All That Heaven Allows

by Mark Griffin

  Tired of wrangling with both Christian and Clark, Hudson decided it was time to explore some new options. Since 1983, Rock had been working with a physical trainer named Ron Channell, whom he had met at the Sports Connection, a fitness center in West Hollywood. Channell was originally from Tampa, Florida, and like Marc Christian, had been flirting with a career in show business. With his muscular build and three days’ worth of facial hair, Channell reminded some of his clients of “Bluto,” the burly antagonist from the Popeye cartoon series. When Channell first met Hudson, the once svelte leading man was paunchy and easily winded. Embarrassed by this and not wanting to be recognized at the gym, Hudson asked Channell if he could work him out at home.

  It wasn’t long before Rock started referring to Ron as his “best friend.” Channell made it clear from the beginning that he considered himself “straight” and that a close friendship was all that he was prepared to offer. This may have been a deal-breaker for most gay men closing in on sixty but not Rock Hudson. The Hollywood legend enjoyed helping the aspiring actor with his career pursuits. If Channell was nervous about an upcoming audition, Hudson would help him select a monologue and run through it with him. However, more often than not after a workout, the two would spend the afternoon just “goofing off.” As Ron dabbled in songwriting, he might try out one of his compositions, just doodling on the piano. Rock would then take over, ripping through a Boogie-Woogie tune.

  Of course, Marc Christian didn’t relish the thought of being replaced by an aerobics instructor. “Ron talked like a hayseed and had no chin,” Christian would say of Hudson’s new best friend. Feeling betrayed by Christian and frustrated by the fact that his relationship with Channell hadn’t progressed beyond the buddy stage, Rock turned his attention to another young man who seemed like a promising new companion. Gunther Fraulob was twenty-nine years old and bore an uncanny resemblance to the young Lee Garlington. Hudson and fellow actor Dean Dittman met Fraulob at The Silver Fox, a gay bar in Long Beach.

  As usual, Rock fell hard and fast. Though this time he made a conscious decision to not bring Fraulob to The Castle, where the presence of yet another young hunk was bound to stir things up. “Whenever we met, it was away from Hollywood,” Fraulob says. “At the time, I was living in a rental place in Long Beach and he would visit me there. Basically, his M.O. was he’d come over and we’d talk for a while. Usually, I would tell him what was going on in my life—the latest break-up or whatever and he would tell me about all of the drama going on at his house with Marc Christian.”

  From the beginning, Fraulob says that he was aware that Hudson was interested in more than just conversation. “During one of our talks, he confessed that he felt a very strong attachment to me,” says Fraulob. “He wanted to take our friendship to another level. But I loved him in a different way. I said, ‘You know, you’re like a big brother to me,’ which is probably not what he wanted to hear. I mean, at the time, Rock was almost sixty and I was in my twenties. I was dating guys who were 24 or 25. Rock was at a very different place in his life . . . I did my best to try to let him down gently.”

  While they agreed to be friends, Fraulob recalls that at least once, things went a bit further: “I had just broken up with this guy that I thought I was in love with. I remember saying to Rock, ‘I’m never going to be able to find love in this crazy gay world.’ I was going on a bit, to be honest. Rock grabbed me and kissed me and said, ‘You wouldn’t know love if it were staring you right in the face.’ When I pulled myself together, I said, ‘Rock, what are we talking about here?’ He said, ‘I think you know.’ Nobody ran off that night. In fact, I think we had an even stronger bond after that whole episode.”

  Hudson confided in Fraulob, telling him how distraught he was over the situation with Christian. Fraulob thought that getting away from it all might be the answer for Hudson: “It was getting close to Easter and I talked him into coming with me and spending a week at my parents’ place in Hawaii . . . My parents were one hundred percent German, which I know was part of Rock’s ancestry. My dad spoke English like he was just off the boat. My mom was a bit more Americanized, though they were both very simple people. My parents lived in the middle of nowhere. We had an acre of land with an ocean view.”

  Rock’s weeklong Hawaiian idyll in the spring of 1984 would prove to be the calm before the storm. Upon Hudson’s return to The Castle, Mark Miller and others expressed their concern about Rock’s rapid weight loss. He was in for more of the same when he attended a state dinner at the White House in honor of Mexico’s president, Miguel de la Madrid. First Lady Nancy Reagan cornered Rock and told him that he was in need of fattening up. He responded with, “You’re thin, also.”

