Rock Hudson: The Gentle Giant

by David Bret

  The latter admission was in reference to a scene in Wheels where Adam Trenton hits his wife (Remick), which Rock initially refused to do, worried that parallels would be drawn with Phyllis Gates’ allegations that he had abused her. He told Scott:

  Hitting an actress across the face was a first for me. Lee was pleading with me to slap her hard so she could give a good reaction. I couldn’t manage it until the close-up, and even then the slap wasn’t very hard, though that’s what we had to settle for.

  Rock had just begun working on the series when, in the October, he received a call from his mother’s Newport Beach home informing him that she had suffered a stroke. Rock had not seen Kay for over a year, claiming that he had put a distance between them because she had been terminally ill, and he not wanted to watch her suffer. By the time he and Tom Clark arrived at her home, it was too late.

  Kay’s death affected Rock badly—probably due to a combination of guilt and his becoming suddenly aware of his own mortality and the fact that he, who had once had the most beautiful men in the world positively flinging themselves at him had, one way or another, resorted to buying the affection of his lovers, Tom Clark included. And as his relationship with Clark started to deteriorate, once again Rock’s only solace came from out of a bottle, though this period of self-loathing was thankfully

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  brief. In June 1978, he joined a New York-based theatre group for a five-month tour with another musical comedy, On the Twentieth Century. His co-star was Dean Dittman, the oversized, fun-loving actor who had played Daddy Warbucks in the stage production of Annie. Rock had hated this, but he and Dittman became close friends, and it was Dittman who persuaded him to look for a more permanent base in New York. Rock bought a luxury apartment on the Beresford, near Central Park.

  Initially, On the Twentieth Century did well at the box office, though by the time the tour reached Chicago, the production was losing money hand over fist and there was talk of its closure. Rock solved the dilemma by performing without pay and the tour staggered on to Los Angeles, where it recouped its losses. Rock celebrated the premiere here a little too enthusiastically. Driving home to the Castle, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a palm tree. Fortunately he was unhurt, but the incident does appear to have brought him to his senses so far as his drinking was concerned.

  On the negative side Rock, who had spent his entire professional life trying to keep his sexuality a secret, entered a period where he virtually advertised the fact not just that he was gay, but that his search for ultimate sexual titillation had sunk to the very depths of what many might have considered depravity. In July of the same year Armistead Maupin, now a regular visitor to the Castle, invited Rock, Mark Miller and George Nader to San Francisco to attend a special performance of his ultra-camp play, Beach Blanket Babylon. The weekend turned into a gay-club bender and opened even Rock’s experienced eyes—though if he was initially shocked, this would not prevent future visits to any number of establishments that catered for all ages and absolutely every taste, no matter how extreme. Maupin recalled to Patrick Gale:

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  Rock was the perfect name for him. At fifty, his butt was solid. He was very charming and looked you straight in the eye—Rock Hudson in a red alpaca sweater, looking like a tourist from the Midwest.

  The quartet’s first port of call was the notorious Black & Blue Club, a leather bar which had motorcycles suspended from the ceiling, and a not so very discreet backroom that was partitioned off from the main cruising area by corrugated metal sheets—behind which on the stroke of midnight, when the doors of the club were closed to all but bona-fide members, couples and groups in full bondage gear could participate in the dusk-to-dawn “fuckathons” advertised in the local gay contact magazines. The whole sweaty, heaving scenario was captured for posterity in the drawings of Tom of Finland (1920-91), the cult figure among gay S & M enthusiasts whose graphic illustrations of ultra-macho, phenomenally endowed Titans such as Rock is supposed to have been, are known throughout the world. Tom’s subjects, including Rock, would in 1994 be “brought to life” in his company’s porno-flick, The Wild Ones, directed by Durk Dehner and featuring Zak Spears.

  One finds it hard to imagine a household-name movie star such as Rock even thinking of indulging in some of the heavy S & activities depicted in Dehner’s film. The action begins with his recreation of the opening scene of Marlon Brando’s The Wild One (1953), save that this particular group of buddies are riding their Harley-Davidsons en route for the Eagle Club. It ends with the Hudson caricature (Spears, whose Midwestern drawl uncannily resembles Rock’s) getting his lover, Wolff, to “fire” pool balls out of his anus.

