by David Bret
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The effects of the HPA-23 were debilitating: nausea, extreme fatigue, loss of balance and appetite. Rock however quickly adapted to his new regime and after his first week in Paris reported back to his friends at the Castle that he was feeling much better. He was then joined by Dale Olsen—also been kept in the dark about his illness—and during his week off from the hospital he, Olsen and Channell drove across to Deauville.
Rock had made it clear before leaving Hollywood that he would not be meeting the media. Even so a cameraman slipped through the net of security and snapped him in the hotel bar, leafing through a copy of Ciné-Revue that one of the staff had asked him to sign, and later having a drink in the same bar with Jacqueline Carter, the respected journalist from France-Soir whom he had agreed to meet socially. The first photograph—Rock looks gaunt and has bags under his eyes—appeared in the following week’s issue of Ciné-Revue and so incensed him that he threatened to sue, dropping the action only when Gérard Néves convinced him he had been unaware of the press embargo.
Rock’s treatment continued and, according to Dr. Dormont’s subsequent report he appeared to be responding well to the HPA-23 infusions. He was also managing to keep his visits to Percy secret, even from Dale Olsen, despite unflattering comments from reporters who always seemed to be one step ahead as he and Ron Channell “did Europe”—Nice, St Tropez, Barcelona. And always there was persistent reference to his weight loss and haggard appearance.
Rock may have been willing to stay in France, but there was renewed pressure from the producers of Dynasty, urging him to return to Hollywood and join the cast before the end of October so that his character would fit in with the storyline the scriptwriters were working on. Indeed, they were so eager to have him that Esther Shapiro made a special 24-hour trip to Paris
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to see him. They took tea at the Ritz, and Shapiro’s offer was more encouraging than he had anticipated. Initially, he would play wealth ranch owner Daniel Reece in six episodes, but if the ratings were favourable—and Shapiro assured him that they would be—he would appear in three more, and a possible spin-off series. His fee had already been fixed at $2.5 million! Needless to say, Rock put the worries about his health to the back of his mind, signing the contract there and then.
A few days later, Rock began his fourth and final series of HPA-23 infusions, and Dr. Dormont ran more tests. Rock was told that he still had AIDS, but that the virus had been curtailed. He was warned that it would return, but that there was a good chance that it would be kept under control, providing he returned to Percy on a regular basis, leaving no more than four weeks between infusion courses. Rock weighed up the situation. His career had always come first, even before health and personal happiness, and at 58—an age when he had begun dismissing himself as “all washed up”—a potential McMillan-sized triumph was to all intents and purposes waiting around the next corner. He informed Dr. Dormont that his Dynasty schedule would keep him occupied until February 1985, paid his costly medical bill and on 7 October, convinced that he was cured, he and Ron Channell flew back to Los Angeles.
When Rock arrived back at the Castle, Marc Christian had gone away for the weekend. It would appear that he and Rock had had no communication whatsoever during Rock’s absence, and Christian had assumed that the trip would be no longer than two weeks. It is possible that he had made himself scarce to avoid a confrontation with Ron Channell whom, he had been told, had replaced him in Rock’s affections.
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Marc Christian, when Rock met him…
…and after he ordered him to have a shave!
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Rock on location in Israel for his final film, The Ambassador.
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11: The Last Sunset
“Hudson loved his stardom and surrendered much to hold on to it. He called himself Charlie Movie Star as a self-deprecating joke, but creating that persona and preserving it for 35 years was a remarkable performance and deserves a little respect and appreciation.” Angie Errigo, journalist.
Much had happened in recent months regarding San Francisco’s vibrant gay community. In May 1984, in the wake of weeks of ferocious arguments, the city’s director of public health issued a decree “forbidding all sexual activity between individuals where the transmission of AIDS is likely to occur”—a move even supported by some gay groups which had led to pressure being put on the mayor, Diane Feinstein, to close the city’s bath-houses, orgy rooms and glory holes. By the end of August, most of these had been assigned to history, as had others in gay villages around the country.
Rock was “tickled” to see footage of demonstrators on the television news, wearing only towels and chanting, “Out of the Tubs and into the Shrubs!”— a statement to the fact that if gay men could not meet partners and have sex in what they deemed to be appropriate surroundings, then they would begin “hitting” parks and public toilets, which of course is exactly did what happen. He was not so amused when rebel gay organisations began canvassing former patrons of shut-down establishments for support: these threatened to name names if they did not comply. It later emerged that for weeks he had been terrified of picking up the phone or leaving the Castle.
At the end of October, Rock began working on Dynasty. He was nervous about meeting the cast because of the drastic change in his appearance, but when he walked on to the set for the first time, they cheered and applauded him as if he was royalty. Rock
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was no prima donna: there would be no arguments over what he was asked to do, or the many takes, despite his extreme fatigue. He was more interested in fraternising with the extras than he was most of the major stars, some of whom are said to have snubbed these “underlings” and treated them with disdain. He did become fond of John Forsythe and Linda Evans (who played Blake and Crystal Carrington), Michael Nader, and Joan Collins who played much-wed resident super-bitch, Alexis, one of the most exciting characters to appear in an American soap. Some of the younger actors, on the other hand, he did not care for.