  Two weeks later, photos taken by the official White House photographer arrived at The Castle. Along with an image of Hudson posing with the Reagans, there was a profile shot of Rock enclosed. With this picture, the First Lady had attached a note advising him to have the pimple on his neck checked. Not only was it visible in the photo but Rock admitted that it had been there for about a year and seemed to be getting larger. Only when Marty Flaherty told Rock that if the cyst wasn’t removed in a timely manner, it could leave a scar did Hudson agree to see his doctor. When all else failed, appealing to the movie star’s vanity usually did the trick.

  MARK MILLER WOULD later refer to June 5, 1984, as “the beginning of where the walls came tumbling down on all of our lives—forever.” As Miller remembered it, that was the day Rock joined him in his office and delivered some devastating news: He had AIDS. Maybe cancer, too. Miller would later say that while attempting to absorb all of this, he had to fight the urge to bolt from the room: “An inner voice said, ‘Do not desert. Don’t get out of the chair . . .’ Somehow, I held myself in that chair, but I was in utter panic.”

  The diagnosis was both horrifying and overwhelming. Though Miller later admitted that at least part of Hudson’s admission was not entirely shocking. According to Mark, as far back as 1975, Rock had been tested at the Kelsey-Seybold Clinic in Houston, where he was diagnosed as having the onset of liver cancer. At that time, he had been ordered to slow down and stop drinking but the professional advice had gone unheeded. Now it was too late.

  While terrifying, cancer was at least familiar. AIDS was something else again. As Miller put it, “I thought it was a disease that fairies on Santa Monica Boulevard got.” Not Rock Hudson. In 1981, one of the first headlines concerning the epidemic appeared in the New York Times. It read: “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” Three years later, the mysterious disease had been given a clinical sounding name—Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome—and researchers had identified a probable cause, but there were still countless unanswered questions. How was the virus transmitted? Could something as seemingly innocuous as a hug or a handshake be responsible for spreading the disease?

  Hudson told Miller that he had been crying for a week, having received his AIDS diagnosis from a Beverly Hills dermatologist who had biopsied the lesion on his neck and identified it as Kaposi’s sarcoma. Until now, Rock had kept everything to himself, telling no one. But now Hudson was no longer holding back. He admitted to Miller that he felt “so filthy” that he had AIDS. After decades of being confined to the closet and keeping his mouth shut, the lesions and sores that had started to sprout on his body were the most hideous kind of public declaration imaginable. Why bother denying the truth when every part of your anatomy was screaming it out for you?

  Hudson asked Miller to accompany him to an appointment he had scheduled a few days later with Dr. Rex Kennamer, his personal physician, and Dr. Michael Gottlieb, an AIDS specialist from UCLA. Following his quintuple bypass, Rock believed that he suffered from “white coat syndrome.” He found that after meeting with one of his doctors, he couldn’t remember a single word that had been said.

  During the appointment, Hudson asked Dr. Gottlieb if AIDS was necessarily a fatal diagnosis. After a measured pause, Gottlieb suggested that it would be wise if Rock got his a
ffairs in order. The doctor then asked Hudson if he had a lover. Rock responded that he didn’t currently have one, although a former companion was still living with him. According to Miller, Hudson then added that he and his lingering ex had not engaged in any sexual activity for several months.

  Dr. Gottlieb explained to Rock that there was no telling how someone might react when informed that a partner—whether current or former—had AIDS. Some lovers were understanding and supportive. Others bolted, never to be heard from again. There is some dispute regarding whether Dr. Gottlieb advised Hudson to tell his former partner of his AIDS diagnosis. In one version of Mark Miller’s recounting of events, Gottlieb told Rock, “You are a famous man and there will be headlines when this is announced, so it is up to you whether to tell your former lover or not.” In another, Gottlieb told Rock, “I’m going to leave it up to you how to handle telling your former lover.”

  On the ride home, Hudson and Miller discussed who should—and should not—be told about Rock’s AIDS diagnosis. When the subject of Christian was broached, Miller claimed that Hudson said, “He—[Hudson]—could have gotten AIDS from Marc and he wanted him out of the house by five o’clock that afternoon.”