  Rock was almost tempted into joining in with the fun at the South of Market Club, an only slightly upmarket den of iniquity.

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  Nicknamed the “Glory Holes” for obvious reasons, part of the establishment comprised a series of plywood booths where clients “made contact” by pushing their penises through the holes in the partitions. But if the recipient had no knowledge at the time who was pleasuring him from the other side, the scores of mostly masturbating men assembled on the balcony overlooking the booths were able to see and applaud every moment.

  One of the numerous celebrities whom Rock met at the Glory Holes was Freddie Mercury, the flamboyant frontman with Queen, yet another tragic victim of AIDS. Although Rock and Freddie were definitely not each other’s type—just as Rock adored muscular blonds, according to his friend David Evans (quoted in my biography of the singer), so Freddie had a penchant for what he called “nice, well-built people with a good lot of meat on them”—they enjoyed a certain rapport which included a little harmless, mutual voyeurism from the balcony. Both were offered exclusive membership of the club, but much to the relief of their respective entourages, declined.

  Another Glory Holes regular—and another AIDS casualty—was John Kobal, the founder of the famous photographic collection who was briefly a member of the “Hudson gay-scene clique”. Invited to spend the weekend at the Castle, Kobal seems to have failed to have entered the hallowed portals of Rock’s bedroom, though Rock did consent to a “tell-all” interview. He later told Kobal not to publish this, unhappy with the way he had compared him with “tall, dark and handsome, sensitive matinee idols” Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Tyrone Power and Robert Taylor—all closeted gay or bisexual stars.

  “To be honest, the interview was like pulling teeth,” Kobal wrote in his introduction to the piece, which instead of appearing in Hollywood Reporter was held back, and published in Films &

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  Filming three weeks after Rock’s death in 1985—by which time the muckrakers had done all they could to sully his memory, and Kobal sensed that he would only be fanning the flames of discontent by adding what Rock had said about his secret gay life. Instead, Rock’s fans got was another run-of-the-mill resumé of his career, though one which ended somewhat portentously:

  I don’t even think of my career any more. That’s a point of view of people looking in from the outside. I do the jobs as best I can, and if it all finished tomorrow I’d probably go back to school and learn to do something else, maybe a landscape gardener would be interesting. That’s something I’d really like doing. Making films sometimes isn’t all that pleasant, you know.

  The British tabloids, frequently more spiteful and unfeeling than their American counterparts when it comes to flushing out sensationalist tittle-tattle, began searching for a way of outing Rock without getting sued. Astonishingly, despite his new-found “freedom” amongst the heavy San Francisco and Los Angeles gay scenes, he still managed to cover his tracks even, when trailed by journalist agents provocateurs—posing as gay men, some of whom would have gone as far as actually having sex with their quarry to get an exclusive, even though they were straight, a practice still prevalent today. Rock never fell into this trap, though he did make the mistake of showing one journalist—the Daily Mirror’s Paul Callan—his most recent piece of
needlepoint embroidery. He told Callan how he had taken up the hobby some years before because he had grown tired of watching television day after day.

  Although Callan does not appear to have been deliberately intent on interrogating Rock about his personal life, this was way

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  too good an opportunity to miss, so he asked him outright if the rumours about his sexuality were true. Outraged—with fists clenched, it is said—he managed to extricate himself out of a decidedly sticky situation:

  Bullshit! I’ve heard that rumour for years and I just don’t care about it. I know lots of gays in Hollywood. Some have tried it on with me, but I’ve always said, “Come on, you’ve got the wrong guy!” As soon as they know that, it’s okay!

