by Mark Griffin
* By this time, a precedent had already been set. In 1958’s Indiscreet, a similar split screen device had been employed, making it appear that Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, who were in separate beds, appeared to be in bed together.
* After Hudson’s death, many of his possessions were auctioned off in April of 1986 by the William Doyle Galleries. Among the pieces up for sale was Trevor’s portrait of Rock, which fetched $2,800. Also on the auction block was an unfinished wooden footstool inscribed in lavender ink by Elizabeth Taylor: “E.T. stood here. She had to because she couldn’t reach the sink. R.H. is a love, and I thank him always—even tho he is one foot taller. Your always friend, Elizabeth.” The high bidder on the footstool was a sixteen-year-old fan of Hudson’s, who paid $1,400 for it.
* In his 1990 memoir, Rock Hudson: Friend of Mine, Tom Clark—a former resident of Hudson’s home—denied that it was ever referred to as The Castle: “I never in my life heard anyone call it by that name . . . It was a large house, yes, but not austere, not ostentatious.” When a friend of Rock’s read this passage in Clark’s book, he commented, “Old Tom must have really been into his cups when he wrote that chapter. Everybody called it The Castle.”
* The Gilded Cage was located at 224 East Main Street in Lexington. “That space has a long queer history,” says historian Jonathan Coleman. “In 1939, a bar opened there called The Mayfair. It was a notorious bookie joint but remembered as being gay friendly. After The Mayfair closes, that same space is then known as The Southern Cocktail Lounge from 1953 to 1962. It wasn’t queer operated but remembered as cruisy. In 1963, it becomes The Gilded Cage and it’s operated by a gay male couple, who were apparently friends with Rock Hudson.”
* According to the late Pat Colby, who was Henry Willson’s assistant, it was actually during a weekend trip to San Francisco in March of 1962 that Willson introduced Rock Hudson to Jim Barnett. The starstruck promoter invited the actor to spend some time at his estate. “Rock didn’t want to go,” Colby remembered, “but Henry talked him into it . . . you can only imagine what kind of men a guy who promotes and brokers athletes might have roaming around his house!”
* In January of 1964, Dorothy Jean Strashinsky told Photoplay why she felt compelled to break into Hudson’s home. In an article titillatingly titled “I Slept in Rock Hudson’s Bed,” Strashinsky described events that led up to her being arrested and losing her job. Despite the controversy, Strashinsky didn’t seem very remorseful: “In a way, it was worth it . . . I’m the only Rock Hudson fan in the world who’s ever slept in his bed!”
* On November 25, 1952, Arthur M. Sternberg, Ellington’s psychiatric chief, conducted an evaluation of air cadet Tommy Clark and determined: “It is quite evident that this individual has certain homosexual impulses which have not been kept under control . . . It seems that his homosexual experiences may be construed more as evidence of his immaturity than as evidence of a homosexual adjustment.” The following day, Clark agreed to accept an undesirable discharge.
* A New York native, Peter DePalma served time in jail after he was convicted of embezzling from City National Bank. DePalma later became a personal assistant to a number of celebrities, including Rod McKuen, Brenda Vaccaro, and Michael Douglas. In 1967, DePalma worked for Rock Hudson in a similar capacity, having been given access to a number of Hudson’s accounts.
* David Ely, author of the novel Seconds, says that he was never consulted about any creative decisions related to the film, including casting. When interviewed for this book in 2015, Ely registered surprise that Rock Hudson had not been Frankenheimer’s first choice for the lead. “Laurence Olivier? I never heard his name mentioned in connection with Seconds. My wife will be delighted to hear that story. Though, of course, she won’t believe me.”
* Claudia Cardinale’s then husband, Franco Cristaldi, was the executive producer of A Fine Pair.
* Mark’s father, the acclaimed British actor Bonar Colleano, had played Stanley Kowalski to Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois in the 1949 London production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Mark’s mother, the actress Susan Shaw, starred in the 1956 cult film Fire Maidens from Outer Space.
* According to Hudson’s longtime publicist, Roger Jones, Rock’s LP project was largely self-financed. “You paid $80,000 to cut that record with Rod McKuen in London,” Jones wrote in a letter to Hudson. “I guess I better hang on to it, it might be a collectible.”
* “Vadim was an outrageous guy,” says veteran Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas. “The last time I saw him, it was at a party for an upcoming [sic] French film director and he’d had a few. He looked me in the eye and he said the most wonderfully outrageous thing. He said, ‘Kevin, I promise you that we will be lovers in the next life.’ That’s Vadim. I was very fond of him.”