  Miller said that he talked Hudson out of this. What if Christian had been exposed? After all, he was dependent on Rock’s production company, Mammoth Films, for health insurance. If Marc was booted from The Castle, he’d be back on the couch at Liberty Martin’s place. Besides, throwing him out could have dire consequences. If Christian had already threatened to fill the Enquirer in on his gay affair with Rock Hudson—as several of Rock’s friends and employees maintained—what might he do with this new information? Making an alleged blackmailer aware of an AIDS diagnosis would be equivalent to handing the enemy surplus ammunition.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Hudson responded. “Marc Christian and Liberty Martin will destroy me in five minutes if they have this news.” It was decided that Christian would remain in Rock’s house, at least for the time being, but he would not be told of Hudson’s diagnosis.

  Besides Miller, only a handful of people in Rock’s inner circle would be made aware of his diagnosis, including George Nader, Dean Dittman, butler James Wright, and, eventually, Hudson’s business manager, Wallace Sheft. Rock also insisted on sending anonymous letters to four individuals he had sexual encounters with prior to receiving his AIDS diagnosis. George Nader mailed the letters from Palm Springs so that the recipients wouldn’t immediately connect the dots as to who the sender was. The letters were brief and to the point . . .

  We recently had sex together and I have been informed by my doctor that I may have AIDS. Please go to your doctor and have a check-up.

  According to Mark Miller, “Only one person ever responded . . .” A twenty-two-year-old that Hudson had a fling with immediately guessed the identity of his correspondent. “He was a young man from New York, who found out the next day he had AIDS. He sold his story to one of the tabloids for $10,000. He died six months later. His story was not published for a year and a half after Rock died. His name was Tony.”

  At the height of his health crisis, Rock received a number of important job offers—including one that he found irresistible. Stockton Briggle wanted him to headline a London production of the Tony Award–winning musical La Cage aux Folles.* Hudson would be playing Georges, the gay owner of a drag nightclub whose partner, Albin, is the club’s star attraction. The couple agree to play it straight for the sake of Georges’s son, who is bringing home his straitlaced fiancée and her conservative parents. Hudson asked Nader and Miller what they thought. They advised him to turn it down—not because the story hit too close to home but because the physical demands of a three-month engagement would exhaust him. “Not in your condition,” Miller said. “The London press is the worst in the world. They will destroy you.” Hudson passed on La Cage but instantly regretted it.

  Then there was a project that had been simmering on the back burner for over a year. Actor turned producer Jimmy Hawkins (who had appeared with Hudson in Winchester ’73) had come up with an idea that would reunite Rock and Doris Day on-screen. After Hawkins outlined his Pillow Talk II premise, Oscar-winner Delbert Mann was sold and he set up a meeting with Hudson.

  “The next week, we were sitting in Rock’s living room—the writer, myself, and Delbert,” Hawkins recalls. “The writer pitched him our story [in which Doris and Rock are divorced but back in contact as their daughter plans to marry Tony Randall’s son]. When the pitch was over, Rock said, ‘You know, people have been pitching ideas for Pillow Talk II for twenty-five years and this is the single greatest idea I’ve ever heard.’ He said, ‘I speak for me and I speak for Doris. We’re in. This is really great.’ Then, he went over to the telephone and he called Doris Day and told her all about it.”

  Both Day and an executive for Universal Cable were as enthusiastic as Hudson had been, though Hawkins remembers the executive asking a lot of questions: “He loved the pitch but then he said, ‘How is Rock? The rumor is that he’s very thin and there’s something wrong with him.’” Although Pillow Talk II sounded promising to all involved, the gravity of Hudson’s condition would ultimately derail the project.

