‘It’s Pretty Sensational Stuff’ as Hudson’s Love Life Unfolds in Court

It was a revealed in court this week that a man hid behind a barbecue pit and watched Rock Hudson and his former lover have sex next to the Jacuzzi after a birthday party at the late actor’s home.

But the man behind the barbecue isn’t the only voyeur who has emerged in the trial.

The press and a parade of curious onlookers have staked out the courtroom in downtown Los Angeles each day to hear about the former leading man’s secret love life, the subject of more than 20 years of rumors and speculation. Today, it is the center of a lawsuit, filed by Marc Christian, 35, Hudson’s former lover, who is suing Hudson’s estate and personal secretary for allegedly conspiring to conceal that Hudson was dying of AIDS for more than a year.

Christian, a former bartender, claims he suffered extreme emotional distress when he found out about Hudson’s illness, because they continued to have frequent, high-risk sex for eight months after Hudson’s illness was diagnosed as AIDS. The testimony has been so risque that lawyers have repeatedly apologized to the jury for the questions and responses deemed necessary to uncover the truth in the case.

So far the onlookers have not been been disappointed. Besides the graphic details of the extended love affair and active sex life between Hudson and Christian, they have been regaled with a series of unexpected and sensational tales. Among them:

- Hudson refused to take Christian to a state dinner at the White House because he feared that Nancy Reagan would discover he was gay. Christian testified that Hudson told him, “Nancy Reagan would figure out our relationship because she’s a very bright woman.”

- Pat Boone’s wife, Shirley, performed spiritual incantations over Hudson’s body minutes after the actor died of complications from AIDS in his Beverly Hills home on Oct. 2, 1985, at age 59. She was speaking in tongues while holding Hudson’s legs, saying, “Please get the AIDS out of his body,” Christian testified.

- Hudson’s personal secretary, Mark Miller, allegedly asked Christian to recruit young men to have sex with the actor, “to kind of spice things up,” Christian said. He said he politely declined.

- After Hudson died, Christian began work on a book about their relationship, “Between Rock and a Hard Place,” but has since abandoned the project.

- Hudson was paid $2.5 million for a guest-starring role on six episodes of the television soap “Dynasty” in 1984. At the time, he had lost nearly 30 pounds because of his illness. Christian advised Hudson not to do the series, saying he looked like a “walking cadaver,” but Hudson persisted. “I’m not going to turn down 2.5 million bucks,” Christian quoted the actor as saying.

- Hudson purposely left the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences out of his will because he never liked the organization. He left his estimated $8-million estate to a trust.

- Hudson not only had AIDS, he also had herpes, Christian said. Although Christian has continued to test negative for the AIDS virus, repeated medical tests show that he has the antibodies for herpes. He claims he did not have herpes before his relationship with Hudson.

To catch these juicy tidbits on film, photographers and television producers have been jockeying for camera position in the courtroom while longtime court observers spend hours following the trial. At one point, a television monitor was set up in the hallway outside the courtroom, drawing a huge crowd of attorneys, court clerks and idle jurors from other cases.

“It’s shocking, that’s why we come,” said Sam Brotman, one of about six retired men who are courtroom regulars. “It’s pretty sensational stuff. We read about it at the beginning and decided it was more interesting than the murder trial we were watching.”

The trial so far may have dispelled some romantic notions Hudson’s fans have held of him. He was treated as a hero in the fight against AIDS when it was revealed during a 1985 television broadcast that the actor had contracted the disease, even prompting a telephone call from President Reagan. But that same broadcast triggered Christian’s lawsuit, and subsequent testimony that Hudson purposely lied to his lover so that they could continue to have sex.

Christian has portrayed Hudson as a loving partner, but a person gripped by self-denial, who steadfastly refused to reveal his own illness or take steps to protect others.

He testified that the late film star said, “they get what they deserve,” when they watched a television program about the spread of AIDS in gay bathhouses. And he told the jury that when he asked Hudson what he would do if the actor contracted AIDS, Hudson replied, “ ‘I’d have one last good (sex act) and then I’d say ‘goodby cruel world.’ ”

Even after Christian confronted Hudson when the actor was being treated for his illness at UCLA Medical Center, Hudson refused to apologize, Christian said.

For his part, Christian has been painted by defense attorneys as a money-grabbing opportunist who used his relationship with Hudson to further his ambitions for an acting career. The attorneys have pointed to a series of interviews Christian gave to Penthouse, the “Larry King Show,” the “Phil Donahue Show,” “Good Morning San Francisco” and others to publicize his suit after Hudson’s death.

Yet under cross-examination, Christian testified that he has never sought professional psychiatric treatment for his alleged mental distress, in part because he was reluctant to make public his private moments with Hudson.