In the 1950s, nobody looked more like a movie star than Rock Hudson. He was tall, dark and handsome in a way that seemed drawn from a fan magazine illustration, and his calm, deep voice made every melodrama he played feel like the most important story in the world.
Off screen, he was living a life he could never acknowledge in public. Hollywood in those years did not forgive a leading man for being gay, so Hudson built a careful public image while keeping his private life hidden, sometimes at great personal cost.
He died at 59, in 1985, after becoming the first major American celebrity to reveal an AIDS diagnosis. His death changed how America talked about the disease. This is his story, from a shy boy in Illinois to the most beloved leading man of his generation.
Quick Facts
| Fact | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Roy Harold Scherer Jr. |
| Born | November 17, 1925 |
| Died | October 2, 1985, aged 59 |
| Birthplace | Winnetka, Illinois, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Spouse | Phyllis Gates (1955–1958) |
| Children | None |
| Net Worth | Estimated at $10 million at death by Celebrity Net Worth |
What Was Rock Hudson’s Childhood Like in Illinois?
Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. on November 17, 1925, in Winnetka, Illinois. He was the only child of Katherine Wood, a homemaker who later became a telephone operator, and Roy Harold Scherer Sr., an auto mechanic. His father was of German and Swiss descent and his mother of Irish ancestry.
It was not an easy childhood. During the Great Depression, Hudson’s father lost his job and abandoned the family. His parents divorced when Roy was four years old. In 1932, his mother married Wallace Fitzgerald, a former Marine Corps officer whom the boy openly despised. Fitzgerald adopted him, and his legal name became Roy Harold Fitzgerald. That marriage eventually ended in a bitter divorce.
Hudson attended New Trier High School in Winnetka. As a teenager he worked as an usher in a movie theatre and developed a love of acting, but he tried out for school plays without winning any roles.
How Did a Truck Driver Become Rock Hudson?
Hudson graduated from high school in 1943, and the following year he enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. After training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, he served as an aircraft mechanic in the Philippines, and he was discharged in 1946.
He moved to Los Angeles to live with his biological father and worked at odd jobs, including as a truck driver, while trying to break into acting. He applied to the University of Southern California’s dramatics programme, but was rejected because of poor grades.
His break came in 1947, when he sent his photograph to the talent scout Henry Willson. Willson took him on as a client and gave him a new name, coined from the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River. Hudson later admitted that he hated the name Rock Hudson.
In 1948 he made his acting debut with a small part in the Warner Bros. film Fighter Squadron, directed by Raoul Walsh.
How Did Universal Turn Rock Hudson Into a Leading Man?
Universal-International signed Hudson to a long-term contract and set about building him into a star. He received coaching in acting, singing, dancing, fencing and horseback riding, and the studio promoted him heavily in film magazines, where his photogenic looks did much of the work.
His first film credit, under the name Roc Hudson, came in Undertow in 1949. He worked his way through a string of small parts, including the Western Winchester ’73 in 1950. At Universal he was one of a group of unknown young contract players being groomed for stardom, and one of the others was another handsome newcomer named Tony Curtis. Both men would go on to define the 1950s leading man, though in very different ways.
Hudson was promoted to leading man for Scarlet Angel in 1952, opposite Yvonne De Carlo. He also starred in Has Anybody Seen My Gal in 1952, his first film directed by Douglas Sirk, the director who would become his most important collaborator.
How Did Magnificent Obsession Make Rock Hudson a Star?
The film that turned Hudson from a working leading man into a genuine star was Magnificent Obsession in 1954. The romantic drama, co-starring Jane Wyman and directed by Sirk, was produced by Ross Hunter and made over $5 million at the box office. Modern Screen Magazine cited Hudson as the most popular actor of the year.
Sirk and Hudson struck gold again with All That Heaven Allows in 1955. Exhibitors were voting Hudson up their popularity lists, and in September 1955 he formed his first film production company, 7 Pictures Corporation, with his agent Henry Willson among the partners, an early sign that he was thinking like a businessman as well as a star.
Then came the film that put him in the top rank for good. In George Stevens’s Giant in 1956, Hudson played Jordan “Bick” Benedict Jr., the Texas rancher whose long life the epic follows. His co-stars were Elizabeth Taylor and the young James Dean, in the last role Dean completed.
Why Was Giant So Important to Rock Hudson’s Career?
Giant changed everything. The film was a huge critical and commercial success, and Hudson received his only Academy Award nomination, for Best Actor, and Dean was nominated in the same category.
The year 1956 also brought Sirk’s Written on the Wind, another hit, and the momentum carried Hudson to being voted the most popular actor in American cinemas in 1957. He stayed in the top ten until 1964, an extraordinary run at the peak.
