Meditations on the death of Rock Hudson, four decades on

Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson in Giant (Warner Bros., 1956)

1985: Forty years ago to this day, silver-screen idol Rock Hudson—long paraded as the consummate ladies’ man—succumbed at the age of fifty-nine to the then barely comprehended plague of AIDS. I was a child when the news broke, yet I recall with clarity the atmosphere of stunned disbelief among adults, confronted at last with what had long been whispered yet never publicly owned: that this paragon of masculine allure had in truth been homosexual. At that time, AIDS was regarded—even by many of the sympathetic—as an affliction confined to gay men. That illusion began to fracture when a young boy in Indiana contracted the virus through a transfusion, and the cruel refusal of his school district to admit him drew fierce public censure. 

The scale of fear and ignorance is captured in one stark fact: after treatment in Paris only months before his death, Hudson was compelled to hire a private jet to return to Los Angeles, for no commercial airline would accept a passenger known to be carrying the virus. Not long thereafter, Elizabeth Taylor herself quietly purchased a bronze plaque for the Hollywood Walk of Fame in his honour—an act at once discreet, loyal, and enduring, sealing her friend’s memory in a gesture of fidelity where others faltered.

{alternate text for the above image} Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson in a publicity still for Giant (1956), captured in a moment of heightened intimacy that borders on theatrical rapture. Taylor, her head arched back and lips parted in anticipation, radiates sensuality and defiance, her dark hair cascading in waves against the pale shimmer of her gown. Hudson, towering and resolute, leans in with a steady, almost reverent intensity, his hand gripping her arm in a gesture that is both protective and possessive. The chiaroscuro of the black-and-white composition accentuates the drama of flesh, fabric, and expression, crystallising the film’s central themes of passion, power, and turbulent human desire within the mythic sweep of Texas.

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