Rock Hudson: The Gentle Giant

by David Bret

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  despite Ross Hunter’s much-publicised comment that she was possessed of “one of the wildest asses” in Hollywood, Doris Day refused to believe that anyone would perceive her as sexy. It was Henry Willson who convinced Rock that he was funnier and better-looking than Cary Grant—arguing that after a few minutes of screen time Grant’s harsh, nasal inflections tended to wear on the nerves, whereas Rock’s deep, manly drawl had never failed to send shivers down the spines of both sexes. As for Doris, her last two films had flopped after being savaged by the critics, and she was pushed into the project by her third husband-manager, Marty Melcher, a man who was every bit as grasping and manipulative as Willson. Melcher told Hunter, once Doris had agreed to do the film, that she would only sign the contract proving he was engaged as co-producer, for which his fee would me a “mere” $50,000.

  Melcher’s deviousness did not stop at his wife for, once Rock had accepted the part of over-sexed songwriter Brad Allen, he pounced on him, strongly advising him to drop Willson and engage him as his personal manager. Rock’s response—“Henry only screwed me for fun, not professionally!”—suggests that he already suspected Melcher of being a crook. Unfortunately, Doris Day did not discover that her husband had been embezzling her funds until after his death in 1968, when he left her $500,000 in debt. Throughout shooting, which began early in February 1959, Rock fought hard to conceal his hatred of this man. What he never knew was that Willson too had “screwed him over”, enforcing a deal with Ross Hunter wherein he would pocket $25,000, to be deducted from Rock’s salary, for his role as his client’s “adviser”.

  Pillow Talk launched the most popular, perfectly matched and above all most credible comedy partnership of the sixties: the randy, loquacious but loveable rogue—and the dotty, standoffish

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  perennial virgin who wears a succession of daft hats. She plays Jan Morrow, an interior designer compelled to share a party line with Brad, whom she has never seen, and who serenades his latest flame with the song he claims he has written for her—amending the lyrics time and time again throughout the scenario so that they include the name of whichever easy lay he is hoping to get into bed. Next to his couch is a control box: one switch locks the door on his conquests, dims the lights and operates the record player; another converts the couch into a bed. Jan bawls him out for hogging the line, and he responds, “Get off my back, lady. Stop living vicariously on what you think I do. There are plenty of warm rolls in the bakery. Stop pressing your nose against the window!” Then, having fallen for her, he invents an alter ego—Texan magnate Rex Stetson, a home loving country boy who owns a mountain and who tells her, “I’m not one for making fancy speeches, but I get a nice warm feeling being near you, ma’am. It’s like being round a pot-bellied stove on a frosty morning!” Eventually she finds out who he is and gives him his marching orders, but he worms his way back into her affections after hiring her to decorate his apartment, effecting a satisfactory ending. “Once I had the mumps,” she says. “It wasn’t very pleasant, but I got over it. I look over Brad Allen like any other disease. I’ve had him, it’s over. I’m immune to him!”

  Within days of starting work on Pillow Talk, Rock and Doris Day had baptised each other Roy Harold and Eunice Blotter, nicknames which would stick for the rest of Rock’s life, and in this and their subsequent films, a great many meant-to-be-serious scenes ran way over schedule because of their clowning.

  Rock’s and Doris’s love scenes were provocative for the day, though never over the top, and they were accepted by Middle America and its fussy moralists, and religious groups who had tut-tutted at Magnificent Obsession. Time magazine observed:

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  When these two magnificent objects go into a clinch—aglow from the sunlamp, agleam with hair lacquer—they

  look less like creatures of the flesh than a couple of Cadillacs parked in a suggestive position.

  Their regular foil, Tony Randall, opined to Sara Davidson that Rock was supreme at playing romantic leads because he truly believed in romance. In the trade, the trio of Hudson-Day comedies acquired the nickname “DFMs”—“Delayed-Fuck-Movies”—on account of their protagonists not being allowed to sleep together until after they were married. In them, however, Rock was only indirectly expressing his homosexuality, as his friend Armistead Maupin, of whom more later, explained:

  Most of the guys I knew really liked to see the old Doris Day films, and I think one of the reasons we laughed at them so hard was that there was a real gay “in-joke” occurring in almost all of those light comedies—because at some point or another, the character that Rock Hudson played posed as gay in order to get the woman into bed. It was tremendously ironic because here was a gay man, impersonating a straight man impersonating a gay man!

