldn’t he just “date” Phyllis? Did he actually have to marry her? It seemed like an awful lot to go through in the name of keeping his fans happy.
On the other hand, Rock was used to being handed a script he didn’t particularly like and asked to make it work. In some ways, wasn’t getting married an acting job like any other? Perhaps, Rock reasoned, he would get into character, kiss his leading lady as directed, and publicize his latest effort the same way he would any other Hollywood production. Besides, getting married would please everyone. The studio. The ticket-buying public. Henry. Hedda and Louella. His mother. The happily married man was the one role that everyone wanted him to play. As for real happiness—the kind not usually found within the pages of Photoplay—well, there didn’t seem to be a clause for that in his contract.
Which was too bad as, according to Mark Miller, Hudson had recently found a more agreeable playmate than Phyllis. While Rock was supposed to be courting Gates, he was “dallying” with another Henry Willson client. Blond, blue-eyed, and boyishly handsome, Cragill Fowler had been working as a lifeguard in La Jolla when one of Henry’s assistants snapped his photo. Within a matter of weeks, Fowler had been rechristened Craig Hill and he was under contract to 20th Century-Fox. Hill was not only being groomed for stardom by Willson, but he seemed very much Rock Hudson’s preferred dish.
Gates recalled an awkward scene when she happened to bump into Hudson and Hill while they were doing some Christmas shopping. Rock was so flustered by Phyllis discovering them together it was almost as though she had caught them in bed. Not long after this incident and seemingly to make amends, Hudson finally followed through on a long-promised dinner with Gates. However, this proved to be anything but a romantic rendezvous. Not only did Henry Willson join them, but he even brought a prospective client along. Phyllis said she felt slighted and shut out. “I finally gave up tr
ying to join in,” Gates said. “I could hardly wait to leave the dinner and return to my apartment.”
Whether to make it up to Phyllis or please Henry—or both—Hudson began spending more time with Gates. And Henry made sure that whenever they stepped out, columnists would chronicle their every move. “Rock Hudson has been enjoying hideaway dinners with Henry Willson’s purty secy. Phyllis Gates,” read an item in Mike Connolly’s column in The Hollywood Reporter, which almost certainly had been dictated by Willson himself.
Even if they had been Willson-orchestrated, Gates would recall her outings with Hudson as though they were clips in a romantic movie montage: Dancing at L’Escoffier . . . candlelight dinners at a quaint French bistro . . . listening to their favorite pianist at the 881 Club in Beverly Hills . . . attending the premiere of Captain Lightfoot.
In recalling these episodes, Phyllis would present herself as the ultimate wide-eyed innocent. The self-portrait is so determinedly Alice in Wonderland that it’s easy to forget that Gates was a Hollywood insider, working for one of the most notorious power brokers in the industry. Surely she couldn’t have been that naïve, despite this passage from her memoir: “He brought me home at midnight and gave me a warm kiss on the doorstep. I lay in bed sleepless for an hour, savoring the pleasures of the evening. Still, my Midwestern conservatism interrupted with the caution: ‘Now, Phyllis, don’t overdo. Just because you had one lovely date with a movie star doesn’t mean anything more serious is going to follow. Go to sleep now.’”