His stardom came at a price he would regret for years. To make A Farewell to Arms in 1957, a film that failed at the box office and with critics, he reportedly turned down Marlon Brando’s role in Sayonara, William Holden’s role in The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Charlton Heston’s role in Ben-Hur. All three became landmarks. The lost roles stayed with him.
How Did Rock Hudson Become a Comedy Star With Doris Day?
Ross Hunter teamed Hudson with Doris Day for the romantic comedy Pillow Talk in 1959, and the result was one of the biggest hits of the year. Hudson played a carefree songwriter who shares a party line with Day’s uptight decorator, and their chemistry was perfect.
The film reinvented him: he was voted the most popular star in the country for 1959 and stayed near the top for years.
He made two more comedies with Day, Lover Come Back in 1961 and Send Me No Flowers in 1964, and both were hits.
What Did Rock Hudson Do When His Film Career Slowed Down?
By the mid-1960s, the kind of glossy melodramas and romantic comedies that had made Hudson famous were going out of fashion. Strange Bedfellows in 1965 and A Very Special Favor in 1965 disappointed at the box office.
He fought the decline with interesting choices. He starred in the science-fiction thriller Seconds in 1966, directed by John Frankenheimer, playing a man given a second life and a new face. He made the war film Tobruk in 1967 and the thriller Ice Station Zebra in 1968, a role that remained his personal favourite.
In late 1959 he had formed a new production company, Gibraltar Productions, which he used to lease his acting services to the studios while retaining a share of his films’ profits. It gave him the freedom to choose his own roles, even as the industry changed around him.
In 1969 he starred opposite John Wayne in the Western The Undefeated, playing a Confederate colonel alongside the Duke. It was a meeting of two generations of Hollywood leading men, and audiences loved seeing them together.
How Did Rock Hudson Conquer Television?
Hudson turned to television in the 1970s, and the move gave him his greatest later success. His series McMillan & Wife ran from 1971 to 1977, with Hudson as Stewart “Mac” McMillan, a San Francisco police commissioner, opposite Susan Saint James as his wife Sally.
His health was failing by then. After years of heavy drinking and smoking, he underwent emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery in November 1981. The operation sidelined him and his new series The Devlin Connection, which was cancelled in December 1982. His health problems forced him to turn down the role of Colonel Trautman in First Blood.
From December 1984 to April 1985 he appeared on the prime-time soap Dynasty as Daniel Reece, a love interest for Linda Evans’s Krystle Carrington. His speech had begun to visibly deteriorate, and his character was abruptly written out when his illness made it impossible to continue.
What Was Rock Hudson’s Net Worth at Death?
Celebrity Net Worth estimates that Rock Hudson had a net worth of $10 million at the time of his death in 1985, which is the equivalent of roughly $23 million today after adjusting for inflation. That is the figure most commonly quoted for him, and like all such totals for stars of his era, it should be understood as an attributed estimate rather than an official valuation.
The fortune was built across a career of nearly forty years, from his Universal contract years and the Doris Day comedies to his production companies and a successful decade on television. He was one of the highest-paid leading men of his generation.
His roughly $10 million estate was divided between charity and his friend, the actor George Nader, after his death. The estate later became the subject of a lawsuit brought by a former lover, Marc Christian, which reduced what remained. For the fullest public record of his life and career, his biography on Wikipedia is a reliable place to keep reading.
Who Was Rock Hudson’s Wife?
Hudson married only once, in 1955, to Phyllis Gates, who worked as Henry Willson’s secretary. The timing raised eyebrows. The wedding came soon after Confidential magazine threatened to publish an exposé about Hudson’s homosexuality, a story Willson had managed to stall by leaking damaging information about two of his other clients, Rory Calhoun and Tab Hunter.
Gates later wrote that she had dated Hudson for several months and lived with him for two months before his unexpected proposal, and that she married him out of love, not to prevent an exposé. Press coverage of the wedding quoted Hudson as saying that when he counted his blessings, his marriage topped the list.
The marriage lasted three years. Gates filed for divorce in April 1958, citing mental cruelty, and Hudson did not contest it. She received alimony of $250 per week for ten years and held assets in his 7 Pictures Corporation. She never remarried.
How Was Rock Hudson’s Private Life Kept Secret for So Long?
Although Hudson was discreet about his sexual orientation, it was known among his colleagues in the film industry that he was gay. Friends including Julie Andrews, Mia Farrow, Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Saint James, Audrey Hepburn and Carol Burnett later said they had known and kept his secret for him.
