Rock Hudson: The Gentle Giant

by David Bret

  Just weeks after the trial, Harrison had the tables turned on him when he became the subject of a scurrilous Hollywood movie. Scandal opens with a shot of the New York skyline over which are superimposed the names of fictitious muck-raking magazines: Lurid, Smut, Dirt, edited by an effete mother’s boy publisher inaptly named H R Manley, and whose personal motto reads, “Ye Shall Learn The Truth–And The Truth Shall Make You Free!” Rock, and many persecuted by Confidential over the years, were tickled that Manley was portrayed by Steve Cochran—a bisexual actor who had also been menaced by Robert Harrison. Secretly they wished that Harrison’s mother might have followed the example of her on-screen incarnation—and blown her son’s brains out.

  Massimo, meanwhile, was deeply hurt and offended to have been used so cruelly by the man he loved, and to be now seemingly dismissed as one more notch on the Hudson bedpost. The Italian had been aware all along of Rock’s promiscuity—he himself had been no less sexually charged during the sojourn in Rome—but the fact that such precise arrangements had been made for his relocation to the United States had lulled Massimo into believing that of all Rock’s men, he was the lover who had mattered most. Yet, when he begged Rock to show him compassion, the door was slammed in his face and the next day he was visited by two Willson heavies.

  “I was told that unless I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a

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  wheelchair, I had better keep away from Rock Hudson,” he said. “So I kept away, at least until Henry Willson was out of his hair.”

  Massimo enjoyed a few minor successes over the next few years, mostly in what Rock called “tits and sand” movies, but he was hampered by his limited English and in 1962 returned to Europe and better things. He forgave Rock for treating him like dirt, and over the next ten years their love affair would be briefly resuscitated—twice when Massimo visited Los Angeles for holidays, and again in London and Rome. They last met in 1985 when Rock was very ill. Strikingly handsome well into middle age when I met him, Massimo died in Paris in 2002, aged sixty-nine.

  The Hudsons’ split cost them a number of friends, as their camp divided into two warring factions. Rock’s intimates and most if his acquaintances would have nothing to do with Phyllis—not that she cared, she said, because she had always found most of them shallow and phoney, educated in nothing but the trappings of their self-centred little sphere. Rock also lost the respect of those who had admired him most—top of the list being Mark Miller and George Nader, who did not speak to him for a year, nothing to do with Phyllis, who they had never liked, but because of the way Rock had behaved towards Massimo.

  Rock attempted to shelve his problems by immersing himself in his work. This Earth Is Mine was directed by veteran Henry King, and co-starred English rose actress Jean Simmons. Just as Giant would spawn Dallas, so this film may be regarded as a precursor of the television series, Falcon Crest, which featured Rock’s former co-star Jane Wyman as the scheming matriarch, Angela Channing. The opening too is reminiscent of Giant—this time the passenger on the train is Elizabeth (Simmons), on the last leg of her journey from England to California where she is to

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  stay with relatives she has never seen, unaware of the tense drama what awaits her.

  Philippe Rambeau (Claude Rains) is a fierce and moral man who has built his wine emporium from scratch, starting off with a plot of land where his beloved wife is buried. Elizabeth has been brought here because he has arranged for her to marry the heir of a rival vintner, a union which will result in them become the most powerful vineyard owners in America. The old man is not living in the real world. This is 1932, the twelfth year of Prohibition, and rather than sell his grapes to bootleggers, which he believes would be against God’s will, he ploughs them back into the ground for fertiliser. His pushy cousin, John (Rock), tries to persuade him otherwise, and during the process falls in love with Elizabeth.

