Rock Hudson: Here Are the 6 Biggest Revelations from New HBO Doc About Legendary Actor's 'Double Life'

‘Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed’ premieres on HBO and Max on June 28

Secrets about Rock Hudson's "double life" have been revealed in a new documentary.

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, from director Stephen Kijak, charts the Hollywood legend's journey from stratospheric stardom to his tragic death. Hudson was best known for starring roles in Giant with Elizabeth Taylor, Pillow Talk with Doris Day, dozens of other hit films of the ’50s and ’60s and TV’s McMillan & Wife.

While his legacy as an all-American screen icon has endured, Hudson is also remembered for revealing the AIDS diagnosis that led to his death in 1985 at age 59. Although Hollywood’s studio system and midcentury mores prevented him from coming out publicly, the Oscar-nominated star had multiple gay lovers, as the new film chronicles in detail.

Among those interviewed in the film are collaborators and friends of the late star, including his boyfriend of several years Lee Garlington, Tales of the City playwright Armistead Maupin, and doctor and HIV specialist Dr. Michael Gottlieb.

Read on for the biggest bombshells revealed in Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, which will appear on HBO and Max on June 28 following its Tribeca Film Festival premiere.

Hudson didn’t much care for James Dean — and the feeling was mutual

In a 1983 interview recorded at his home in Los Angeles, Hudson got candid looking back at his time starring alongside James Dean in George Stevens’ Giant. "Jimmy was new and hot,” he said. “I didn't particularly like him, personally."

Hudson’s biographer Mark Griffin recalled that there was no love lost between the two stars for a number of reasons: “Dean considered it hypocritical that Rock was maintaining this hetero facade in public while privately hitting on Dean.”

But, he added, “James Dean was kept by a gay radio executive who was indeed friends with Rock's agent Henry Willson,” the Hollywood insider responsible for grooming Hudson and other former soldiers and sailors into macho matinee idols. “If you're talking about shrouded sexuality, they weren't all that different.”

Yet while Hudson’s relationship with Dean wasn’t positive, the bright spot to working on Giant was his female costar. “Those feelings are sharply contrasted with how much he loved and cherished leading lady Liz Taylor,” said Griffin, detailing the friendship that would endure until Hudson’s final days and inspire Taylor to launch The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).

After three years of marriage, Hudson’s wife Phyllis Gates claimed she didn’t know he was gay

As one interviewee in the film put it, “Rock Hudson was playing a man called Rock Hudson, the personification of Americana.” To maintain his facade as a heterosexual leading man, he agreed to a presumably arranged marriage with Willson’s secretary Phyllis Gates.

Related: Rock Hudson's Public Persona, Private Life Explored in 'All That Heaven Allowed' Trailer (Exclusive)

After only three years of marriage, the pair divorced. When reports of Hudson’s sexual orientation finally reached mainstream news following his death, Griffin said that Gates “claimed after that she was duped,” having no idea all along he was in fact gay.

This, said Griffin, “is really hard to swallow given the fact that virtually every bit player, makeup man, assistant gopher at Universal knew the score about Rock Hudson. How did she possibly miss the memo?”

Among friends — and his lovers — Hudson was considered a “man-izer”

All That Heaven Allowed doesn’t shy away from Hudson’s sex life.

While the American public were fed tabloid narratives about his heterosexual bachelordom, friends and acquaintances in Hollywood knew plenty about his reputation as a “man-izer,” as one interviewee put it. “He had boyfriends… they were mostly young and pretty.”

A recorded phone call between Hudson and an unnamed acquaintance also reveals how routinely and transactionally friends would refer young men his way. "Rock had a contact, somebody in West Hollywood, that could round up gorgeous men at a moment's notice,” said Maupin.

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Linda Evans and Hudson’s friends recall the “awful day” of their controversial on-camera Dynasty kiss

One of Hudson’s last screen roles, guest starring on the hit soap opera Dynasty, included a buzzy kiss with costar Linda Evans. The actress recalled shooting the scene knowing Hudson was in poor health — but not yet understanding his deterioration was due to AIDS.

"It makes me cry because I know he was protecting me,” she revealed. “I didn't know that at the time, I was confused at the time. But in thinking back, part of the reason that I get so upset is he was doing everything he could do to make it all right for me.”

That included multiple rinses of mouthwash and a refusal to open his mouth during the kiss, as revealed in the journals of Hudson’s friend George Nader. Hudson allegedly came to them after filming the scene distraught, calling it “an awful day.”

When Hudson’s AIDS diagnosis eventually came to light, Evans said Hollywood insiders reacted with fear and disgust. “There were, to my shock, people on the set who wouldn’t come into the makeup room while I was there,” she continued.

“There were people who wouldn't work with me and so they had to change scenes because I might have AIDS. I had personal friends who wouldn’t come over to dinner… I thought, where’s your humanity or where’s your compassion? What’s wrong with this world right now?”

Related: Joel Grey Remembers Rock Hudson on the 30th Anniversary of His Death: 'He Was a Really Nice Man'

Longtime friend Nancy Reagan denied Hudson’s request for support when he was in the hospital

Garlington revealed that Hudson, who identified politically as a Republican, was “pretty close friends with Nancy [Reagan].”

Their friendship was put to the test, however, when an ailing Hudson was refused admission to France’s Percy Army Training Hospital allegedly because he wasn’t French.

“Time is running out,” publicist Dale Olsen told Nancy Reagan in an official plea for the White House to intervene. Reagan’s staff responded by denying the request, citing a refusal to get involved.

In his final days, Hudson went from requesting “silence” from his friends to deciding to publicize his AIDS diagnosis

Hudson was diagnosed with HIV in June 1984 and died of AIDS-related complications in October 1985. Nader's journals recalled asking Hudson what he needed on the day his diagnosis was confirmed. Hudson’s only response: “SILENCE.”

But when his health was rapidly declining during a trip to Paris in July of 1985, and the paparazzi were clamoring for an explanation, he made a fateful choice.

Publicist Yanou Collart recalled debating with Hudson whether to disclose his diagnosis in a statement — and become the most famous person in the world to do so, giving urgent visibility to the AIDS crisis. “He looked at my eyes and said, ‘That's what they want, go and give it to the dogs.’”

After Collart confirmed to the public Hudson’s health issues were AIDS-related, the actor reportedly said to Nader, “God, what a way to end a life.”

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