Rock’s scenes in Dynasty are the most heartrending of his career. Occasionally he has to break a line in the middle and gasp for breath, and in one scene when Crystal gives him a gentle, playful shove he is hard put not to lose his balance. It is obvious that he is deteriorating rapidly between episodes, failing before our eyes. Yet everything he does remains utterly natural and charming, in complete contrast to the frequently over-the-top, lacklustre amateurism of most of his colleagues who, when called to play opposite him, were automatically demoted to second-rate hams.
Daniel Reece, the millionaire owner of the Delta Rio stables, is in love with Crystal, and is revealed to be the father of her wayward niece, Sammy Jo (Heather Locklear)—who is enamoured of Crystal’s gay stepson, Steven Carrington (Jack Coleman). When Daniel enters the saga, Steven is the lover of Luke Fuller, played by the aforementioned William Campbell. Rock must have found this indirect link to an ongoing gay story line daunting but amusing, particularly the line pronounced to him by Sammy Jo, “I never would have married Steven if I’d known he was gay, no matter how much money he had.” He was amused by the banter between Alexis and her third husband Dex Dexter—played by Michael Nader, nephew of his friend George.
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Prior to Daniel’s arrival on the scene, he and Dex have been “war buddies”, and there is now talk of them heading off to Libya to sort out an international crisis:
ALEXIS: I’m talking about a certain Mr. Reece. Darling, I hope you don’t have any imminent plans to go off adventuring with him again? From what I’ve heard about your exploits, they can be quite dangerous—I’d hate to spend a fortune on a widow’s wardrobe again!
DEX: Alexis, I’ve no intention of getting involved with Mr. Reece…How did you find out about all that, anyhow? Nobody’s supposed to know.
ALEXIS: Somebody knows, and somebody talked…
DEX: That somebody ought to have kept his mouth shut.
When not required on the
set, Rock spent much of his time resting in his trailer. His almost constant fatigue resulted in him having problems with his lines, though in this respect he was by no means the only one. On one occasion the show’s assistant director, Connie Garcia-Singer, flew into a panic when she was unable to rouse him, though by the time she summoned help Rock was on his feet, begging her not to worry. There were problems with make-up, which was why Rock personally hired Universal’s Jack Freeman, who had first made him up for Come September in 1960. Speaking to American TV Guide in October 1985, Freeman recalled the differences between then and now:
Then, it was just a matter of keeping the suntan on him. But here, he’d lost a great deal of weight. His colouring was very pale. I did what I could to make him look better, but it was evident that he wasn’t really well or strong. Yet his face would light up at times and he would
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look wonderful, and he didn’t seem at all worried about his condition. When he sat in the make-up chair, he’d never look in the mirror and he was a little impatient. I’d have to go as fast as I could. But his humour was always up. Rock had a great sense of what I call noblesse oblige. He wanted to make sure that every actor, no matter how nervous or inexperienced, had his moments…At times another actor would keep making mistakes, so Rock would make a mistake too, so that the actor wouldn’t be the focus of everyone’s attention. I think he never forgot how hard it was for him the first time, and he wanted everybody to enjoy working as much as he did.
Only once did Rock’s indefatigable humour fail him—when he insisted upon doing his own stunts and the director, Irving J Moore, would not let him. Interviewed for the same publication as Jack Freeman, Moore recalled one scene in particular:
It was very tough. Reece was supposed to be brought into a cell, thrown on the floor, then slammed up against the wall. Rock wanted to do it all himself, but of course we couldn’t allow it. We picked up a scene with a stunt double after Rock hit the floor. I think it gave him a boost to be able to get in there and do something physical.
Rock’s biggest dilemma during Dynasty came when the script called for him to kiss his on-screen mistress, Crystal, for his doctors had cautioned him that the AIDS virus could be transmitted through saliva, and he had several open sores inside his mouth. For over a week after reading the script he deliberated what to do: whether to refuse to perform the kiss and rob the plot
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of its passionate twist—or whether to tell everyone why he could not kiss Linda Evans. The latter option would not only have guaranteed his removal from the show and necessitated a costly, last-minute script rewrite, but inevitably the world’s press would have got onto the story, however Rock tried to hide it. He therefore decided that the kiss would take place, but that it would not be open-mouthed. The scene was filmed, and nothing more said about it until July 1985, when thousands of Linda Evans fans would accuse him of deliberately putting her life at risk.
By the end of 1984, Rock’s social and sex life had all but ground to a halt. His celebrity friends avoided him because of their resentment of Marc Christian. There were no parties at the Castle, few invitations to attend others elsewhere. According to his closest friends, Rock had become celibate, ashamed that his seemingly limitless libido and addiction to sex had contributed to his moribund state. Shortly after his fifty-ninth birthday, he told Mark Miller, “No sixtieth. I’m leaving town next year.”
There were two exceptions: a Christmas Eve knees-up at the home of Martha Raye, one of his McMillan co-stars and the only woman he had trusted to confide in about his condition, and a visit to the Golden Globes in January 1985, when he arrived linking arms with Liza Minnelli and Elizabeth Taylor who suspected that he was seriously ill, but as yet did not know exactly what was wrong.
