The secrets Rock Hudson took to his grave
More than 30 years after his death a gripping new book lifts the lid on the Pillow Talk star’s scandalous sex life and reveals details of the love child he never publicly acknowledged
IT was 32 years ago this month that Rock Hudson died of Aids, the first major movie actor seen to succumb to the deadly disease as the world watched in shock. Yet in the 1950s he reigned not only as Hollywood’s biggest box office star but as its greatest bisexual swordsman.
He seduced icons including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Grace Kelly and Princess Margaret while also bedding Marlon Brando, James Dean, Richard Burton, Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power.
The star of Magnificent Obsession, Pillow Talk and TV’s McMillan And Wife, his conquests were overshadowed by the studio executives and directors he was obliged to sleep with to advance his career – the industry’s dirty little secret decades before claims Harvey Weinstein employed such sexual coercion. Now a new book lifts the lid on Hudson’s hedonistic life, revealing the love child he tragically ignored and how he considered his death his “shining hour” by facing his illness with courage and grace.
“I don’t want to be an actor, I want to be a movie star,” the former naval ensign and truck driver Roy Fitzgerald told friends long before changing his name to Rock Hudson. “And I don’t give a damn how many casting couches I have to lie on!” And there were many.
Biographer Darwin Porter, coauthor of Rock Hudson: Erotic Fire, says: “Rock did whatever was needed to advance his career in Hollywood. Even when he was an established star he would still give sexual favours to studio chiefs if it would win him a coveted role.
“But the world has a misconception that Rock Hudson was exclusively gay. In fact he was bisexual until late in life especially if it would further his career. Rock loved women and he loved sex.”
Yet Hudson’s biggest regret on his deathbed was abandoning his secret love child, the book reveals.
The actor, who had been abandoned by his own father at the age of seven, was 19 when he dropped a girlfriend off at her house in his hometown of Winnetka, Illinois, and was promptly seduced by her 35-year-old mother.
Years later he received a letter from that woman, Martha Blair, disclosing their night of passion had produced her son Richard.
“He was dying to meet the kid,” said Hudson’s friend Tom Clark, “but he didn’t think it would be wise to return and expose the woman. It could wreck her life, maybe the kid’s too.” When his son was a teenager he wrote to Hudson asking to meet. “The b ****** never answered,” said Richard.
YET IN his dying days Hudson confessed: “I should have gone back home and looked up my son. Maybe brought him here to live with me. I always wanted to have a son, someone to carry on my legacy.”
Tall, handsome and muscular, Hudson seduced many of Hollywood’s screen sirens. He bedded Marilyn Monroe when both were rising stars. After skinny-dipping in Malibu, Hudson found: “She wasn’t as innocent as she looked.”
Judy Garland arrived at his home naked under a raincoat, drunkenly begging Hudson to make love to her – which he did. “She was out of control, storming around the room,” he later told a friend. “I didn’t know how to handle her.”
After bedding Joan Crawford he confessed: “When it comes to sex she is the director, telling you all the exact moves to make.”
While filming Giant, Hudson became lovers with co-stars James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. “I’m crazy about her,” said Hudson. “I think she gets tired of people always talking about her beauty and her eyes. One night I was raving about how gorgeous she was, she went to her bedroom and emerged as Minnie Mouse.”
Yet his most famous on-screen partnership was with Doris Day in Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers.
“He called her Eunice and she called him Ernie and they loved each other as friends but were never lovers,” says the author. “It was a loving, platonic relationship.
“But when Rock went to London to star in a play in 1976 he had a passionate fling with Princess Margaret. She did celebrity impressions for him and they sang together. He found her great fun.
“He loved actress Marilyn Maxwell and asked her to marry him but she didn’t want to be in the open marriage he craved. He couldn’t be monogamous.”
But as his homosexual liaisons became whispered around Hollywood fears grew that he might be outed by scandal magazines, destroying his career.
“His agent Henry Willson badgered Rock with almost daily demands that he get a wife as cover,” says Porter.
Willson sent Hudson out on dates with his pretty secretary Phyllis Gates and urged Hudson to marry her. “I don’t love her and I never will,” Rock lamented. “Marry her anyway,” said Willson.
Their wedding night was a sign of troubles to come. “He emerged from the bedroom in his pyjamas, told her he was exhausted and went to sleep,” says Porter.
Living with Hudson was never easy: he was often out all night with his male friends and was a slob at home. Phyllis complained: “You never empty the ashtrays and you drop your clothes all over the house and I have to pick up after you. You don’t shower enough, your armpits smell and you don’t brush your teeth.”
Hudson seemed lost away from the studio cameras. “When he wasn’t working he was impossibly bored,” recalled Phyllis. “He had no hobbies and hated golf. He said he felt like a lumbering jackass on a tennis court.”
But after a year of whisking her to glittering premieres and starstudded parties Hudson no longer took Phyllis out. “By now the whole town has seen I’ve got a wife – isn’t that enough?” he raged. They divorced in 1958 after only three years of marriage. Hudson was 58 when doctors delivered what was then a death sentence in 1984: “You have Aids and there’s no cure.” He had barely a year left.
He told few friends that he was dying, not even Linda Evans who had scenes kissing Hudson in the classic TV soap opera Dynasty in what became his final performance.
“Rock did what he could to minimise the risk of infection and it was the most chaste, closed-lip kiss, so lacking in passion they debated reshooting it,” says Porter.
“But Rock considered dying with grace to be his finest performance. When he could no longer hide it he admitted that he had Aids and put a beloved face to what was then a terrifying plague.
“He spent his final days looking out across his beautiful garden, facing his demise with courage. His death united Hollywood against the disease that killed him, a legacy he could be proud of. He had loved so many men and women he only wanted to be loved in return – and to be a star.”
To pre-order Rock Hudson: Erotic Fire, by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince, published by Blue Moon, £24.99, on December 2, please call the Express Bookshop with your card details on 01872 562310. Alternatively send a cheque or postal order made payable to The Express Bookshop to: Rock Hudson Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, Cornwall, TR11 4WJ or visit www.expressbookshop.com UK delivery is free.