So much of his life had to be interior, and he didn't feel free to express so much, the fact that he had these great ambitions to be an actor. This was - even as a young man, this was the beginning of Rock Hudson's life as a covert operation, if you will. MARK GRIFFIN: It's really interesting that if you read or look at interviews that Rock conducted over a long span of time, many decades, this one particular phrase, as I mention in the book, keeps coming up: I just learned to keep my mouth shut. Do you have any insights into, like, the emotional distress it must have caused him to have to hide who he really was? Reading your book about Rock Hudson, I was thinking how painful it must have been for him to be one of Hollywood's leading men, one of the most, quote, "eligible bachelors" while being a closeted gay man. My guest Mark Griffin is the author of a new biography of Rock Hudson called "All That Heaven Allows." Griffin's previous book was a biography of film director Vincente Minnelli. As playwright William Hoffman put it, Hudson's death made people realize AIDS is a disease, not a moral affliction. It was a turning point in the public awareness of the AIDS epidemic. His secret was successfully concealed from the public until he was dying of causes related to AIDS.
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In the 1950s and '60s, he was considered an all-American, hetero heartthrob, the leading man in romantic melodramas like "All That Heaven Allows" and "Magnificent Obsession" and romantic comedies like "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back." He starred with James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor in the film "Giant." In the '70s, he starred in the TV series "McMillan & Wife" as the police commissioner of San Francisco. Gay celebrities often faced serious personal consequences for being forced to live a double life. But if you stayed in the closet, you could be blackmailed. It used to be unthinkable for a Hollywood star to come out as gay.