Hudson Estate Seeks $2 Million From Ex-Lover

Rock Hudson’s estate is seeking $2 million in damages against the actor’s former lover in a suit alleging that the man blackmailed Hudson for $72,000 by threatening to expose the actor’s homosexuality, attorneys for the estate said Thursday.

The cross-complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court also alleges that Marc Christian, Hudson’s former lover, stole $60,000 worth of Hudson’s property and was a prostitute who was sexually intimate with a man suffering from AIDS.

Christian, 31, filed a $14-million suit against Hudson’s estate and four individuals in November, claiming that they conspired to keep him unaware that he was being exposed to acquired immune deficiency syndrome through his sexual involvement with Hudson.

The suit said that Hudson learned that he had AIDS in June, 1984, but the actor lied to Christian and continued their sexual relationship.

Hudson, 59, died of complications of AIDS last October. Publicity surrounding his death increased public awareness of the incurable disease and assisted the fund-raising efforts of groups trying to combat it.

Christian’s attorneys have acknowledged that a test of Christian’s blood turned up no antibodies to the AIDS virus, but they argued that absence of the antibodies does not mean that their client will not come down with the disease later.

In their answer to Christian’s suit, attorneys for Hudson’s estate maintained that if Christian develops AIDS, it will be “as a proximate result of his own promiscuous behavior and not as a result of any sexual contact with Rock Hudson.”

Christian should have known of Hudson’s condition, because the symptoms were “readily apparent,” and Christian assumed the risk of exposure to AIDS by continuing his sexual relationship with Hudson, attorneys for the actor’s estate argued.

In their cross-complaint, the estate’s lawyers are seeking $2 million in punitive damages, $72,000 allegedly paid to Christian for his silence about Hudson’s homosexuality and $60,000 in property that, they said, Christian stole from the actor’s Beverly Hills home.

Shortly after Christian moved into Hudson’s home in November, 1983, the actor went to Israel to work on a film, the cross-complaint said. Christian, however, worked as a male prostitute while Hudson was in Israel and was writing “confidential” letters to him, the suit added.

Christian admitted his prostitution when Hudson returned and the actor ended their homosexual relationship, the cross-complaint said. But Hudson allowed Christian to continue living in his home, the complaint said, after Christian threatened to destroy the actor’s reputation by publishing the letters and exposing Hudson’s homosexuality.

In court papers filed last week, Christian denied that he had either engaged in prostitution while Hudson was away or had blackmailed the actor after his return. Christian admitted taking property from Hudson’s home, but he said he did so only at the insistence of Hudson’s secretary.