Rock Hudson's secret life has been a subject of controversy for the past thirty years, as it was an open secret in classic Hollywood that the actor was gay, although movie studios in that repressive time attempted to cover up his sexuality for decades.
One of the biggest movie stars in the 50s and 60s (alongside others like Sophia Loren) and still considered among the most iconic Hollywood leading man in history, Rock Hudson's secret life haunted him for his whole career, as the time he was born in forced him to retain his sexuality in the closet - as well as the love of his life.
According to The Daily Mail, the new revelations about Rock Hudson's secret life come from Lee Garlington, who was in a three-year relationship with the Oscar-nominated star, who one called him his "one true love."
Yahoo! News reports that, in a recent interview, Garlington told his part of the story of Rock Hudson's secret life, which has been heavily documented in the years since his death.
Garlington, now 77, recounted that they were together for three years during the 1960s, after meeting on the set of one of Hudson's movies, where Garlington approached the "Pillow Talk" star, having heard rumors about Rock Hudson's secret life - though he didn't hear from the actor again until one year had gone by.
"He was the biggest movie star in the world, and the rumors were that he was gay," Garlington told People Magazine, speaking about Rock Hudson's secret life. "So I thought, 'Let me get an eye on him.' I stood outside his cottage on the Universal lot, pretending to read Variety, which was probably upside down at the time. He walked out and down the street. He looked back once. That was it."
The new revelations come almost thirty years to the day that AIDS-related complications took Hudson's life in the fall of 1985, one of the first notorious victims of the disease, years before Liberace and even more so than Queen singer Freddie Mercury.
Alongside the mysterious death of his "One Desire" co-star Natalie Wood, the actor's passing, along the discovery of Rock Hudson's secret life, was one of the biggest shocks of the decade, and prompted Hudson's friend and "Giant" co-star, Elizabeth Taylor, to become a lifetime advocate for finding the disease's cure.