  Rock’s belated taste of public hedonism did not affect his work. In 1980 he played himself in The Patricia Neal Story, and this was followed by two television mini-series: Superstunt II with James Coburn—and The Martian Chronicles, co-starring Gayle Hunnicutt, Roddy McDowall and Barry Morse. The locations for the latter were filmed at Anchor Bay, in Malta. Rock played an officer in a space programme who, renouncing the military, relocates to Mars with his family. He was interviewed for Screen International and the anonymous reporter, having seen him “canoodling” with a young man in a Valetta gay bar, asked him why he was still single. Rock could have asked the man why he had been in the bar in the first place, but levelled, “Because I prefer being so. There’s more variety, less problems. However, I do have a favourite actress—though it’s not fair to tell you who she is!” A local paper followed this up, concluding that this mysterious female could only be Hunnicutt, and Rock was content not to deny this. The gay bar, he said, had “reluctantly tempted” him through its doors because it had sold a favourite brand of American beer that straight bars did not stock!

  During the summer of 1981, Rock appeared in another television min-series. The Starmaker centres around a celebrated

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  Hollywood producer who utilises his position as a means of seducing any number of would-be stars, mostly by giving them bit parts in erotic films. Ironically, apart from Suzanne Pleshette and Melanie Griffith, most of the starlets who played these are forgotten today. And for a man who had spent his entire career fighting to hide his sexuality there was an all-important first—a brief but brave bedroom scene with another man, played by Jack Scalia, an up and coming young actor who would soon feature prominently in Rock’s life. Rock explained to his friend, Joan Mac Trevor, how he had hated working on this series even more so than he had McMillan:

  The whole thing was filmed far too quickly. The scriptwriters weren’t interested in the development or even the probability of the characters. My own character wasn’t a man but a big, stupid marshmallow, grinning all the time, never once losing his cool. He didn’t curse, or throw chairs across the room like producers do, like I wanted to do! He was just too perfect for his own good, like something out of a comic book!

  A discreet, warm-hearted woman, Joan Mac Trevor (Jenny Dhont, 1923-2008) had many times been party to Rock’s most profound confidences, and even after his death when she could have earned a tidy sum divulging these to the world, she remained tight-lipped. “Of course I know lots of homosexuals,” Rock told her at this time. “And yes, I have taken them to clubs such as La Cage aux Folles, in Venice [Hollywood]. But who would be interested in knowing that, now?” When Mac Trevor included this admission in her deeply moving obituary, Rock Hudson: le courage jusqu’au bout—published by Ciné-Revue in October 1985, many believed that Rock had actually wanted her

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  to tell the world that was gay and effectively end the speculation. For some journalists, however, there were such traits as loyalty and honesty.

  Rock’s fans were next treated to him on the big screen in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d—a star-studded, high-camp romp filmed in England and set adjacent to the sleepy village of St Mary Mead, home to the celebrated sleuth Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury). His co-stars were his most eclectic in over a decade: Kim Novak, Edward Fox, Tony Curtis, Geraldine Chaplin…and Elizabeth Taylor.

  It is an absolute gem of a production. The action takes place in coronation month, June 1953 (though some of the cars have 1959 registration plates!) when a bunch of Hollywood eccentrics take over a country mansion to make a film about the rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. There is the loudmouthed producer Marty Fenn (Curtis) whose egocentric wife, Lola Brewster (Novak) has been miscast as Elizabeth, while faded icon Marina Gregg (Taylor) is making her comeback to play Mary, whom someone cattily refers to as “Mary, Queen of Sluts”. Directing the film is her womanising ex-husband, Jason Rudd (Rock).

  The off-screen rivalry of these female protagonists is far more virulent than any Tudor court cat-fight. In a repartee worthy of Davis and Crawford in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (and which Rock said brought to mind his experiences on location with Julie Andrews), Lola never ceases to remind Marina which of them is the greater star, and that she once had an affair with the utterly charming Jason, while Marina hammers home what a tart Lola has always been. Marina goads, “In that wig, you could play Lassie. What are you supposed to be, a birthday cake? Too bad everybody’s had a piece!” To which Lola quips, “Chin up, darling—both of them!” Then she coos to

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  her former beau, “Jason, darling. I’m so looking forward to working under you again!” Of the production, she snipes, “I could eat a can of Kodak and puke a better movie!” The plum line, however, allegedly put into the script by Elizabeth herself, comes from Marina when she is with Jason in their room, Gazing at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror while he looks on, po-faced, she sighs, “Bags, bags, go away. Come right back on Doris Day!”