  As soon as Pillow Talk was finished, Rock gave up his stilt-house and relocated to Newport Beach, where he bought a boat, the Lady Claire, from the actress Claire Trevor. Changing its name to Khairuzan, Piper Laurie’s character in The Golden Blade, he hired a two-woman lesbian crew and sailed with them to local beauty spots such as Catalina Island where picnics were laid on with at least one beach boy “for dessert”. Henry Willson reprimanded him for his recklessness. Confidential may have been defunct but the likes of Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons and

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  Elsa Maxwell—the undisputed doyenne of double-standards, herself gay, whom Rock had met in Rome when she had been “paying homage” at the courts of Maria Callas and Anna Magnani—would never be silenced.

  This time, Rock refused to do his Svengali’s bidding, and Willson reciprocated by asking Universal to loan Rock the money for a twelve months lease on a large, Spanish-style house that had taken his fancy at 9402 Beverly Crest Drive. Its owner, the producer Sam Jaffe, was spending a year working in Europe. Rock was persuaded to move in at once. If he could not control his sexual urges, Universal’s William Goetz concluded, coughing up the cash, then at least he would be able to conduct them much more privately.

  Whilst Pillow Talk was being edited, Rock filmed The Last Sunset in Mexico, directed by Robert Aldrich of Autumn Leaves fame. His co-stars were Dorothy Malone, looking more radiant than ever, and Kirk Douglas, immediately prior to the release of Spartacus, who gets to croon a couple of songs. Rock played drawling sheriff Dana Stribling, who heads for Mexico in pursuit of arch enemy O’Malley (Douglas), a deranged but philosophical gunslinger who had killed his brother-in-law—and to reclaim Belle (Malone) “the pretty little girl in the yellow dress” he loved many years ago, but who now has a settled life as a rancher’s wife with a 15-year-old daughter.

  The film was not as successful as everyone had hoped because, released hot on the heels of Pillow Talk, the public had expected more of the same. Today, it is regarded as an above-average western, but in his 1961 autobiography, even Aldrich dismissed it as mediocre, as he explained to Jimmy Hicks:

  Rock Hudson, of all people, emerged from it more creditably than anyone. Most people do not consider him

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  a very accomplished actor, but I found him to be terribly hard-working, dedicated and very serious. If everyone in the picture from producer to writer to other actors had approached it with the same dedication, it would have been a lot better.

  Pillow Talk was released in October 1959, and to everyone’s surprise proved one of the year’s biggest hits and Universal’s top money-earner to date. Even Box Office, a magazine that had been generally dismissive of Rock’s performances over the years, observed hypocritically, “Hudson is as suave, self-possessed and convincing as though he has been delineating lighter roles all through his distinguished career.” As a result, he and Doris Day were contracted to make two follow-ups over the next four years, and Henry Willson joined him in forming the aforementioned Gibraltar Productions, a venture that would see them buying shares in every future Hudson film. Combined with his regular salary, this placed Rock in the same $1 million-plus per film earnings as Tracy, Brando and Grant.
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br />   The first of these follow-ups would be Lover Come Back, pencilled in for shooting early in 1961. In the meantime—“for the want of something better to do,” he said—Rock flew to Rome to make Come September, another Shapiro-Richman sex comedy, with Italian legend Gina Lollobrigida and teen idols Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee.

  Rock was wary about filming in Rome because Massimo was here on vacation with the Hollywood actor he had recently taken up with. He soon forgot about him, however, for within days of checking into his suite at the Grand Hotel one of the Italian bit-parts from Come September had moved in with him. Another worry had been rumours he had heard of Gina Lollobrigida being difficult to work with, but, as had happened with Doris Day, they

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  got along famously and concluded after just one scene that they were having such fun, a second film would definitely have to be on the cards.

