I'm in a panic and it's all because of Rock Hudson.

[Matt]

Okay, I agreed to give a lecture/lead a discussion on Rock Hudson next Tuesday for a group of freshmen college students in a class about acting. What do I talk about? Here are some ideas I've got floating around in my head:

1. Rock Hudson's best performance was as Rock Hudson (the closet, the sham marriage, etc.)

2. A brief overview of the studio system and how it created archetypal personas for real people to try to conform to. Talk about the evolution of Rock's roles (they will have seen Rock Hudson's Home Movies so will have some idea of this).

3. Henry Willson's stable of actors (Rock, Tab Hunter, Troy Donahue, Rory Calhoun) and the performance of masculinity in the 1950s (they will also have seen All That Heaven Allows.

Anyone else have any ideas on what I could talk about? Any interesting questions that could spark discussion (I'm so bad at that)? I haven't had to get up in front of people and talk about film for years and I'm kind of in a panic about it.

[Doctor Sunshine]

1. Rock Hudson's best performance was as Rock Hudson (the closet, the sham marriage, etc.)

He didn't really have a lot of people fooled did he? At least, that's the first thing you hear about him these days.

Here's something to open with, assuming you never want to be invited to do this again.

Your ideas sound solid but depending on how well informed the students are on the studio system you may end up doing most of the talking. Film buffs are rare even in the industry, let alone acting students. You should probably have a store of topics that can be related to today, maybe something like persona vs. talent, all the great or best known actors have a deep or deeply mannered voice, Brando, De Niro, etc. Everyone can get in on that regardless of how much they know about the studio system. Some backup dumbed down topics is what I'm getting at.

Nothing else springs immediately to mind but I'm no Rock Hudson expert.

[Matt]

Just this morning, I found an article in the Saturday Evening Post from 1952 that talks about this "new star" Rock Hudson and how he was discovered and how he's already had his heart broken by two starlets and how he gets marriage proposals in his fan mail and all that shit. It's gold. I think I'm going to set the stage with a brief talk about the studio system, how they created and managed a star's image, and then launch into Rock's image and then how it was shattered when it was announced he was gay and had AIDS (which was a total surprise to everyone outside Hollywood at the time). Then we can go from there. I've got some great info and quotes from news articles and his authorized biography to drop into a conversation. Here's a good one:

Jeanne Wolf, who was a correspondent for Entertainment Tonight when it was announced that Hudson had AIDS, reported on an AIDS support group meeting. A man there said, "A few days ago, I was just another person with AIDS whom nobody cared about. Now I have Rock Hudson's disease, and everything has changed."

[Lino]

Don't forget to mention Seconds, a still very underrated movie by today's cinephiles and a very unusual role for Hudson. And he's ace in it, too.

Also, his working relationship with Sirk will also prove to be very interesting to listen to, I'm sure.

Another interesting subject would be what it meant to be gay then and how that has changed over the decades. Time for a salacious bio-book on Hudson?

[Matt]

Time for a salacious bio-book on Hudson?

His authorized biography, started just before he died, is already pretty salacious. He instructed friends and associates not to hold back. There's also the recent bio of Henry Willson, his (and Tab Hunter's and Rory Calhoun's and Troy Donahue's and others') agent. It's pretty frank, but it's not very well-written.

[HerrSchreck]

I'd without doubt frame the discussion of Archtypical Personifications of Masculinity (along with Hudson's sexuality) within the larger context of the spic n span, homey/ultra-parnoiac, ad-filled, appliance-shiney, yet totally contradictory culture of the Eisenhowerian 50's... especially since he really exudes 50's ideas of masculinity to the nth degree, over and above masculinity in general. A dead ringer for Elvis.

[zedz]

Don't forget to mention Seconds, a still very underrated movie by today's cinephiles and a very unusual role for Hudson. And he's ace in it, too.

Seconds seconded, and I think this is a great film to discuss in the context of your first point, as it's the role which cut closest to the bone of his real-life 'performance'. Frankenheimer and others have anecdotes about just how intensely emotionally engaged in the role Hudson was (intense emotional engagement not something you'd immediately associate with the actor). It always surprised me that Rappaport didn't make more of this role in his film.

May be harder to delve into, but it might be interesting to look at contemporary perceptions of Hudson - was he seen to be an inadequate actor at the time, was 'acting' seen to be irrelevant to his status as a star / icon?

I can't recall whether or not it's extracted in Rock Hudson's Home Movies, but a flash of Rock in redface for Winchester 73 might provide some punctuation (speaking of constructing masculinity).

[David Ehrenstein]

He's quite teriffic in Giant with his dear friend Elizabeth Taylor and his sworn enemy James Dean -- an entirely different kind of gay man.

Robert Hofler's book on Willson, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, puts his carrer and creation in propoer perspective.

You also might want to take on the myth that "no one knew he was gay" before he died of AIDS. I knew Rock Hudson was gay before I knew that I was!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Even here in Australia back in the early 70s I had heard that he was gay. He came out here for an awards ceremony and I heard that he "had brought his boyfriend with him". As I was only about 9 or 10 at the time I didn't really understand what that meant.

As the talk is about acting it might be interesting to discuss his path into bigger and better roles, from bit parts through leads in B pictures and then the breakthrough into stardom, by looking at the range of the roles and how he handled them. Though as many of them aren't easily available on video it might be difficult to do. Discussing his sexuality vs the roles he played would be interesting but perhaps besides the point if you are addressing acting students about acting.

[David Ehrenstein]

Mr. Powell was a wildly sophisticated man and makes impressive mention of the great Anton Walbrook's gayness in his two autobiographies.

I trace Rock Hudson's career in my book Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-2000 (Harper/Collins). He was first signed by Raoul Walsh along with Jack Larson. They made they're debuts in Fighter Squadron -- a Robert Stack vehicle. But Rock couldn't handle any of the lines he was given to read so they were cut. He was awarded a Universal contract anyway -- while Jack was picked to play Jimmy Olsen boy reporter on the Superman series -- and thus secure his place in iconographic history.

Piper Laurie tells me that Universal was about to drop Rock when Ross Hunter chose him for Magnificent Obsession. It was the biggest hit the studio had seen since the heyday of Deanna Durbin, and his stardom was assured.

Do not forget: Rock's iconographic persona was that of the non-threatening younger man older women find attractive. In other words, implicitly gay in every non-sexual way.

[Matt]

Even here in Australia back in the early 70s I had heard that he was gay.

Rock was apparently notoriously indiscreet, but that was also about the time that the "Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors got married" urban legend started.