Andrew Davies and Andre Shafer's Rock Hudson: Dark and Handsome Stranger was screened in the 2010 Berlin Film Festival's Panorama sidebar. [Rock Hudson documentary synopsis.] Universal star Rock Hudson, one of the top box-office attractions in the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s, died of AIDS complications in his Beverly Hills home in 1985. Hudson, who was gay, lived a closeted life; he was briefly married to his agent's secretary and reportedly managed to broker a deal with scandal sheet Confidential when the gossip rag threatened to expose him.
Among Hudson's best-known vehicles are Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession (1954) and All That Heaven Allows (1955), both co-starring Jane Wyman; George Stevens' Giant (1956), in which Hudson's co-stars were Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean, and for which he received his only Best Actor Academy Award nomination; Charles Vidor's poorly received but highly popular A Farewell to Arms (1957), with Jennifer Jones; Robert Mulligan's Come September (1961), with Gina Lollobrigida; and his three pairings with Doris Day: Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), and Send Me No Flowers (1964).
Hudson's best notices were probably for his role as a man who gets a new identity and a series of new problems in John Frankenheimer's dark thriller Seconds (1966). The film, however, was a box-office disappointment.
On television, Hudson had one big hit: the humorous crime series McMillan and Wife, opposite Susan Saint James.
Rock Hudson: Dark and Handsome Stranger features several famous interviewees, including Elizabeth Taylor, Paula Prentiss (Hudson's co-star in Howard Hawks' Man's Favorite Sport?), and Dynasty's Linda Evans and Heather Locklear, in addition to Hudson's assistant of ten years, Tom Clark.
In 1989, Hudson's last lover, Marc Christian, won a lawsuit against the Hudson estate. Christian was awarded $14.5 million in damages because Hudson had hidden from him the fact that he was HIV-positive. Christian didn't acquire HIV from Hudson; a heavy smoker, he died of pulmonary problems in June 2009.
Photo: Courtesy of the Berlin Film Festival
Note: This is a revised version of a Rock Hudson: Dark and Handsome Stranger article initially posted in February 2010.