The Trial Of Rock Hudson

There had never been a trial like it. It took place in the Superior Court of Los Angeles, beginning in December 1988, and it made Rock Hudson?s former lover, Marc Christian, an instant multi-millionaire. Hudson almost certainly had AIDS throughout their three-year relationship, but when the dreaded news was finally confirmed he deliberately withheld it from Christian. When Hudson died, Christian sued. The trial went ahead and the upshot was that Christian was initially awarded almost $23 million in damages. The Trial of Rock Hudson chronicles every day of that landmark trial and studies its impact on Hollywood, the homosexual community and AIDS suffereres themselves. It also supplies a fascinating insight into the legal system in the USA.

Tall, dark and handsome, with a manufactured name and a scrupulously designed professional image, Rock Hudson represented the Hollywood ideal of American masculinity during the 1950s and 60s; an ideal that was to be questioned and ultimately undermined during the years to follow by lurid accounts of his private life and his death from AIDS related illness. This illuminating analysis of Hudson's career reassesses the perceived disparity between his public persona and his 'true' nature. Exploring his unique qualities as a performer and exposing the role of his agent, producers and directors in the construction of his image, John Mercer unpicks Hudson's stardom to reveal a more complex star identity than has hitherto been understood. Foregrounding the ways in which Hudson's career provides insights into the nature of American popular culture and attitudes towards gender and sexuality, Mercer ultimately depicts Hudson as a star who embodied a period of transition between the old Hollywood and the new.

This book is about the first "fear of AIDS" case tried in America. It tells the untold story of the trial that the general public heard nothing about. By telling the true story from the perspective of the lawyer who actually represented the Estate of Rock Hudson it is hoped the reader, acting as the 13th juror, will see the gross injustice done to the late actor by Christian and Rock's alleged friend, Mark Miller, as well as the court, the jury, and the press, all of which were blinded from the truth by this newly discovered disease called AIDS. Marc Christian claimed he was given a death sentence because Rock didn't tell him of his AIDS diagnosis and continued to have high risk sex with him. 25 years later Christian died not from HIV or AIDS. He was never HIV positive. How could this be if he was telling the truth that he continued having anal sex with Hudson 3 to 5 times a week for 8 months after Rock was first told he had full blown AIDS? Christian was either superhuman and they should clone his blood as a cure for AIDS, or he simply didn't tell the truth at trial, where Rock Hudson could not defend himself because Christian waited until Rock died, and found out he wasn't in his Will, before bringing his lawsuit.

First published in 2004. With subjects drawm from politics, the arts and popular culture, Who's Who in Contemporray Gay & Lesbian History, includes 500 entries from a large team of expert international contributors. The geographical scope takes in the whole of the Western world. Includes fascinating information about little-known figures as well as cult icons from World War II to the present day.

This issue examines Latin American labour, and includes coverage of topics such as: the organization amongst San Marcos coffee workers during Guatemala's National Revolution 1944-1954; the myth of the history of Chile - the Araucanians; and the representation of class and populism in Sao Paolo.

The book is a collection of ten essays on legal responses to HIV/AIDS, written by scholars from five continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe & America). Each essay deals with HIV/AIDS-related problems in the author's country. An effort was made to select highly-diversified countries belonging to different families of law, the countries varying in their political, ethnic, & religious backgrounds. The contributors were encouraged to explore the links between HIV/AIDS-related problems & other social issues. They were also encouraged to reflect upon the limits & effectiveness of legal measures in reducing the growth of the epidemic. Finally, the goal of the project was to find whether it is possible to achieve a proper balance between the need to protect societies from the scourge of AIDS & the need to protect the rights of those afflicted by the disease.

Rock Hudson rose to stardom as the virile hero of adventure films, and he then gained a flurry of female fans by starring in melodramas, like Magnificent Obsession. He earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Giant, starred in successful romantic comedies, and had a productive television and stage career. This book provides full information about his many performances and charts his life and career up to his death from AIDS. Rock Hudson was a movie giant, one of the biggest stars Hollywood ever produced. He gained early fame as the romantic hero of adventure films and melodramas such as Magnificent Obsession (1954). He then tackled serious drama in Giant (1956), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination. With the success of Pillow Talk (1959), he entered a new genre for which he would become best known—the sex comedy. He also had a successful stage and television career. This book charts Rock Hudson's rise as a celebrity until his death from AIDS. A biography opens the volume, followed by chapters which chronicle his work in film, television, radio, and the stage. Each chapter contains descriptions of Hudson's individual performances, with entries providing cast and credit information, plot summaries, excerpts from reviews, and critical commentary. The volume also includes a listing of Hudson's awards and an annotated bibliography of additional sources of information.

A larger-than-life narrative of the making of the classic film, marking the rise of America as a superpower, the ascent of Hollywood celebrity, and the flowering of Texas culture as mythology. Featuring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor, Giant is an epic film of fame and materialism, based around the discovery of oil at Spindletop and the establishment of the King Ranch of south Texas. Isolating his star cast in the wilds of West Texas, director George Stevens brought together a volatile mix of egos, insecurities, sexual proclivities, and talent. Stevens knew he was overwhelmed with Hudson’s promiscuity, Taylor’s high diva-dom, and Dean’s egotistical eccentricity. Yet he coaxed performances out of them that made cinematic history, winning Stevens the Academy Award for Best Director and garnering nine other nominations, including a nomination for Best Actor for James Dean, who died before the film was finished. In this compelling and impeccably researched narrative history of the making of the film, Don Graham chronicles the stories of Stevens, whose trauma in World War II intensified his ambition to make films that would tell the story of America; Edna Ferber, a considerable literary celebrity, who meets her match in the imposing Robert Kleberg, proprietor of the vast King Ranch; and Glenn McCarthy, an American oil tycoon; and Errol Flynn lookalike with a taste for Hollywood. Drawing on archival sources Graham’s Giant is a comprehensive depiction of the film’s production showing readers how reality became fiction and fiction became cinema.