  On 18 December 1957, when Rock attended the televised premiere of A Farewell to Arms alone, the whole of America realised that rumours in the press about his marriage being over must have been true. Henry Willson had tried to press-gang Phyllis into attending, telling her, “We need some upbeat publicity. Having you at Rock’s side for the premiere will do it.” This time the ruse failed, though whether Phyllis’ absence actually had anything to do with him failing the get the Oscar he had been nominated for is not known—in the age of the so-called moral majority not unlikely. Neither would he agree to being accompanied by a studio date. He certainly caused a stir at the ceremony. A few weeks before the event he had been asked to sing a duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, with an actress of his choosing. Everyone expected this to be Jane Wyman, who had enjoyed hit records with Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby, but Rock selected the most infamous movie siren of them all: 66-year-old Mae West. This turned out to be the highlight of the evening and an unforgettable experience, as he explained:

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  Of course, I’d seen her in films since I was a kid, so I was pretty staggered by it all. We went down to her house for rehearsals…she was always in a sort of pale beige negligee with a train about twenty feet long. We’d stop for a breather, sit and talk. She was plain and simply a sweet old lady who told me marvellous stories about her life. But the minute we’d start rehearsing all of a sudden she was Mae West—giving me all that thing she did. We never got through the song. And we didn’t on the show, either, because she gave me the giggles. She thought that all the sex-queens in the movie industry were bullshit. She said that if they didn’t have a sense of humour with it, it wasn’t worthwhile.

  It might be added that in agreeing to such an over-the-top camp performance with a woman known to have surrounded herself by muscular gay hunks did Rock’s reputation few favours. Phyllis, filed for divorce and, electing to fight power with power, hired Jerry Geisler, one of the shrewdest, most accomplished and costliest attorneys in Hollywood. His most famous case had been in 1943, when he had successfully defended Errol Flynn in his notorious statutory rape trial. In 1987, Phyllis spoke of her “horror”, which we now know was total invention, over Geisler’s revelations:

  Driving home, I tried to grasp the enormity of what he had told me. The whole thing was too nightmarish to comprehend….Was Rock a homosexual? I couldn’t believe that. He had always been the manliest of men. Though our lovemaking had been brief, we had also known moments of sexual passion. Had our marriage been a cover-up for Rock’s true nature? Impossible…

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  In the wake of what has emerged since Phyllis Gates’ death, one would be very surprised if this spiteful woman was not loathed by just about every die-hard Rock Hudson fan. She had known about Rock’s sexuality from the very start, and as has been previously stated is widely rumoured to have been gay herself. In June 2006, the Hollywood Reporter claimed to have acquired evidence of a “gay confession” which was supposed to have been taped by a private detective:

  On January 21 1958, Rock Hudson’s wife confronted him, demanding to know if he was gay and grilling the actor about a Rorschach test he had taken. “You told me you saw thousands of butterflies and snakes,” she said. “[A therapist] told me in my analysis that butterflies mean femininity and snakes represent the male penis. I’m not condemning you, but it seems that as long as you recognise your problem, you would want to do something about it.” She also complained about “Your great speed with me sexually [premature ejaculation]. Are you that fast with boys?” “Well, it’s a physical conjunction [sic],” replied Rock, then 32. “Boys don’t fit. So, this is why it lasts longer.” Added Phyllis, “Everyone knows that you were picking up boys off the street shortly after we were married and have continued to do so, thinking that being married would cover up for you.” “I have never picked up any boys on the street,” Rock insisted. “I have never picked up any boys in a bar, other than to give them a ride.”

  This conversation between Rock and Phyllis is supposed to have been taped “surreptitiously” by a private detective named F
red Otash (1922-92)—a man known to have spied on a large number

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  of celebrities for hefty payoffs. The fact that he frequently did work for Hollywood Research Incorporated, which supplied Confidential fodder for some of its most scurrilous material does not make him a reliable source. No one seems to have heard the actual tape, a transcription of which was found amongst eleven boxes of his files in a San Fernando Valley storage unit, and not revealed until twenty years after his death.

  None of this was submitted as evidence back in 1958. Geisler is said to have “shocked” Phyllis by informing her about Rock’s affair with Massimo, which of course she already knew about, as did those who had witnessed her hysteria in Rome’s Grand Hotel. Maybe what she did not expect was Geisler’s insistence that the hapless Italian be cited as co-respondent in their divorce! At this point, Henry Willson stepped in, informing Geisler that if this happened, he would call a press conference and announce that the real reason for the Hudsons’ failed marriage was that Phyllis was a promiscuous lesbian whose only interest in Rock had been in getting her hands on his money.

