Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson, born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. on November 17, 1925, in Winnetka, Illinois, was an American actor whose career spanned film, television, and Broadway. He was the only child of Katherine Wood, a homemaker and later telephone operator, and Roy Harold Scherer Sr., an auto mechanic of German and Swiss descent; his mother was of Irish ancestry. Hudson was raised Roman Catholic. During the Great Depression, his father abandoned the family, and his parents divorced when he was four. His mother subsequently married Wallace Fitzgerald, a former Marine Corps officer, in 1932, and Roy was legally adopted, taking the name Roy Harold Fitzgerald. Hudson attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, where classmates included future film stars Charlton Heston and Ann-Margret. As a teenager he worked as a movie theater usher and developed an interest in acting, though repeated attempts to win school play roles were unsuccessful due to difficulty memorizing lines.

Hudson graduated from high school in 1943 and enlisted in the United States Navy the following year. After training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, he shipped out from San Francisco aboard the troop transport SS Lew Wallace, reporting to Aviation Repair and Overhaul Unit 2 on Samar in the Philippines as an aircraft mechanic. He returned to San Francisco in 1946 aboard an aircraft carrier and was discharged that same year. He then relocated to Los Angeles to live with his biological father and pursue acting. He applied to the University of Southern California's dramatics program but was rejected due to poor grades, and supported himself with odd jobs including truck driving. In 1947, after sending a photograph to talent scout Henry Willson, Hudson was taken on as a client. Willson renamed him Rock Hudson, combining the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River — a name Hudson later admitted he disliked. Hudson made his acting debut in 1948 with a small part in the Warner Bros. film Fighter Squadron, directed by Raoul Walsh, reportedly requiring 38 takes to deliver his single line.

Universal-International signed Hudson to a long-term contract, providing him coaching in acting, singing, dancing, fencing, and horseback riding. His first credited film role came in 1949, billed as Roc Hudson, in William Castle's Undertow. Throughout 1950 and 1951 he accumulated credits including One Way Street, Shakedown, Winchester '73, The Desert Hawk, The Fat Man, and Iron Man, in which he played a boxer. He was promoted to leading man with Scarlet Angel in 1952, opposite Yvonne De Carlo, and that same year co-starred with Piper Laurie in Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, the first of his films directed by Douglas Sirk. Additional 1952 credits included Bend of the River and Here Come the Nelsons. He continued building his filmography through 1953 and 1954 with titles including Seminole, Sea Devils, The Golden Blade, Gun Fury, and Taza, Son of Cochise, the last directed by Sirk and produced by Ross Hunter.

Hudson's transition from reliable leading man to major star came with the romantic drama Magnificent Obsession in 1954, co-starring Jane Wyman, produced by Hunter, and directed by Sirk. The film earned over five million dollars at the box office, and Modern Screen Magazine named Hudson the most popular actor of the year. In 1954, exhibitors ranked him the 17th most popular star in the country. His standing rose further with George Stevens' Giant in 1956, for which Hudson received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. On September 9, 1955, he formed his first production company, 7 Pictures Corporation, with producer Henry Ginsberg, agent Henry Willson, and lawyer Greg Bautzer; Hudson held 36 percent of the company's stock. Though his Universal-International contract permitted outside production work, he required studio permission to appear in those films. The partnership agreement called for Hudson to appear in five films over seven years. Following his then-wife Phyllis Gates's filing for divorce in 1958, the terms were amended to two pictures, and a subsequent lawsuit by Ginsberg led Hudson to establish a second company, Gibraltar Productions, whose name he drew from the same source as his own stage name.

Hudson found further commercial success in a series of romantic comedies co-starring Doris Day: Pillow Talk in 1959, Lover Come Back in 1961, and Send Me No Flowers in 1964. His later 1960s film work included Seconds in 1966, Tobruk in 1967, and Ice Station Zebra in 1968. Dissatisfied with the film scripts available to him, Hudson shifted toward television, starring in the mystery series McMillan and Wife from 1971 to 1977. In 1979, he appeared on Broadway in On the Twentieth Century. His final screen role was as a guest star during the fifth season of the ABC primetime soap opera Dynasty in 1984 and 1985, a run cut short by illness.

Although Hudson was discreet about his sexual orientation, his colleagues in the film industry were aware that he was gay. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 and the following year became one of the first celebrities to publicly disclose that diagnosis. Hudson died on October 2, 1985, at the age of 59, becoming the first major American celebrity to die from the illness.