Inner Man Stays in the Closet in ‘Rock Hudson’

Controversial celebrities don’t merely die anymore. They go out, cameras blazing.

Liberace’s death showed that: First paparazzi -style media coverage that probably would have shocked even the prince of flamboyance himself, followed by the inevitable conflicting television biographies. In Liberace’s case there were dueling “Chopsticks,” a so-so movie on CBS trailing an awful one on ABC.

Are we through? Of course not, for now comes ABC’s piece of the Rock. A sliver, actually.

Airing at 9 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42 is “Rock Hudson,” two hours of Rockabilia that amount to little more than an extended footnote about the handsome Hollywood leading man whose private homosexuality became public knowledge near the end of his losing battle with AIDS.

In limbo at NBC, meanwhile, is another Hudson script by the respected TV writer Carmen Culver based on Sara Davidson’s authorized biography, “Rock Hudson: His Story.” It appears that the fate of NBC’s Hudson project will be determined by public response to the ABC movie.

Hudson’s former lover, Marc Christian, and former wife, Phyllis Gates, come off well in “Rock Hudson,” which is not shocking given that both were major sources for the movie. The depiction of Hudson’s longtime secretary, Mark Miller, is decidedly unflattering, however, showing him conspiring with the actor to keep Hudson’s AIDS secret from Christian.

Christian won a $5.5-million judgment against Hudson’s estate and Miller for the “extreme emotional stress” he said he suffered after learning that Hudson had hidden his AIDS from him.

Miller, meanwhile, has accused tonight’s ABC movie of “promulgating and disseminating malicious and highly damaging lies.”

That remains to be seen. What can be seen immediately is that this movie, even if truthful, is a stale, flat, untextured monotone of a story that offers few insights into Hudson (who is played by Thomas Ian Griffith) and has the look of a rush job. Written by Dennis Turner and directed by John Nicolella, this is a movie for drive-by gawkers who get their history from 8x10 glossies, one that only superficially covers Hudson’s life from age 21 to his death in 1985 at age 58.

We glide: Hudson meets agent Henry Willson (Andrew Robinson, who was ABC’s Liberace). He gets into movies. He takes a male lover. He gets famous. He meets Gates (Daphne Ashbrook). He sleeps with Gates. He marries Gates when a magazine threatens to expose his homosexuality. She walks out when she learns he’s gay. He’s tormented. Willson hounds him about publicly hanging out with other gays. He buys a mansion, fires Willson and vows to “live the way I want to behind the gates of this big house.” He meets Christian (William R. Moses). Christian moves in. Rock gets gray hair and a paunch. Rock learns he has AIDS.

As far as “Rock Hudson” goes, the inner man remains hidden behind the gates. The definitive movie is yet to be made. This one is not shrill or titillating or homophobic, only unrevealing and uninteresting.

Given the difficult task of playing a star who has been chiseled into the American consciousness, Griffith is never very convincing as Hudson. He’s tall and nice looking, but there it ends. Although his face does ultimately take on the look of a dying man, he still appears about 20 years younger than he is supposed to be as Hudson in his late 50s.

The movie is generally sympathetic to Hudson, but the betrayed Gates and Christian are its wounded parties as well. You want to feel sorry for Hudson, as much for his apparently painful life as for his painful death. But that sorrow is mitigated by the knowledge that--if Christian and this movie are correct--he deceived Christian about having AIDS while continuing to have sex with him.

On that, the movie is emphatic. “I don’t want anyone to know--no one!” Hudson tells his secretary, Miller, after learning he has AIDS. Later, Miller tells Christian that Hudson has anorexia.

What sort of man would use such a potentially lethal deception to victimize someone for whom he supposedly cared? Sorry, wrong movie. “Rock Hudson” hasn’t a clue.

On the other hand, if the movie is accurate in depicting Christian as a wide-eyed innocent, then he was either incredibly naive or incredibly thick. Given Hudson’s physical deterioration amid an explosion of publicity about AIDS, ABC’s account of a blindly trusting Christian seems far-fetched.

Of course, the NBC movie--if there is one--may straighten that out. Rock Hudson, multiple choice.