It was a grumpy Rock who, on the morning of 15 February gave a telephone interview, arranged a while before, with the Chicago Tribune’s John Anderson. The chat was supposed to be about Dynasty. Six of the nine episodes featuring Rock had been aired by NBC, who had received hundreds of letters regarding his state of health. When he began coughing, and told Anderson that he had just lit a cigarette, the journalist gently reprimanded him for smoking, after heart bypass surgery—and he let rip:
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Everybody asks about my health. All the damn 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 such a bore, especially when you’re doing a fight.
Rock’s deterioration was rapid. By March 1985 his weight had dropped to 180 pounds—an impressive weight for most men, but not for one whom people had been willing to swear stood six-and-a-half-feet tall and who had like he said, without an ounce of fat, formerly tipped the scales at 220 pounds. The loss, Rock told Marc Christian, was as a result of overzealous dieting and recurring influenza. He could hardly keep anything down, was suffering almost constantly from diarrhoea, and had developed agonising impetigo. On some days he slurred his speech, as had happened when he had filmed his final Dynasty episode when the script girl, thinking him to be suffering from a hangover, had arranged for him to read from cue cards.
He was urged to return to Paris for another course of infusions at the Hôpital Percy, but would not hear of this, his excuse being that Paris would be too cold at this time of year. By way of a “compromise” to stop everyone nagging him, he flew to Hawaii for a week’s vacation with Ron Channell, who astonishingly still does not appear to have been told what was wrong with him. A few weeks after this, he and Mark Miller spent several days at Miller’s and George Nader’s Palm Desert retreat, sightseeing on his good days and reminiscing over times long past. Nader would later define this as Rock’s way of saying goodbye.
At the end of May, Marc Christian’s sister, Susan, was married and Rock insisted the wedding reception be held at the Castle—
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as would have happened with any other member of his staff. The previous year he had thrown a surprise ruby wedding party for Christian’s parents, declaring how his lover’s family was his family too. Yet only days after this second bash—at which he was not present—he hit the roof upon receiving a $10,000 bill from the garage that had been restoring Mr. Christian’s car. Rock had already shelled out $20,000 on repairs and he returned the bill, declaring that it was no longer his responsibility—a move interpreted by his friends that he and Christian were no longer an item. Christian accused the garage owner of “kiting” the bill by charging Rock twice for the same parts, and it emerged that besides Mr. Christian’s station wagon, Rock had unwittingly been contributing to the repair of Liberty Martin’s car. This incident appears to have been the last straw so far as Rock’s patience with Christian was concerned, and he did not speak to him for several days.
At the end of June, Rock received a call from old pal Doris Day, now semi-retired at her home in Carmel. Doris had been invited to make a television programme, Doris Day’s Best Friends, her first in years, and she was anxious that Rock should participate. The show’s producers had set up a press conference to attend the event on 16 July, and Life magazine had arranged to do a photo-spread and cover feature for what was being hailed “the biggest showbiz reunion of the decade”. There was even talk of the pair making a fourth film together.
Rock’s friends and his doctors urged him not to do the show because he looked so terribly ill. He now weighed 170 pounds, and on occasions could hardly stand on his feet. He refused to listen. Well aware that he was offering his swansong, on 15 July he flew out to Carmel.
The filming of the show went well, though Rock turned up late—wearing old clothes and with unkempt hair and moustache.
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At one stage he stumbled, and he trembled noticeably when Doris put her arms about him and called him her best buddy. She was so shocked by his appearance that she wanted to cancel the sho
w until he was feeling stronger, but Rock would not hear of this. When asked point-blank what was wrong with him, Dale Olsen merely repeated to the press what Rock had told Marc Christian about the recurring bouts of flu. For the moment the AIDS word would not be printed: to the layman, Rock’s sunken eyes, hollow cheeks and ghastly tinge indicated that he must have been suffering from cancer, possibly of the liver.
Rock’s contribution to Doris Day’s Best Friends was a skit on Pillow Talk, and opens with the familiar split screen: two old chums chatting on the phone whilst she arranges roses in a vase and he is at home, preparing to leave for the show. Doris expresses her delight that he has consented to appear, but now tells him that the budget cannot allow for him to fly, therefore he must catch the bus. He does, turning up in an old banger that she goes to meet in a country lane. They drive off in a buttercup-yellow convertible similar to the one Rock had owned when living with Jack Navaar. Finally, in Doris’ garden, surrounded by her dogs, they talk over old times. The tableau is supposed to be hilariously funny but Rock looks so feeble, gaunt and prematurely aged that one finds it near impossible to watch this last image of him without shedding tears.
It has never been established if Rock actually told Doris Day about his illness, or if she worked it out for herself. She has steadfastly refused to speak about this period of Rock’s life. The most she ever said was 1994 when brushing off a politely persuasive Gloria Hunniford in a British television interview honouring her seventieth birthday: “It was shattering. But, enough of that. Let’s think of him with laughter, because he was so funny.”
