Rock Hudson was known in the ’50s and ’60s as a mega-masculine star with a twinkle in his eye, as compelling in Technicolor Douglas Sirk melodramas as he was with Doris Day in cheeky sex comedies. But when he died of AIDS in 1985 — becoming the most famous figure yet to have succumbed to the still-new, still-misunderstood syndrome’s complications — his hidden life as a gay man went from Hollywood open secret to national news.
HBO’s new documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed promises a deep dive into that life, and the legacy of a reluctant pioneer.
“It was everything wrapped up in one — it was Hollywood and the closet and the fact that Rock had lived his life not able to express who he was,” says one of the talking heads in the trailer of Hudson’s illness and death, which sparked lawsuits, studio panics, and enduring activism.
Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed premieres on HBO and Max June 28.