  Whether it was complete denial or an acute awareness of what little time he had left, Rock became more work-focused than ever before. He ordered his agent, Marty Baum, to scour the shelves in search of a property that would allow him to stretch as an actor. At this point, it really didn’t matter if the project was a feature film, a miniseries, or a television show. All that Hudson wanted was to appear in a production that exuded class, sophistication, and intelligence. What he got was a made-for-TV movie entitled The Vegas Strip War.*

  As rumor had it, Vegas Strip was based on casino magnate Steve Wynn’s remarkable comeback in the “Capital of Second Chances.” Whether or not this was true, the story seemed awfully familiar. Neil Chaine, owner of the Desert Inn, is forced out of ownership by his double-dealing partners. Determined to make it on his own, Chaine pours everything he has into revitalizing the Tropicana, a neighboring hotel that’s teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

  “From the beginning, Rock had an enthusiastic and vivid interest in the subject,” said writer-director George Englund. “He didn’t know much about the hotel business, didn’t know much about gambling. He had a lot of questions, intelligent questions . . . Through the whole production, he was earnestly trying to work on the part, kept exploring it, refining it. He was a joy to work with.”

  To surround Hudson, Englund assembled an eclectic supporting cast composed of equal parts veterans and newcomers: James Earl Jones (sending up boxing promoter Don King), The Karate Kid’s Pat Morita, and future superstar Sharon Stone—whom Rock went out of his way to help. “He’d call me in the morning and say, ‘Order me some breakfast. I’m coming over and we’re running the lines . . .’” Stone says. “He literally taught me every day how to do my job because I didn’t know how to do my job.”

  When he wasn’t bringing Stone up to speed, Hudson found time to bond with actor Madison Mason, who played one of Chaine’s backstabbing partners. “We became close friends and he was a kind, loving, considerate man,” Mason says. “I knew he was sick when I signed on to the picture. Nobody else knew but his doctor had just diagnosed him with AIDS. I was close friends with his nurse’s son, who said to me, ‘Listen, nobody knows much about this disease, but watch out because he’s got it.’ Even so, he was right there for everyone and always giving of himself.”

  “The hottest ticket in town” is how Rock described another Vegas Strip costar, Dennis Holahan, to Mark Miller. Hudson wasn’t only impressed with the young actor’s striking looks but also his pedigree. A Yale graduate and Vietnam veteran, Holahan became an attorney before leaving his practice to pursue an acting career.

  “I was married to the actress Loretta Swit around the time Rock and I used to go out to dinner,” Holahan recalls. “I remember he said, ‘How do you manage to get out?’ Meaning, how c
ome I could go out and have dinner with him without my wife. I said, ‘That’s not a problem.’ Here’s what the sad part was to me—he was surprised that I would allow myself to be seen having dinner with him in a restaurant. He somehow thought that would be bad for my career. That rumors might start. He was thinking of me and I was very touched by that.”

  During their dinners, Hudson confided in Holahan that things weren’t going well on the home front: “He didn’t want to be nasty about it, but he was hoping that Marc Christian would move out. He was really upset about it . . . I mean, can you imagine Bette Davis or Joan Crawford under those circumstances? It would have been ‘Get the fuck out of my house!’ as a vase goes flying across the room. But not Rock.”

  The mixed reviews for Vegas Strip didn’t claim nearly as much column space as Hudson’s dramatic weight loss. After the subject was broached by one interviewer too many, the star became increasingly annoyed: “Everybody asks about my health. All the damned time. Is there some kind of damn conspiracy going on here? ‘You’ve lost weight . . .’ they say. Of course I’ve lost weight. I’ve tried to lose weight since I was 24. I’m now at the weight I should be—198. I’ve been 220 most of my career and trying to hold in my stomach is a bore.”

  AT ONE POINT during the Vegas Strip shoot, Hudson had suffered a bout of laryngitis and had to contact a specialist to help him regain his voice. Then he started having difficulty remembering his lines. One scene had called for him to recite reams of dialogue while dealing cards. After flubbing his lines a few times, Rock became upset. He told George Nader that he was finding it difficult to concentrate for extended periods of time.

  While Rock was still in Las Vegas, Dean Dittman had learned of an experimental new drug, HPA-23, which had been developed by scientists at the Institut Pasteur in France. The drug had shown some signs of preventing the replication of the AIDS virus in the bloodstream—at least immediately after it was administered. Although HPA-23 was already being touted as a “miracle cure” by some, its long-term effectiveness had not yet been demonstrated. Further tests were being conducted in Paris. There were legitimate concerns about the toxic side effects as HPA-23 had caused damage to the blood system or liver in some patients. Nevertheless, it now seemed like Rock’s only hope. Arrangements were made for Hudson to fly to Paris and start receiving HPA-23.