  La Lollo, as she was affectionately known, was without any doubt the most exciting non-American co-star Rock ever had. A firebrand of sparkling talent, like him she was a natural wit in what was for her a rare, cherished comic role—though it is very likely, with her then-limited English, that she might not quite have understood the wealth of gay “in-jokes” and intonations that peppered the script. Rock played millionaire businessman Robert Talbot who, once a year—always in September—spends several weeks at his Italian villa with his lovely but temperamental lover, Lisa (Lollobrogida), though this year she plans to tell him they are through because she is weary of playing “girl for the month” and has decided to marry a man she believes she loves. “I’m tired of being a free sample,” she screams when they are reunited. “The market’s closed—you’ll have to start shopping somewhere else!” Her plans and the machinations of Maurice, the butler (Walter Slezak) are thwarted when Robert makes his trip to Italy earlier than usual. For eleven months of the year, Maurice has without Robert’s knowledge turned the villa into a hotel—not for dishonest reasons, but to use the proceeds for the upkeep of the place. And now, he has to get rid of his unwelcome guests, particularly a quartet of young bloods who have already encountered Robert on the outskirts of Rome, taunting him about his flashy car, only to be recompensed by bemused, homoerotic stares—hardly surprising, perhaps, for one of the young men was Rock’s current lover, though he is alleged to have “sampled” all four whilst making the film. In fact, homoeroticism is the order of the day in this one. When the young men arrive at the villa, they catch Robert in a clinch with his sweetheart—his shirt is unbuttoned to the waist he is wearing

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  her pink, feathered picture hat. Tony, the troupe’s leader (Darin), greets him with a wolf whistle, then bends down suggestively—levelling his backside with Robert’s crotch as he unloads the luggage from their car.

  Lover Come Back, Rock’s second film with Doris Day, proved even more successful that Pillow Talk. Coming hot on the heels of Universal’s wave of second-rate productions and major flops, it saved the studio from bankruptcy. Even Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, no Hudson fan, liked it and called the pair, “Delicious…he in his big, sprawling way, she in her wide-eyed, pert, pugnacious and eventually melting vein.”

  The rivals-cum-lovers in the film are Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton, who work for enemy advertising agencies—but whilst she is conscientious and decent and as in Pillow Talk wears a succession of silly hats, he is a hard-drinking lecher. To say more about the complicated plot would only spoil it for those who have not seen the film. Rock always maintained that of his comedies, Lover Come Back was his personal favourite. He told Gordon Gow:

  The advertising man in Lover Come Back, like the composer in Pillow Talk, was a ne’er-do-well. And playing a ne’er-do-well is terrific…I guess it’s what we all wish we were but don’t have the guts to be…the advertising executive who plays around all the time, who was bored until he met Miss Day and said to himself, “That would be rather interesting to toss in the hay—but I’ll see if I can get her to go on the make for me!” Now, that’s fun and it’s very playable!

  Whilst making the film, having heard about his most recent Italian adventure, this time with four blond studs, Henry Willson

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  “leaked” the news that Rock was amorously involved with the actress-singer Marilyn Maxwell, who had recently separated from her third husband, writer-producer Jerry Davis. Though not a love affair, there would be a strong affinity between the two over the next decade, though why Rock should become interested in a woman whose lifestyle was poles apart from his own remains a mystery. He was at the peak of his profession, whilst Maxwell was struggling to keep afloat. Four years Rock’s senior, she had begun her career at sixteen, singing with a dance band, moved on to films but, after a relatively successful spell with MGM, her blonde bombshell had faded and she was now stripping in burlesque shows.

  The press reported Rock and Maxwell as “going steady” in June 1961, when he flew out to Surinam for the location shooting of The Spiral Road. He had already told her that he was gay—more than this he had introduced her to his latest beau, the “token fuck” provided for the new film, and when he called from Surinam and confessed that he and the young man were sharing a hotel suite, Maxwell replied that this was fine by her—adding that he would soon get over these “fads” once he was married to a real woman! Rock accepted this somewhat unconventional proposal at once, declaring that he would be delighted to make her the second Mrs. Hudson, though there would have to be one condition: she would have to allow him his “other” life. This Maxwell could not do, but though the pair ceased being “lovers”—the press were informed of a fictitious rift—they remained close friends for the rest of Maxwell’s life, and Rock often aided her financially. The first time was in 1963 when he paid her medical bills after she very nearly died of an ovarian cyst. And although he would continue to hide his particular light under a bushel, Rock would never openly admit that he was in love with a woman again.

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  Rock and Doris Day in Pillow Talk.

  October 1959: with Gloria Swanson and Tallulah

  Bankhead at the premiere of Pillow Talk.

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  With Edith Piaf at the Mocambo in 1956.

  A bearded Rock in The Spiral Road.

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  7: “Wanna Have Some Fun?”

  “He was a master of illusion, devious and secretive, capable of being extremely kind and utterly heartless. Like the Trickster, he appeared to different people in different guises.” Sara Davidson, biographer.

  Towards the end of 1961, the house that Rock had been renting from Sam Jaffe was put on the market—the asking price a non-negotiable $167,000. Rock had become so fond of the place and the shelter it afforded him from the inquisitive world that he asked Henry Wilson to draw up the necessary documents—since his divorce he had transferred his business interests from the Maree office back to his agent—only to be informed by the man he had been gullible to trust once more that he, Universal’s biggest star, did not have that kind of money to spend.

  Rock launched an undercover investigation into Willson’s dealings but, fearful of Willson exacting his revenge by exposing his sexuality to the press agreed to keep the subsequent findings secret, though this time he dropped Willson once and for all. Over the coming months Willson’s other top name clients followed suit, and his career as an agent slumped beyond recognition. Alcoholic and near destitute, he ended his days in the Motion Picture Home in November 1978, aged 67. In common with most of the great names he had launched, used and abused, Rock neither commented publicly on his passing, nor sent flowers to his funeral.

  Universal remained tight-lipped over any deal, legitimate or otherwise, that they may have struck with Willson to deprive Rock of a salary comparable with his worth and the vast profits his films were bringing their way, though they did console him by purchasing the house on his behalf. In return his new agent, John Foreman, negotiated a five-years extension of his Universal

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p; contract, at the end of which the deeds and full ownership of the property on Beverly Crest Drive would revert to Rock.

  Rock baptised his home the Castle, where he spent the rest of his life, and set in motion a mammoth restoration programme that dragged on for twenty years, setting him back an estimated $700,000. For a while he was content to share the place with his dogs (seven at the beginning of 1962), a middle-aged gardener named Clarence, and Joy, his black housekeeper. When Tallulah Bankhead, one of the first visitors, asked him why the massive front security gate had been left unlocked, he replied truthfully, “Because if any good-looking guy decides he wants to fuck Rock Hudson, I don’t want him climbing the gates and wearing himself out first!” He also told Tallulah, whom he was escorting around Hollywood at this time, that when the interior decorators had asked him for his preferred style, he had responded, “I want everything doing Early Butch with a Mexican flavour!”

  From these gates, one crossed the car park to what appeared to be a front door but opened on to a wide, red-tiled patio that connected to the main U-shaped building. Each of the rooms was done out in a different colour and given a Mexican name in keeping with the “macho” environment Rock had created—an almost Moorish-style fortress which would camouflage his sexual leanings at a time when gay men were still regarded in most circles as effete, nervous Nellies who favoured pastel shades, silks and an over-abundance of kitsch. Everything about the Castle was rugged, straight out of Hemingway: foot-thick hewn oak ceilings and beams, huge doors and fireplaces, candelabra, six-seater sofas, massive statues of animals and birds, African artefacts, zebra-skin rugs. The Tijuana Room, where special guests stayed, was decorated red in the style of a Mexican bordello. Rock’s bedroom was royal blue, and had as its centrepiece a massive four-poster bed—which he joked could