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Rock Hudson Timeline

Born as Roy Harold Scherer Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois to an auto mechanic and Katherine Wood, a telephone operator. Appears in his first film, Fighter Squadron. Stars in Scarlet Angel with Yvonne De Carlo. Stars in Sea Devils with Yvonne De Carlo. Stars in the Douglas Sirk film, Magnificent Obsession, with Jane Wyman. Stars in The Lawless Breed. Stars in Seminole. Marries Phyllis Gates, his agent's secretary. It is believed to have been a sham marriage arranged by the studio to hide the fact that Hudson was gay. Stars in the Douglas Sirk film, All That Heaven Allows. Stars in Giant with James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. He is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Stars in the Douglas Sirk film, Written on the Wind. Stars in the Hemingway adaptation, A Farewell to Arms. Phyllis files for divorce. Look magazine names him "Star of the Year." Stars in Pillow Talk with Doris Day. Stars in Lover Come Back with Doris Day. Stars in Send Me No Flowers with Doris Day. Stars in the John Frankenheimer sci-fi film, Seconds. Begins starring in the tv show, McMillan and Wife, opposite Susan St. James. The show runs until 1977. Stars in Showdown with Dean Martin. Meets writer Armistead Maupin. Maupin later says in a 2001 interview: "When I tell it to straight interviewers, they end up saying, 'He had an affair with Rock Hudson.' No, no, no. It wasn't an affair. We played a couple of times. That's what gay men do sometimes. The first time we played, I was completely unable to perform because I was acutely aware that I was going to bed with Rock Hudson. To make matters worse, he had a little black leather popper case that was embossed with the initials 'RH' in case I forgot who I was with. But he was just really a good guy about it and terribly funny and pointed out to me that this happened to him all the time with his sex partners." Stars in Avalanche with Mia Farrow. Says in an interview: "Look, I know lots of gays in Hollywood, and most of them are nice guys. Some of them have tried it with me, but I've said 'Come on now, you've got the wrong guy.'" Undergoes quintuple bypass surgery. Stars in his final movie, The Ambassador. Stars in the TV movie, The Vegas Strip War, with James Earl Jones and Sharon Stone. Has a guest starring role in the tv show Dynasty from 1984 to 1985. Appears as a guest on Doris Day's new cable show, Doris Day's Best Friends. People are shocked to see how emaciated and sickly he appears and the state of his health becomes the talk of Hollywood. Hudson's lover, Marc Christian, asks Hudson about his weight loss. Christian later tells Larry King about Hudson's response: "he said I've been checked for cancer, I've been checked for everything, including the plague, meaning AIDS, and I don't have it. And then the word got around the house that he had anorexia, which was typically a teenage female infliction. I didn't buy that either. I thought he probably had lung cancer. He was a very heavy smoker." While in Paris for treatment, Hudson issues a press release announcing that he is gay and that he is dying of AIDS. After the announcement, there is a flurry of talk in the media over the fact that he had recently kissed Linda Evans on the set of Dynasty. People are angry with him for exposing her because it is not known at the time that AIDS can't be caught from kissing. Rock Hudson dies in Beverly Hills.