Did gays in the fifties look at Rock Hudson as a closet case ?

The way we think Tom Cruise is a closet case or Kenny Chesney or Bradley Cooper. When I see Rock Hudson in a movie I don't see him as gay.But if I lived I in the fifties I might?

Remember in the fifties it was a lot easier to keep things unknown. And those who did know generally kept it in their circle. Rock Hudson, in the fifties, was an asset, to be capitalized upon. In the fifties, hardly anybody would even think about being gay in terms of the closet. It was a big secret, source of shame and risk. And for people like Rock Hudson, a protective bubble, even if he thought there was another option, which in the fifties I doubt.
Confidential and other rags hinted about Rock many times. I heard about him back in the early 70's, so it wasn't a really well-guarded secret!
There was no such thing as "closet case". "Closet case" is relatively new terminology. Men who enjoyed sex with other men kept things private.
What about Tab Hunter?
this is a typical gayling thread. Be glad OP isn't talking about the ever-vexiing choice of venti or gande // nofoam double splenda or regular half-decaf... and DONT get him started on scones!
You posted that same tripe in another thread, R5.
R5%2C%20Giving%20Eldergays%20A%20Bad%20Name
Tab Hunter was a bigger problem for the studios. He was great at hiding and he'd fuck anyone or sit on any meat stick that slowed down long enough.
Obviously our access to information was severely more limited back then. As long as you weren't flamboyant, no one really suspected anything. Look at George Maharis. He was a very macho guy, and it would've shocked people to know that he spent most of his time off set trolling truck stop johns for sex. Only the flamboyant "buffoons" like Liberace or Paul Lynde sent up red flags, but nobody really cared because they seemed asexual and nonthreatening.
It was an honest and good question R5. How else are we ever supposed to learn anything if we don't ask questions about the past? When Rock did come out were people surprised? Did people not want to believe it like some of the moms who worshiped Clay Aiken?
RE 8 - And Maharis was a hot piece, hair (piece) or not. And hung ( see Playgirl / vintage '70's). And he was trolling gas stations & parks back then -even got arrested in late 60's for it. Still alive, and looking great or his age.
Marty%20Milner
Probably not.
R8 has it right.
[quote] Confidential and other rags hinted about Rock many times. Henry Willson threw them some of his other less profitable clients in order to stop them from continuing to publish things about Hudson.
I'm only in my twenties but I think If I were around back then I'd have a hard time telling.
OP, you idiot, Liberace wasn't considered gay in the fifties.
Yes they did according to my 75 year old gay uncle.
J.%20
R16, while they might have considered Liberace a homosexual (the term gay wasn't in use then) he won a libel suit against a London newspaper for intimating that he was a homosexual.
[quote]There was no such thing as "closet case". "Closet case" is relatively new terminology. Men who enjoyed sex with other men kept things private. This is a good point and shouldn't be ignored. Culture and terminology has changed now that there is an expectation that every man who is attracted to men should be okay with being public about it. In that past that wasn't the case.
OP, Iv'e heard the Cruise and Cooper rumors but not so much the Chesney ones. I know his actress wife cited fraud in their divorce but do you or anyone else no any more rumors that paint him gay.
I still remember being in elementary school(!)--early '70s)--when the rumor flew around the playground that "Rock Hudson had married 'Gomer Pyle' in Hawaii." Years later, Armistead Maupin wrote about the rumor--started, according to him, by some pissy queen in LA who wanted to make trouble; Maupin says that Hudson and Nabors did know each other, but could never socialize openly or be photographed together after that. (Interesting to see that Nabors really did marry his partner a few days ago.) Hudson's closet was bigger than most, but much more confining.
George
http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biom2/mahari02/maha2c.jpg
Carol Burnett was friendly with Rock and bffs with Nabors, so am guessing their paths crossed many times.
[quote]When Rock did come out were people surprised? Did people not want to believe it like some of the moms who worshiped Clay Aiken? His fans didn't want to believe it (& many didn't). And he never really "came out". He acknowledged that he was dying of AIDS, but people knew that gay sex wasn't the only way to get HIV -- the child Ryan White had contracted it from a blood transfusion & was in the news at the time. Lots of denial, as I recall.
Did Doris know he was gay?
My mother told me he was gay and that was around 1970. She repeated the Rock and Nabors story. It shocked me as a child to think that Gomer Pyle was gay. Of course a couple years later as a teenager, I could see that Nabors was gay without having to hear rumors. My mother also told me in the mid 70s that Raymond Burr was gay.
Yes Raymond Burr was Gay. But can someone explain his romance with Natalie Wood? I never got that one. It wasn't a beard type thing. She was way too young at the time and he wanted it kept quiet. I never understood it. I just don't see him as bi.
Your mother was pretty with it, r25! [quote]There was no such thing as "closet case". "Closet case" is relatively new terminology. EVERYBODY HAD to be a closet case
Everybody STILL IS a closet case.
Pathetic%20cowards