Marc Christian Says Revenge Was a Motive

The day after a jury awarded him a total of $21.75 million, Marc Christian said he filed suit against the estate of Rock Hudson not only because people have a duty to tell their sexual partners if they have AIDS but also to get back at Hudson’s managers, who treated him “like a piece of toilet paper.”

Christian said Saturday that he was exhausted after the 5-week trial and was going to go from his Hollywood home to Orange County to rest with his parents and other relatives. He reiterated his desire to donate part of the award to AIDS charities and said he would write a book about his experiences with the film actor “just to set things straight.”

During the trial, Christian claimed that he suffered extreme emotional distress when he found out that Hudson had AIDS because he and the actor continued to have frequent high-risk sex for eight months after Hudson’s illness was diagnosed.

Christian said Saturday that although Hudson deceived him, he still has warm feelings for the late actor, whom he described as “down to earth” and “very respectful, almost shy.”

“I found that I’m in an unusual position,” Christian said. “I’m angry about him not telling me about AIDS, but I find myself defending him from people who are labeling him as a monster.”

Christian placed most of the blame for the concealment of Hudson’s illness on the actor’s secretary, Mark Miller. After Hudson’s death in October, 1985, Christian said he was shunned by Miller, who threatened to “expose” him as a “hustler.”

“I was looked upon at the house as a nonentity,” the 35-year-old musicologist said in a telephone interview. “The friends of Rock saw me as a piece of toilet paper, as something to be thrown away. The suit was a way of me saying that I wasn’t going to be treated that way. Everybody has a right to be treated with respect. . . . They wouldn’t have treated someone who was seen as Rock’s so-called ‘equal’ that way.”

Attorneys for Miller and Hudson’s estate attempted to portray Christian during the trial as a money-grabbing opportunist who used his relationship with Hudson to further his ambition for an acting career. They pointed to a series of interviews Christian gave to television programs and magazines to publicize the suit.

Nevertheless, on Friday the jury awarded Christian $7.25 million in punitive and exemplary damages against Miller. Earlier in the week, Christian had been awarded $14.5 million in compensatory damages against both Miller and Hudson’s estate.

Reflecting on his three-year relationship with Hudson, Christian said he does not believe that Hudson maliciously intended to deceive him.

“I think he (Hudson) was told not to tell me,” Christian said. “Maybe they scared him; maybe he didn’t want to face the fact that he was dying.”

Christian testified in court that he first learned of the disease upon hearing in a television broadcast from Paris in February, 1985, that the actor had been suffering from AIDS for more than a year. Hudson died of complications from AIDS in his Beverly Hills home on Oct. 2, 1985, at age 59.

“By the time I found out, he was incommunicado,” Christian said Saturday. “I’ll never know why he didn’t tell me.”

Christian described Hudson as a man who had been sheltered from the concerns of ordinary people during his long career as a Hollywood film star and sex symbol. “You get a driver, someone to help you do your hair, you get catered to. You become insulated from responsibility,” Christian said.

“You get that sense of immortality when you see yourself on the screen; you don’t think you’ll age,” Christian said. “Rock just didn’t think it was going to get him.”

Born in Hollywood and raised in the San Fernando Valley and Orange County, Christian said he was studying music theory when he met Hudson in 1982. Christian had also worked in several political campaigns, including that of Richard Nixon in 1972, before shifting to the other side of the political spectrum to support Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s campaign for governor.

It was during a political fund-raiser for senatorial candidate and author Gore Vidal that he met Hudson, Christian said.

“I had met several famous people before, so I wasn’t exactly star-struck,” Christian said. “He didn’t act like a movie star; he didn’t put on airs or affectations. I liked that.”

Christian said he is certain the jury’s verdict sent the right message. “Gay people have got to take responsibility for themselves,” he said. “If we don’t, Big Brother is going to come down with the fist and do it for us.”

The tall, blond Christian said he had remained celibate since Hudson’s death. “You get funny offers every once in a while,” he said. “But I think basically people would see me as someone to avoid.”