One persistent rumour deserves to be corrected. In the early 1970s, an urban legend circulated that Hudson had secretly married the actor Jim Nabors, who was also gay. They were nothing more than friends, and the story began as a joke on gag invitations sent out by a gay couple. Hudson mostly brushed the rumours off, though he and Nabors never spoke again after they spread.
Politically, Hudson was a conservative Republican who campaigned and voted for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. Raised a Catholic, he later described himself as an atheist, though in his final week he made a deathbed confession and received the last rites.
He was friendly with Kirk Douglas, his co-star in The Last Sunset in 1961, a film made for Douglas’s own production company. Their friendship was one of many that crossed the generational lines of 1950s and 1960s Hollywood.
How Did Rock Hudson’s AIDS Diagnosis Become Public?
Unknown to the public, Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS on June 5, 1984. For months he kept the illness secret and continued to work, travelling to France and other countries seeking treatment.
On July 16, 1985, he joined Doris Day at a Hollywood press conference to launch her new cable show, of which he was the inaugural guest. His emaciated appearance shocked everyone, and clips of the reunion were broadcast repeatedly on national news. Day later said she had simply put her arms around him and said how glad she was to see him.
Two days later Hudson travelled to Paris for another round of treatment. After he collapsed at the Ritz Hotel on July 21, his publicist claimed he had inoperable liver cancer. On July 25, his French publicist confirmed that Hudson had AIDS. He was among the earliest mainstream celebrities whose diagnosis was reported to the public.
He flew back to Los Angeles on July 30 on a chartered plane, because commercial airlines refused to transport a patient with AIDS. He spent nearly a month at the UCLA Medical Center, then returned home to Beverly Hills for private hospice care.
How Did Rock Hudson Die?
At around 9 a.m. on October 2, 1985, Rock Hudson died in his sleep from AIDS-related complications at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 59 years old. He had requested that no funeral be held. His body was cremated hours after his death, a cenotaph was later established at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, California, and his ashes were scattered in the channel between Wilmington and Santa Catalina Island.
His revelation changed how America talked about the disease. In its August 1985 issue, People magazine published a sympathetic story about his illness in the context of his sexuality, with colleagues such as Angie Dickinson and Gregory Peck expressing their support, and his disclosure is widely credited with accelerating public discussion and funding for medical research.
In a telegram sent to a September 1985 Hollywood AIDS benefit that he was too ill to attend, Hudson wrote: “I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive worth.”
Lesser-Known Facts About Rock Hudson
- Hudson admitted later in life that he hated the name Rock Hudson, which Henry Willson had coined from the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River.
- It reportedly took him 38 takes to deliver his only line in his 1948 film debut, Fighter Squadron.
- He was rejected by the University of Southern California’s dramatics programme because of poor grades.
- To make A Farewell to Arms, he turned down roles in Sayonara, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Ben-Hur, all of which became classics.
- He was voted into the Top 10 Stars of the Year a record-setting eight times between 1957 and 1964.
- His failing health forced him to turn down the role of Colonel Trautman in First Blood.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old was Rock Hudson when he died?
Rock Hudson died on October 2, 1985, at the age of 59. He had been born on November 17, 1925, in Winnetka, Illinois, and he died at his home in Beverly Hills of AIDS-related complications.
Was Rock Hudson married?
He married once, to Phyllis Gates, Henry Willson’s secretary, in 1955. The marriage ended in divorce in 1958. Gates never remarried, and Hudson never married again.
How many children did Rock Hudson have?
He had no children.
Was Rock Hudson gay?
Although he was discreet about his sexual orientation during his lifetime, it was widely known among his Hollywood colleagues that he was gay. His AIDS diagnosis in 1985 made his homosexuality a matter of public discussion, and friends including Elizabeth Taylor and Julie Andrews spoke of having kept his secret for him.
What was Rock Hudson’s net worth?
Celebrity Net Worth estimates his net worth at the time of his death in 1985 at $10 million, roughly $23 million today after adjusting for inflation. It is an attributed estimate, not an official valuation.
What was Rock Hudson’s most famous movie?
His most famous films are Magnificent Obsession in 1954, which made him a star, Giant in 1956, which earned him his only Oscar nomination, and Pillow Talk in 1959, his beloved comedy with Doris Day.
Final Thoughts
Rock Hudson’s life was really two stories at once. One was the public one: the truck driver who became the handsomest man in Hollywood, the star of Giant and Pillow Talk, the man audiences trusted to be decent and kind.
The other was the private one: a man who could never be himself in public, who married to protect his career, and who carried a terrible secret for thirty years.
Watch Giant today and you see a fine actor, not just a handsome one. Bick Benedict’s journey from arrogant young rancher to humbled old man is real acting. That was Rock Hudson’s quiet gift, the one the secret could never quite hide.
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