  Geisler therefore had a change of tactic, and asked Phyllis not to refer to Rock’s homosexuality—arguing that if his popularity at the box-office slumped on account of such a revelation, then so would his earnings and the percentage of these he would have to shell out in alimony. Geisler then focused his attention on Henry Willson, who was told to drop his unproven allegations against Phyllis—if not, he would hand the press a list of names of all the actors in Hollywood with whom Rock and his agent had had sex, which ran into their hundreds. Willson quickly came to his senses, whilst Rock exacted his revenge on Phyllis by closing their shared bank and credit accounts, leaving her with no income at all.

  Over the next few months, Phyllis was supported by friends: Pat Devlin, the Nivens and the Brandos. And when Jerry Geisler

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  “leaked” the news to the press that Marlon Brando had sent Phyllis a $1,000 cheque “because the lady had no money to eat”, few in Hollywood had much sympathy for Rock Hudson. Rock even yielded her health insurance policy—something she only found out about the following year when she received a hefty bill for hospital treatment, and had no funds to pay it.

  Once the threats and double-dealings had subsided, the divorce itself was relatively straightforward. Phyllis filed her petition on 22 April 1958, citing extreme mental cruelty and actual bodily harm—Pat Devlin testifying to the latter as witness to the incident when Rock was alleged to have smacked his wife in the mouth. Rock did not contest this, nor did he appear in court until the final hearing at the Santa Monica Superior Court on 13 August, when he agreed to an alimony settlement fixed at $1,000 a month for ten years. Phyllis got to keep the house at Warbler Place, the Ford Thunderbird Rock had recently given her, and her 5 per cent share in Seven Pictures Corporation.

  The film and fan magazines—then as now in whose eyes no movie star could do wrong—were merciless towards Phyllis and depicted her as the grasping, insensitive wife who had taken this “homely Midwestern boy” for a ride, which we now know is exactly what had happened. Photographers were sent to spy on her—several pictures appeared in the press that had been taken from ladders leaned against the windows. To rid herself of this intrusion, she bought an Alsatian guard dog. What the media did not know was that, within weeks of the divorce settlement, Rock and Henry Willson began stripping her of her Seven Pictures Corporation assets.

  It would take Phyllis until 1961 to find out that Rock had transferred her holdings to his other production company, Gibraltar, without her consent, ostensibly so that Henry Willson could squeeze out their third partner Henry Ginsberg, with whom

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  he had fallen out. She took Rock to court, this time without enlisting the help of a lawyer. Prior to the hearing, he was told that if he failed to pay what she said he owed her, she would reveal everything about their sham marriage in a kiss-and-tell book she was thinking of writing. Rock knew not to argue, and paid her an additional $130,000.

  The couple would neither see nor speak to each other again. In 1964, Phyllis went to court again, this time to change her name back to Gates. Rock and Henry Willson had however managed to acquire one victory over her—she was compelled to sign a legal document which expressly forbade her to publicly discuss or write about her marriage whilst Rock was alive.

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  Rock and Diana Dors, in Rome. Cut out of the shot are

  Diana’s lover, Tommy Yeardye, and Massimo.

  Tommy Yeardye, Rock’s stunt-double and

  “fuck-buddy” during the sojourn in Rome.

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  6: Roy Harold & Eunice Blotter

  “Usually I can smell a failure as soon as I read the script. I can’t smell a hit, though. If I could do that, I would be a multi-millionaire!” Rock Hudson.

  Rock got over his divorce—and at the same time cruelly flaunted his indiscretions in Massimo’s face—by renting a stilt-house not far from the Italian’s Malibu bedsit, and directly overlooking the gay section of the beach. Here, during his first few weeks of newfound freedom, he entertained a succession of muscular, tanned hunks. For three months, he later told Mark Miller—trailed everywhere by Phyllis’ private detective and her spies—he had lived a life of enforced celibacy, and now was the time to make up for all the fun he had missed out on.

