‘Rock and Marc’ Saga Brings the Question of Responsibility to Fore

John Wilson had only a few customers to wait on Thursday morning in his West Hollywood athletic clothing store, but he left his morning paper unread on the floor behind him. Wilson had already finished the only story he wanted to read.

The “Rock and Marc” saga, as the store manager referred to the legal imbroglio between actor Rock Hudson’s estate and a former lover who was awarded $14.5 million by a Superior Court jury, “is just wonderful National Enquirer stuff,” Wilson said.

On the streets of West Hollywood and Silver Lake, the two thriving hubs of Los Angeles’ homosexual community, the court battle over whether Hudson concealed the fact that he had AIDS from his former secretary was dissected Thursday by some as an amusing morality play populated by randy and greedy cartoon characters.

But to many gay community leaders and others active in fighting the disease, the case also had more serious ramifications--raising concerns about the responsibilities of sexual partners and the financial duties of the survivors of relationships destroyed by AIDS.

‘The Wrong Message’

“(The verdict) sends exactly the wrong message, the message that you can rely on the other person to take care of you or inform you,” said Mark Kostopoulos, a spokesman for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, an organization that has lobbied for more funding for hospices and widespread treatment.

But Rabbi Allen Freehling, chairman of the Los Angeles County Commission on AIDS, disagreed, saying the verdict sends a message that someone is “totally irresponsible” if they fail to tell their lovers they are infected by the virus.

“I’m delighted with the message, and I’m appalled at the size of the award,” Freehling said. He urged Christian to use the money to establish a foundation to support AIDS research.

Margaret Davis, Los Angeles attorney specializing in litigation involving sexually transmitted diseases, also said the size of the award to Christian was “unprecedented.” She said, however, the decision would encourage sincerity and candor between sexual partners.

“No one wants to promote a flood of litigation, but the law can act as a deterrent,” Davis said. “What it comes down to is you have to make honest promises in the dark.”

In West Hollywood, a 5-year-old city where an estimated 35% of the population of 35,000 residents is homosexual, some of those worries emerged in cynical asides. Rick Brooks, a receptionist at West Hollywood’s City Hall, said one thought came immediately to his mind when he heard about the jury’s award to former bartender Marc Christian.

“I heard it on the radio while I was putting on my eyeliner this morning,” Brooks said. “So I wondered: ‘Do we have to start giving resumes to our lovers?’ I mean, what’s next?”

Lunching with a friend under an Evian umbrella at the French Marketplace on Santa Monica Boulevard, Bill Clement predicted an equally absurd future. Clement, 36, a salesman in a card shop, was arguing with his friend, Dana, about the case.

“I think we all have an obligation to tell a prospective lover if we are HIV-positive,” a medical sign that a person is infected with the AIDS virus, Clement said. “But what this jury seems to be saying is that we’re all going to have to go around with papers. Like dogs. No, I don’t have my shots. But yes, I have papers to show I’m not HIV-positive.”

Dana, 28, a bartender who had been up late the night before, didn’t want to hear it. To him, the courtroom controversy was good for laughs and nothing more. “This is better than Liz and Dick,” he said, pounding a newspaper for emphasis. “It’s better than Sean and Madonna. It’s just juicy gossip and the gays are eating it up. Two greedy manipulators. And you know what? They deserved each other.”

At Rounds, a Silver Lake bar that caters to a gay and straight clientele, a set designer for television who identified himself only as Dick pointed at a video screen featuring an old Liberace tape. As the late entertainer preened on-stage in a gold lame outfit, the set designer shook his head sadly.

“It’s such a blown-up soap opera,” he said. “Why do these wonderful entertainers have to get dragged through the mud like this?”

Stephen Schulte, who has been a West Hollywood City Councilman for the last five years, acknowledged the titillation factor. “It really is tabloid material,” he said.

But Schulte also found grounds for worry and for reassurance in the court verdict. While he was surprised by the size of the $14.5-million award to Christian, the councilman agrees with the jury’s decision to “assess some kind of responsibility to provide for the survivors in relationships like these.”

The worry, Schulte said, lies in the possibility that the Hudson case might “open the floodgates” for similar actions against other wealthy gay men. But the councilman said that such a possibility has become more remote in recent years as homosexuals have increasingly practiced “safe sex” techniques.

“When these two were involved (in 1985), it was another era,” Schulte said. “We’ve learned a lot since then.”

At the Different Light bookstore on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, clerk Stuart Timmons was seething about the verdict. As customers browsed through shelves filled with gay political magazines, Gertrude Stein paperbacks and photography albums of naked men, Timmons said angrily that he was more concerned about “what the verdict says about straight society than what it says about Rock Hudson.”

AIDS Ignorance

The jury, Timmons said, “showed its ignorance about AIDS. It’s disturbing that after all these years of AIDS, they would find sympathy for (Christian) and not make him take responsibility for his actions. To me, it says something about the average Joe’s attitude, that we still aren’t adult--or normal--enough to take our lives into our own hands.

“Both of those men had responsibilities to each other and themselves, and both of them blew it,” Timmons said. “The verdict didn’t come close to reflecting that.”