* Depending on which version of the rumor one heard, the gay couple that hosted the Rock Hudson–Jim Nabors “wedding” may have been from Huntington Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, or Long Beach, where Rock had once lived with Ken Hodge. The location of the ceremony also changed and tended to become more exotic with each retelling: Tijuana, Vancouver, Las Vegas, Belgravia. “The truth is it didn’t happen anywhere!” an exasperated Hudson told journalist Hy Gardner.
* A 2001 miniseries adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s 1982 novel Further Tales of The City features a character named Cage Tyler, an amiable though closeted movie star reportedly based on Rock Hudson.
* The Glory Hole, formally known as the South of Market Club, was located at 225 6th Street in San Francisco.
* The first film that Roger Corman produced, Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954) was shot over a six-day period and at a total cost of only $12,000. From there, it was on to such comparatively big-budgeted New World releases as Boxcar Bertha, Night of the Cobra Woman, and I Escaped from Devil’s Island.
* “When we were casting The Mirror Crack’d, and before they signed Kim Novak, I had suggested Debbie Reynolds for Lola,” says screenwriter Barry Sandler. “It would have made sense for those who remember the whole Eddie Fisher scandal, but the producers thought that it would be too much of a gimmick and it would have detracted from the mystery. It would have also turned the whole movie into a camp thing . . . not that it wasn’t already.”
* Marc Christian was born Marc Christian MacGinnis on June 23, 1953. At the time of his birth, his parents, Miles and Jeanne, were living in Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles, though they would later raise Marc and his younger sister, Susan, in Villa Park, a small city in Orange County.
* Producer Allan Carr wanted Rock to replace star Gene Barry in the original Broadway production of La Cage aux Folles. “Rock intimated that he wanted to play the part,” recalled agent Marty Baum. “It didn’t bother him to consider playing a homosexual on Broadway.” However, Hudson’s deteriorating health prevented him from accepting the role and Van Johnson ended up replacing Barry.
* The title of the movie changed continuously throughout its production and even after it aired. Actor Madison Mason remembered that it was initially entitled The Vegas Hotel Wars before NBC changed the title to The Vegas Strip War. The home video version was retitled yet again as The Vegas Casino War.
* During his 1989 trial and while under oath, Christian seemed to contradict himself when cross examined by defense attorney Robert Parker Mills. “Q: Did you have any reason to believe that you were named in Hudson’s will? A: Yes, I did. Q: What reason was that? A: Rock Hudson told me he was going to put me in his will. Q: When did he tell you that? A: At least half a dozen times.”
* After Hudson’s death, questions arose regarding how coherent he had been while his autobiography was being prepared. Attorney Paul Sherman told the Washington Post that when he met with Rock a month before he died, they discussed legal matters related to the memoir. “I had a perfectly lucid conversation,” Sherman said. “[Hudson] signed a contract turning over his share of the money from his book—every cent of those monies and all the subsidiary rights to the Rock Hudson AIDS Research F
oundation.”
* According to family lore, Rock’s maternal grandmother had secretly taken him to be baptized as a Catholic at Sacred Heart Church in Winnetka while his mother was out working. However, by the time Hudson was in the service, he seems to have switched affiliations. When he completed a military questionnaire, he penciled in “Protestant” in response to an inquiry regarding “My Religious Belief.” By the 1980s, Hudson seemed to have changed his mind yet again. According to Marc Christian, “Rock had always said that he was an atheist.”
* Four months after Marc Christian filed his lawsuit, the estate of Rock Hudson fired back with a $2,072,000 countersuit, alleging that Christian had blackmailed Hudson, had sex for money in Hudson’s home (while Rock was on location in Israel for The Ambassador), and stolen $60,000 worth of Hudson’s possessions. After the suit was filed by Wallace Sheft, Hudson’s executor, Christian denied the charges and accused Sheft and others of attempting to “blackmail and coerce” him into dropping his own suit against the estate.
* “Marc, have you been with someone else since Rock?” an audience member asked Christian when he made a second appearance on Donahue in February of 1989. “No,” Christian answered. “It’s not an unimportant question,” host Phil Donahue remarked.
* In 1989, a superior court judge reduced Christian’s jury award to $5 million. Two years later, Christian settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, which defense attorney Robert Parker Mills says was “nowhere near the $5 million compensatory damage award.”
