Rock Hudson

His father lost his job in the Depression and walked out on the family in Winnetka, Illinois. Roy Scherer Jr. was four when the divorce came through. He tried out for school plays and got nothing, because he could not remember lines. He serviced Navy aircraft in the Philippines, came home, drove a truck, and was turned down by the drama program at USC on his grades. What made him an actor was an agent. Henry Willson signed him in 1947, renamed him Rock Hudson from the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River, and Universal-International coached him in acting, singing, dancing, fencing and horseback riding. His one line in his first film reportedly took 38 takes. By 1957 exhibitors voted him the most popular actor in the country.

Two careers ran through the same face. Douglas Sirk directed him in Magnificent Obsession in 1954 and All That Heaven Allows in 1955. Reviewers of the day filed the results under women's pictures, and later critics read them as hard studies of American class and conformity. Giant followed in 1956, and an Academy Award nomination alongside James Dean's. Then Ross Hunter paired him with Doris Day in Pillow Talk in 1959 and he became a comedian instead. Those comedies ran on a bachelor persona — the joke was a womanizer faking sincerity to get a woman into bed.

He was gay, and inside the film industry this was not a secret. Julie Andrews, Elizabeth Taylor, Carol Burnett and Audrey Hepburn all later said they had known and had kept quiet. The concealment was professional work. In 1955 Confidential magazine threatened to publish a story about his homosexuality, and Willson stalled it by handing over material on two other clients — Rory Calhoun's years in prison and Tab Hunter's arrest at a 1950 party. Soon after, on November 9, 1955, Hudson married Willson's secretary Phyllis Gates in Santa Barbara. Gates wrote that she married for love and did not know he was gay, an account others who knew her disputed. She filed for divorce in April 1958, and a recording she made of him acknowledging his sexuality surfaced in 2013.

He was diagnosed on June 5, 1984, and told no one. On July 25, 1985, from a hospital in Paris, his publicist confirmed that he had AIDS — the first major American star to say so. He died in Beverly Hills on October 2 at 59, and asked that there be no funeral. The effect was measurable. Private donations for AIDS research more than doubled that year, and days after his death Congress set aside 221 million dollars. Reagan, a friend who had never publicly discussed the disease, defended AIDS funding at a news conference that September. Hudson's 250,000-dollar gift and Elizabeth Taylor's chairmanship launched amfAR. He did not choose the role. It is the one that mattered.

Rock Hudson's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Magnificent Obsession film
  The Douglas Sirk melodrama that turned a contract player into a star 1954
• All That Heaven Allows film
  Dismissed on release, now read as a study of class and conformity 1955
• Giant film
  His only Academy Award nomination, shared with co-star James Dean 1956
• Written on the Wind film
  Sirk again, on oil money and family collapse 1956
• Pillow Talk film
  First of three comedies with Doris Day 1959
• Seconds film
  John Frankenheimer thriller about a man remade into a new identity 1966

• November 17, 1925 aged 0 Born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois His father left during the Depression and his parents divorced when he was four.
• 1944 aged ~19 Enlists in the Navy and services aircraft in the Philippines
• 1947 aged ~22 Henry Willson signs the truck driver and renames him Rock Hudson The name combined the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River. Hudson later said he hated it.
• 1954 aged ~29 Magnificent Obsession makes him a star It took more than 5 million dollars at the box office.
• November 9, 1955 aged 29 Marries Phyllis Gates in Santa Barbara Confidential magazine had just threatened to publish a story about his homosexuality.
• 1959 aged ~34 Pillow Talk opens and he is voted the most popular star in America He was in the exhibitors top 10 eight times between 1957 and 1964.
• June 5, 1984 aged 58 Diagnosed with AIDS and tells no one He kept working and traveled to France seeking treatment.
• July 25, 1985 aged 59 His publicist confirms in Paris that he has AIDS No American public figure of his standing had said it before.
• October 2, 1985 aged 59 Dies at his home in Beverly Hills at 59 He asked for no funeral. His ashes were scattered off the California coast.

• Elizabeth Taylor 1932–2011
  Two-time Academy Award winner who turned the largest fame in the world into the first mass-audience campaign against AIDS. co-star and friend
• James Dean 1931–1955
  Actor whose brief career and rebellious image in Rebel Without a Cause made him a symbol of teenage disillusionment. co-star
• Ronald Reagan 1911–2004
  40th president whose conservative domestic program and assertive Cold War strategy reshaped American politics. friend
• Larry Kramer 1935–2020
  Writer who co-founded Gay Men's Health Crisis and ACT UP — forcing faster federal response to AIDS. AIDS activism