True Crime Podcast ‘Variety Confidential’ Unveils the Talent Agent Who Invented the Beefcake Craze

Henry Willson’s behavior was protected by other powerful players in the entertainment industry who depended on him for a steady stream of fresh, young talent.

In episode 3 of “Variety Confidential,” host Tracy Pattin and co-host Matt Donnelly, Variety’s senior entertainment and media writer, unearth the story of Willson, an aggressive, midcentury Hollywood talent agent and manager who succeeded in both spotting and taking advantage of young actors within whom he saw potential for fame.

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Willson, a closeted gay man, would lure dozens of handsome young men, or “beefcakes” as they would come to be known, to his Los Angeles home after wining and dining them and promising fame. “He seems to have insinuated himself into their lives,” Pattin explains. “He became their friend, the parent, the protector, and in many cases, their lover.”

Willson prioritized on-screen sex appeal over acting ability, which was key to landing roles for actors like Rock Hudson and Lana Turner. Willson built up their careers with small roles before sending them to acting classes to fine-tune their skills in the hopes of landing bigger roles.

Hudson was Willson’s most valuable client. When rumors began that Hudson was gay, Willson solidified Hudson as a top client with the “catch and kill” method, which Donnelly explains: “A power broker will trade the coverup of one piece of very salacious information by trading another incredibly salacious piece of information. In this Henry Willson saga, catch and kill has an especially sort of odious place in his career. He practically patented a technique to do this nearly three-quarters of a century ago.”

Willson exchanged information about another client, Rory Calhoun, and a former client, Tab Hunter, in an attempt to keep Hudson’s sexuality out of the papers. These moves majorly damaged Calhoun and Hunter’s careers. Willson’s protection strategy of Hudson also included Hudson’s marriage to Phyllis Gates, the secretary from Willson’s office. But when Gates caught wind of her husband’s true sexual orientation, their eventual divorce outed Willson and kickstarted his decline into obscurity.

“What’s really worthy about telling a story like Henry Willson’s is that we see that victims come in all shapes and sizes,” says Donnelly. “There are probably a lot of young men whose careers and hopes and identities were dashed because of this sort of predation and also playing on their worst fears. It’s just a really yet another incredibly dark chapter in the history of this town.”

“Variety Confidential,” a six-episode series, will explore stories of sex, money and murder in the entertainment industry. The podcast dives deep into the Variety Archives, the publication’s research tool that taps into nearly 120 years of Variety articles and reporting. Season 1, titled “The Secret History of the Casting Couch,” details the history of casting-couch scandals through the decades and draw parallels between recent scandals and those of the past, illustrating that sexual predation in the industry is as old as the Hollywood Hills.

“Variety Confidential,” distributed by iHeart Podcasts, is available on the iHeartRadio app, Variety.com, as well as other major podcast platforms. New episodes post weekly.

“Variety Confidential,” was created by Jon Ponder, Tracy Pattin, Dea Lawrence, Variety’s COO and CMO, and Steve Gaydos, Variety’s EVP of content and executive editor. Sydney Kramer, managing director and senior executive producer for the Variety Content Studio, is a producer along with Ponder and Pattin.

Sources and Citations

Books

Hofler, Robert, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson, University of Minnesota Press, 2005

Davidson, Sara, and Hudson, Rock, Rock Hudson: His Story, Morrow, 1986

Hunter, Tab, Tab Hunter Confidential, Hatchett Book Group Kindle, 2006

Michaud, Gregg, Inventing Troy Donahue: The Making of a Movie Star, BearManor Media, 2023

Otash, Fred, Investigation Hollywood!, Henry Regnery Company, 1976

Variety

Ad for Paula Stone, Variety, March 1936

Henry Willson Joins Zeppo Marx Agency, Variety, July 8, 1936

Henry Willson joins Vanguard, Variety, June 30, 1943

Willson renewed at Vanguard,  Variety, May 24, 1944

Willson bows out as assistant to Vanguard prez,  Variety, January 19, 1949

Willson joins Famous Artists, Variety, May 11, 1949 

Willson returns to Famous Artists, named VP,  Variety, June 6, 1956

Famous Artists merger, Variety, January 9, 1957

Henry Willson to Solo,  Variety, May 27, 1959

Wilson, Cintra, Hail the Himbo, Variety Magazine, September 2005

Periodicals

Havemann, Ernest, Packages of Stars (Charles Feldman), Life Magazine, April 17, 1950

Hofler, Robert, Outing Mrs. Rock Hudson, The Advocate, Feb. 28, 2008

Knight, Lewis, Who was Henry Willson? Shrewd and predatory talent agent who ‘made’ Rock Hudson and Lana Turner, Mirror (UK), May 2, 2020, https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/who-henry-willson-shrewd-predatory-21939291

Nicolaou, Elena, Henry Willson, Rock Hudson’s Agent, Was as Complicated as Hollywood Depicts, Oprah Daily, May 6, 2020, https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/a32335499/henry-willson-true-story/

Oliver, Myrna, Guy Madison; Star of ‘Wild Bill Hickok,’ Los Angeles Times Obituary, FEB. 7, 1996, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-02-07-mn-33345-story.html

Schaefer, Stephen, Stephen Schaefer’s Hollywood & Mine: ‘Hollywood’ & Henry Willson: Fantasy v. Reality, May 4, 2020 https://web.archive.org/web/20200508133613/bostonherald.com/2020/05/04/stephen-schaefers-hollywood-mine-18/

Wilkerson III, William R., Writing the End of a True-to-Life Cinderella Story, Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1995

Additional Sources

David O. Selznick, wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_O._Selznick

Henry Willson, wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Willson

Lana Turner (1921-1995), imdb.com, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001805/

Rory Calhoun, wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Calhoun

Keser, Robert, Inside the Dreamboat Factory: The Fairy Godfather of Hollywood, Bright Lights Film Journal, April 11, 2014, https://brightlightsfilm.com/inside-dreamboat-factory-fairy-godfather-hollywood/#.XnJiDIhKiUk

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