  In this respect, Rock was probably being paranoid. As has been established already, Phyllis seems to have changed her mind about wanting to publicly expose his sexuality because of the disastrous effect this would have had on her own financial situation. Therefore there would have been no point in her caring what he had been getting up to—all that mattered had been getting rid of him, securing a decent alimony payment, and resuming a more stable life. Similarly, given his phenomenal sexual appetite one finds it hard to imagine Rock abstaining from sex for more than a few days, let alone for three months. Many of his partners, he confessed, were reluctantly passive—not that he always liked “to be on top”, he said, but because so many of them were so overwhelmed to be in his presence, let alone be privileged to be having sex with him, that they were too nervous to achieve and sustain erections. Jon Epstein, the producer friend

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  who worked with him in the McMillan & Wife series, recalled how Rock had once confessed to him, “I wish I could go to bed with a bag over my head—because when people go to bed with Rock Hudson they’re so nervous, they can’t do anything!”

  Rock’s career did not suffer on account of his failed marriage, though even his most cloying critics were forced to agree that, despite his continuing status as Hollywood’s Name-Power Number One, his only great roles had been in Magnificent Obsession and Giant. Other than these, for five years he had been little more than an over-hyped, studio-manufactured, and decorative B-movie actor, and not always a very good one. There was already an indication that if he persisted with his current trend of “squeaky-clean beefcake” roles, he would soon be relegated to the status of has-been. Ross Hunter, the producer of Magnificent Obsession who had risked his reputation by putting Rock into his first dramatic role, similarly recognised within him a rich source of hitherto untapped, natural humour and to this end approached Henry Willson during the summer of 1958 with a view to Rock appearing opposite—he hoped—Doris Day in Pillow Talk, Stanley Shapiro’s and Maurice Richlin’s light-sex comedy.

  Both Rock and Doris Day were as sceptical about accepting their parts in the film as Universal were about backing a venture for which they only had Ross Hunter’s assurance that it would be a success. Rock told Gordon Gow:

  When they gave me the synopsis to read, I said I really couldn’t do the film. It seemed to me dreadful. But then, a synopsis is not really a fair thing. It only gives you an inkling what the story is about. When I read the script I felt differently. The dialogue was really sharp.

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  Rock also had reservations about working with Doris Day, having an “ins
ider’s knowledge” that her off-screen reputation as a hard taskmaster did not match up to the “sweetness-and-light” image she projected in her films, though he felt that there was a good reason for this, as he explained to David Castell:

  It’s true that Doris can come on strong. But like most people who come on strong, what she’s really saying is, “Help me”. And if you help her, everything’s just fine.

  The film reunited Rock with Nick Adams, the good-looking but shifty actor he had met on the set of Giant. Then, Rock had not shown much interest in him on account of Adams’ reputation for causing trouble, so why he wanted to be involved with him now is not known. Since James Dean’s death, Adams had boasted to all and sundry that he and Jimmy had been lovers, and his relationship with Elvis Presley had caused Elvis’ guru manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker, untold problems and forced him to pay Confidential a great deal of hush money. Whatever the reason, Rock went out of his way to secure Adams a part in Pillow Talk, though virtually none of the cast could stand him, and to an extent this helped revived Adams’ flagging career. Between 1959 and 1963 he appeared in two cult television series, The Rebel and Saints & Sinners, but afterwards, with little work coming his way and his lavender marriage on the rocks, his mental health deteriorated and led to his early death.

  Rock was told, too, that he would have to sing in the film, something that terrified him because he considered himself tone-deaf. Though known for his ribald and perverse sense of humour and fondness for playing practical jokes, he was not sure that he would ever be capable of making audiences laugh—certainly not in the “Cary Grant tradition”, expected by the scriptwriters. And