  Because of its glittering pantheon of stars, the Kent location on The Mirror Crack’d was a fiercely guarded secret, though Rock’s journalist friend David Castell was allowed on the set. When Castell complimented him on how well he looked now that he had a few faint wrinkles and greying hair, Rock replied with good humour, “I’m at what they call a difficult age. I’m no longer a young man, but I’m not old enough to play grandfathers. In ten years’ time there’ll be dozens of good parts for me. Just now they are thin on the ground.” How sad that this prophecy would not come true.

  There was cause for concern when Rock returned to Hollywood. In England he had several times complained of feeling unwell, and during the flight home he was taken ill, developing a raging fever—but insisted on being driven straight home when the plane landed. His doctor—celebrity physician Rex Kennamer, recommended by Monty Clift some years earlier—was summoned and admitted him to the UCLA Medical Center, Rock subsequently told Tom Clark that a specialist diagnosed nothing more serious than flu, but Clark was well aware that it was much more serious than this. Rock was scheduled to be interviewed for Ciné-Revue, and Clark was asked to call Joan Mac Trevor and cancel the appointment. Instead, he informed her that Rock was “under the weather”, but that he had given him permission to be interviewed in his place.

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  Mac Trevor believed him, published his statement, and for the first time, Rock’s fans and the public were made aware of how really ill he was:

  For six months now Rock has been suffering from atrocious pains in his chest. He knows he has a heart problem, yet chooses to ignore this. Rock wants to make his television comeback at whatever price, and is prepared to play games with his life to get there. I’ve tried to get him to see a doctor, but he won’t listen to me. He just shrugs his shoulders and says it’s indigestion. Then he tops himself up with hot milk and whisky to kill the pain. He’s thrown himself heart and soul into this new project. It’s as if his life depends on it. He wants to be Hollywood’s Number One again. He told me only the other day, “I’m Rock Hudson. I’m a star and people had better understand that!” He’s obsessed. He needs his publicity like an alcoholic craves booze. He would rather die than walk into a r
oom and no one recognise him.

  Less than forty-eight hours later, Rock was back on his feet, and he who had sworn never to do another potentially long-running television series only too quickly changed his mind when offered “a large pot of gold” for the project Tom Clark had spoken of—The Devlin Connection, about a father and estranged son detective team.

  As with his partner in McMillan & Wife, Rock was asked to choose his own “son”, and NBC advised him not to pick one with whom he had previously enjoyed or might wish to enjoy an “incestuous” relationship. He plumped for Jack Scalia—one of his love-interests in The Starmaker. Scalia and his wife lived near Rock’s New York apartment and as had occurred in the past

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  when interested in a man but wary of making the first move—Rock is said to have checked him out, but not to have been disappointed when told that he was “rampantly heterosexual” because, if Scalia could not become another notch on the Hudson bedpost, at least he was possessed of an “impressive pedigree”.

  Born in New York in 1950, Scalia was a tall, ruggedly handsome beefcake with a gravelly voice that Rock said sent shivers down his spine. The son of Brooklyn Dodger Rocky Tedesco, he was raised in one of the city’s toughest neighbourhoods and soon learned how to look after himself. In 1971 he followed in his father’s footsteps, signing with the Montreal Expos, but during his second season as a pitcher, a serious arm injury ended his baseball career. After spending years drifting from one dead-end job to another he took up modelling, treading the catwalks of Paris, Milan and San Francisco before returning to New York where, in 1980 he took another change of direction by enrolling for acting lessons. There seems little doubt that Rock fell in love with him, despite his swarthy complexion—though whether he actually voiced his feelings is not known. Early on in their friendship, Scalia reminded him that he was one hundred per cent heterosexual, but Rock appears to have either not believed or not wanted to believe this, and to have possibly misread the young man’s gestures of “filial affection”, which Scalia recalled for Sara Davidson: