Rock Hudson: The Gentle Giant

by David Bret

  I love to smoke and keep hoping someone will discover it’s a healthy habit because the smoke kills all the germs in your system. I love to drink, but I hate exercise. I don’t mind going outside on the hill and chopping down a tree, but I hate organised exercise. I built a gym in my house, but I never use it. I don’t even like to walk through it!

  Then, out of the blue, in the summer of 1967 Rock received a call from MGM, offering him the part of Commander James Ferraday in the screen adaptation of Alistair MacLean’s 1963 novel, Ice Station Zebra. The plot was complex, with a wealth of frequently tedious, repetitive technical jargon. A nuclear submarine—the true star of the picture—travels under the icecap to the North Pole on a rescue mission when the staff of a weather station radio distress signals. On board are three secret agents (Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine, and former footballer Jim Brown), and for over two hours of screen time it is impossible to discern which is the villain, and why Ferraday’s mission is taking place. Even so, the modest success of the film helped revive Rock’s flagging career…and introduced him to the man who would replace Lee Garlington in his affections.

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  Jack Coates was an outgoing, 23-year-old anthropology student at the UCLA, who had been making ends meet working as a gas-station attendant and bit-part actor with MGM. As with Garlington, Rock is said to have had him checked out—discovering that Coates was living with an older man. This time he had no intention of hanging around until Coates was free. Too shy to make the first move, or perhaps fearing a rebuff, he began stopping off at the gas-station where he “innocently” studied the object of his desire while Coates was filling his car—then taking it home, siphoning off the tank and returning for more gasoline, until Coates finally took the hint and asked him out on a date!

  Coates was no easy prey, and despite being asked to move into the Castle refused to walk out on his lover—whom he had been with since the age of eighteen—having been warned by friends that, though undoubtedly a good “catch”, Rock Hudson had a notorious reputation for discarding his men on a whim because there were always so many more waiting in the wings. Absolutely true of course, though he changed his mind when Rock presented him with a rather silly ultimatum: unless he submitted, he would tear up all his Hollywood contracts and never work again. Coates swallowed the ruse and moved in—the first lover to live at the Castle in twelve years—and the pair, though never monogamous, are said to have enjoyed five blissful years together without one angry word passing between them. Rock also refused to allow his new lover to give up his studies, even though his being at college meant that they could only see each other on weekends or during the holidays.

  In the Spring of 1968, Rock flew to Paris to make Darling Lili, the last of the truly great Hudson vehicles, with Julie Andrews. The film was directed by her husband, Blake Edwards, who later told Films In Review, “I needed someone tall and handsome, dashing and hero-ish. They gave me a long list of names, but not

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  one filled the specification. Then I realised that I needed Rock Hudson to play Rock Hudson.” Sadly, the film would not prove as successful as everyone was hoping it would—through no fault of its stars who put in quite exemplary performances. Rock is superb as the charismatic hero, but it is Julie Andrews’ film from start to finish. Vocally she is in even better form than she was in The Sound Of Music. She played Lili Schmidt, a German spy masquerading as British music hall star Lili Smith during World War I, though her approach owes more to the great French chanteuse Damia (1889-1978) than anyone who ever graced the London stage, particularly in her use of the then innovative single spotlight highlighting just her face and hands. Some of the songs too were arranged by Michel Legrand, who had recently produced an equally ground-breaking album of French chansons for Barbra Streisand.

  Although Rock got along well with Blake Edwards and the rest of the cast, he is reputed to have loathed his leading lady, who reminded him on the first day of shooting that of the two, she was by far the biggest box-office draw. She was certainly made a great fuss of, for while Rock had to make do with an entourage of just two, she had dozens of people to wait on her hand and foot. There was also a very much-talked about argument between the two stars, when Andrews is alleged to have screamed at Rock that, aside from sharing the same profession, they had absolutely nothing in common. “Rock quietly told her that they had, and exactly what this was,” a spokesman from Paramount told me in Paris in 1997. “He told her in front of a whole group of people, and that lady’s face turned so green, it’s no small wonder he didn’t get fired from the picture on the spot!” Even so, none of this animosity shows in their scenes together, even in the most intimate ones, which suggests that Rock’s “Roy Harold and Eunice Blotter” days were far from over.

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  In the film, Rock plays dashing American aviator Major Larrabee, who Lili’s boss has ordered her to befriend because he is supposedly in the know about an imminent Allied invasion. We see him engaged in an aerial dogfight with the infamous Baron von Richtofen, though it is a good half hour into the film before he pronounces his first lines when he turns up at Lili’s lodgings at three in the morning—and asks her out on a picnic! She falls for him, but fails to get any information out of him, only that he is involved with “Operation Crepe Suzette”. Again, to say more would only spoil the film for those who may not have seen it—save that it ends as it began, with Lili Damia-like on the stage, performing the same song at a victory benefits concert while in the background are ghostly images of soldiers lost in action, compelling us to reach for our handkerchiefs.

  While shooting Darling Lili, Rock was reunited with Massimo, but he was still pining for his new lover and asked Paramount’s French representative to make arrangements for Jack Coates to be flown out to the set—his argument being that he and Massimo had conducted an open affair in Rome without creating a fuss. The studio’s Hollywood executives were virulently against this. They had cautioned him before assigning him to the film, having accused him of allowing his sexual indiscretions to get out of hand since leaving Universal. Now, they threatened to recall him to Hollywood, should he persist in this career suicide.

  As had happened with Jack Navaar, Rock was ordered to get rid of Coates, and additionally told that if he was fired from Darling Lili at this late stage (the production had been shooting for several weeks when Rock joined it, and would acquire further problems along the way, delaying its release for two more years) Paramount would sue for compensation. Rock—whose hatred of Julie Andrews was by now said to have been such that he would have done anything not to keep on working with her—called the

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  studio’s buff. They capitulated, and Coates was sent over on the next available flight. “It was a tough time for us all,” the aforementioned spokesman observed. “Rock kept himself ticking over—a couple of nights with me, and bed-hopping between his Italian stud and a 22-year-old technician named Jimmy.”

  Rock’s letting down of his guard caught up with him in October when he flew home for the premiere of Ice Station Zebra, and a repeat performance of what had happened at the opening night of Magnificent Obsession when a heckler at Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome stepped out of the crowd, faced him, and bawled “Fag!” This time, Rock’s friends had to hold him back to prevent him from hitting the man, and he swore never to attend such an event again.

  Darling Lili was quickly followed by A Fine Pair, Rock’s second coupling with Claudia Cardinale, part-filmed in Italy and enabling another reunion with Massimo. Next up was The Undefeated, a much underrated film with John Wayne. The action is set immediately after the Civil War when ex-Union Colonel John Henry Thomas (Wayne) and ex-Confederate Colonel James Langdon (Rock) are heading through Mexico. The former is bringing cheap horses to the Mexican government to aid the revolution, while Langdon is in charge of a group of displaced Southerners hoping to start a new life here. Rock was initially excited about the project, not just about working with Wayne but with director Andre
w McLaglen, another tall man.

  “I was hoping working with those two would do wonders for my posture after years of stooping down on my co-stars,” he told David Castell.

  Rock soon revised his opinion of Wayne once shooting got under way, and later declared that the whole experience of The Undefeated had been a nightmare. Wayne pulls out all the stops to monopolise every scene he shares with Rock: out-swaggering,

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  and out-drawling, traits which aid rather than hinder their on-screen rivalry, though Rock, despite a suspect Southern accent, comes across as the more charismatic of the two. He should have realised what he was letting himself in for—spending weeks on location in Durango, Mexico, with an actor whose homophobia was as legendary as his no-nonsense approach to the tough-guy parts he played. In 1946, upon being told that Montgomery Clift was having an affair with third-lead John Ireland, Wayne had gone berserk and tried to have Monty fired from Red River. This so upset the younger actor that their fist fight in the film had been for real, with Wayne coming off worst for once. Rock was told by Andrew McLaglen that under no circumstances would Jack Coates be allowed into Mexico, let alone near the lot. Throughout shooting, Wayne had Rock’s movements and even his telephone conversations monitored, in search of the slightest indiscretion. He learned that Rock was interested in one of his co-stars, a young blond actor who according to some sources would have reciprocated had the circumstances been less fraught. Worse still Wayne treated him like an inexperienced subordinate, as Rock explained to Ronald L Davis:

  Wayne started giving me suggestions. “Why don’t you turn your head this way? Why don’t you hold the gun like this for the close shot?” They sounded like good ideas, so I tried them. Then that night I started thinking, “Am I going to be directed by this guy? Is he trying to establish dominance, or something?” So the next day I said to him, “Why don’t you turn your head this way?” Wayne pointed his finger at me. “I like you,” he said.

  Because Rock stood up to him, as Monty had done, John Wayne began respecting him though Rock’s claim that they became firm

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  friends is only partly true. Wayne nurtured a lifelong resentment of homosexuals and frequently referred to them as “fairies”, even though most of the ones he mocked were every as butch as his legend proclaimed he was. Rock also howled when told that Monty had bawled Wayne out on the set of Red River with the classic put-down, “Me a fag, Mr. Wayne? Aren’t you the one who was baptised Marion, dear?”

  In the autumn of 1969, Rock flew to Rome to make Hornets’ Nest for United Artists, and made arrangements for Jack Coates to join him once he had settled into his suite at the Grand Hotel. He moaned to the press of how, after Lollobrigida and Cardinale, he had been thrilled at the prospect of working with another great Italian beauty—Sophia Loren—and of how disappointed he was to learn that she had dropped out of the film at the last minute. Her replacement was the no less enigmatic blonde Yugoslavian star, Sylva Koscina. In the film, set in Italy during World War II, Rock excels as Captain Turner whose commando unit is dropped behind enemy lines—its mission, to blow up a dam. When his unit is ambushed, only he survives, rescued by a group of scugnizzi—youths living rough in the surrounding countryside, and whose parents have been killed by the Germans. Under his command they prove as ruthless as any other mercenaries as they fight to recapture their village from the enemy.

  It is a good film, but there were many on-set problems, largely on account of director Phil Karlson’s tough shooting regime in the scorching heat. Rock coped, once the cameras stopped rolling, by heading back to his hotel suite with his latest indulgence—a 20-year-old bit-player named Guido, the very spit of Massimo, who joined in with the fun. As had happened before, the temporary new amour was given a part in the film…and Jack Coates was contacted and told to stay put in America.

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  Rock with Lee Garlington.

  Undergoing the process of being

  “reborn” in Seconds.

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  Standing proud next to John Wayne in The Undefeated.

  They did not get along.

  In Darling Lili with Julie Andrews, who he

  is also said to have disliked working with.

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  Chain-smoking and a high cholesterol diet would eventually

  lead to the failure of Rock’s health.

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  8: “That Fucking Oblong Box!”

  “Television is the monster of all time that eats everything and everybody. When they wanted MacMillan & Wife to go on two hours, I said, ‘Why? The thing doesn’t even hold up for ninety minutes!” Rock Hudson.

  In February 1970, Rock flew to London—not to make a film this time but enter the Phillips-Chapel studios and cut a 45rpm single and an album of songs by the American poet-chansonnier Rod McKuen. He had admired McKuen’s English adaptations of the works of Jacques Brel, most especially “Ne me quitte pas” and the English version by Dusty Springfield, his favourite British singer—and McKuen’s reworking of Georges Moustaki’s (who had written “Milord” for Edith Piaf) “Solitude’s My Home”, which had recently been covered by Dorothy Squires, whose parties he had attended in Hollywood when she had been living here with her husband, Roger Moore.

  Rock had sung in his films, though he had never taken it seriously. He was possessed of a pleasing, controlled baritone—Tallulah Bankhead was not far out in suggesting that he sounded like Perry Como, and there was every possibility that he might have had a successful singing career ahead of him. Rod McKuen himself told the Daily Express’ David Wigg, “I think he’ll make Number One. He has a unique sound and an octave-and-a-half vocal range.” Rock’s choice of songs was certainly eclectic—from the standard, “Love’s Been Good To Me” to “I’ll Say Goodbye”, McKuen’s moving adaptation of Gilbert Bécaud’s “Je partirai”. He told the British press that he had been taking singing lessons off and on for three years and enthused, “Singing’s something I always wanted to do. Finally I’ve got the chance to do it. I’d much rather hear a scene sung than spoken.” Unfortunately, instead of being put on general release, the album

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  was assigned to the Stanyon label, and sold by mail order—though today it is a valuable collectors’ item.

  In this year too Rock played his first and last psychopath: “Tiger” McDrew in Pretty Maids All in a Row, based on a story by Francis Pollini and virulently denounced by all the critics who reviewed it as the worst film he ever appeared in. It was directed by French master of titillation Roger Vadim, who was specially imported by MGM. Rock told Robert Colaciello of Interview/VIEW:

  He’s a marvellous director. He has the capacity that any good or great director I’ve worked with—his just being there makes you try harder. You trust him, you lean on him and he gives you the go-ahead. Go, baby, go!

  Making the film was not all plain sailing. In a distinguished career, Vadim had directed some of the world’s most beautiful women, including Catherine Deneuve and past and current Mrs. Vadims Jane Fonda and Brigitte Bardot—stars who had never had problems with nude scenes. Rock would not prove such a pushover. When Vadim showed him the script where he was expected to appear full-frontal in one scene, he threatened to walk, telling the somewhat surprised Frenchman, “If you want to take a look at my dick, that’s fine by me, but I’ll be darned if I’ll flash it for all the fucking world to see!”

  Pretty Maids All in a Row is a decidedly unpleasant film—Tiger is the high-school counsellor who seduces the prettiest girls on campus, then kills them when they become too clingy. And if the film’s advance publicity hinted that Rock was as much the super-stud off-screen as he was on—a feeble attempt to curb rumours circulating once more about his personal life, MGM looked like they were in for a disappointment. According

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  to the tabloids, Phyllis Gates was about to a publish a kiss-and-tell account of her marriage to Rock, despite being ordered by the courts not to as part of her divorce arran
gement…and this time there was no Henry Willson or all-powerful studio to offer payoffs to “persuade” her otherwise.

  Convinced that this time he really was about to be “fucked over” by his money-grabbing ex-wife, Rock contacted a journalist—now working for the influential Screen magazine—with whom he had had a brief affair. Money exchanged hands, and the former lover arranged for an interview to be published in September 1971, but ensuring that his own name was excluded from the piece. Rock began by declaring that he had no idea what Phyllis could find to write about him that his fans would find even remotely interesting. Ninety per cent of Hollywood marriages, he said, ended in divorce—a figure probably representative of the United States in general. He added that being a single man also had its advantages, in that he did not have to worry about leaving his family behind when filming overseas. Then he got down to the so-called nitty-gritty:

  Yes, I think I would like to marry again. Probably not an actress or a career girl. Two lives pulling in different directions cannot help but put a strain on such bones. Hollywood is crowded with young, beautiful, available girls. I enjoy taking them out. Generally, I’m happy with my life as it is right now. There are few men I envy, or with whom I would trade places. But I could meet somebody today and get married tomorrow.