A few years ago in one of my first cinema courses, I watched the film All That Heaven Allows. It was my first encounter with melodrama and romance movies in the 50s. Romance films have always been my favorite and I think it’s because of the raw human emotion that they deliver. When I watched that film in class, we were focused on the genre of melodrama and not on who the actors were. This means I watched my first Rock Hudson film without even knowing who Rock Hudson was. 

Now, to my surprise, I have been assigned another one of his films, however, this time we are focused on the actor. Lover Come Back was a fun movie that is extremely playful and takes a play on transforming the innocent into the suggestive. Carol and Jerry are witty and fun. However, today We are talking about Rock Hudson. Like most of the public in the 50s, I too was surprised when I learned that he was gay. However, after thinking about it for a little while, it all made more sense to me and I realized that there was no reason for me to feel surprised. He was a gay man in the 50s who probably did everything he could to hide who he was out of fear. This made me think of all the modern stars who are gay and hid it for years. This also made me realize that before anyone knew Rock Hudson was gay – he was a star and a fan favorite. He was handsome, talented, and an all American man. Nobody questioned him or doubted his character until he was out as a gay man with AIDS.

There are so many famous male actors that have come out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, that I either had no idea about or that typically played masculine roles. To name a few: Victor Garber, Wentworth Miller, and Matt Bomer. Wentworth played a scruffy prisoner and Matt played an ex-con turned FBI agent. However, after learning that these men were gay – nothing changed for me. They are great actors who have a part of very well known productions. 

It saddened me to see some of the responses to Rock Hudsons coming out. Stars who had shared onscreen kisses with him were terrified and people questioned his character. It’s important to recognize Rock Hudson for who he was, but I also feel like his acting portfolio is so impressive that it shouldn’t affect how he is now viewed.

In the Dyer reading for this week, it was discussed how Rock Hudson was often in toles that revolved around sexual ambiguity. I found this funny while watching Lover Come Back, because of when Jerry pretends to be innocent at the strip club and even plays with the pasties that were thrown his way. It seems like Rock Hudson was a private man, but he wasn’t scared of making suggestions to the audience. And if they didn’t pick up on that, well that was their loss.