The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Henry Willson, Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Those who think Hollywood's current predatory political scene and celebrity partner-swapping activities are new phenomena would be wise to dive into this tell-all tale of Henry Willson, an agent who became a major star maker to actors like Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and Troy Donahue in the 1950s. Rapacious, ambitious and fond of a sex-for-roles strategy, Willson (1911–1978) is a compelling character worthy of this extensive biography. His story, too, illustrates the rise of the studio star system, in which actresses were pimped out to movie executives by their agents, and actors married to cover their homosexual liaisons. Hofler, a former Variety senior editor now the publication's theater reporter, delves into this shadowy, sometimes seamy world with particular relish, and his writing has all the sizzle of the films his subjects starred in. He includes interviews with a number of Hollywood insiders (Roddy McDowall and Shirley Temple Black, to name two), and shows remarkable sympathy for Willson, offering a glimpse into a man and an era that may be past, but whose effects linger still. Photos.
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From Booklist

Henry Wilson was a Hollywood reporter turned agent who represented, among other actors, several who were gay, and his specialty was not only seducing young Hollywood material but also "butching" them up for acceptance on the silver screen in the heartland, where, in the 1950s and 1960s, the idea of a matinee idol being homosexual simply could not be conceived. Wilson was gay himself but not handsome; however, he certainly knew a handsome face when he saw one, especially the handsome face out of which a successful film career could be made. One of Wilson's major clients--one of his major inventions--was Rock Hudson, and it is through Rock's story that this delicious yet sad history of Hollywood in that era is refracted. Hollywood was publicity driven and gay-repressed back then, but finally, what really has changed? Hofler's chronicle is an important contribution to the behind-the-scenes history of the movie industry and pairs nicely with the recently published Tab Hunter Confidential. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 468 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers; 1st edition (September 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078671607X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786716074
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #521,661 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

137 of 145 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The American Dream Measured in Width and Inches, October 3, 2005

By	J. E. Barnes (Bayridge, Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

As any number of books on the subject have shown, including Mary Astor's My Story (1959), editor Rudy Behlmer's Memo From David O'Selznick (1972), Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon (1981), Lawrence J. Quirk's Norma: The Story of Norma Shearer (1988), and John Gilmore's Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder (1998), life near the power centers of the entertainment industry during Hollywood's Golden Age wasn't any less desperate a place than it is today.

At first glance, Robert Hofler's The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson (2005) appears to be little more than another lowbrow show business expose, but Hofler is actually providing a service by responsibly shedding some badly-needed light into the darker corners of the American psyche. One of the book's themes is the sociology of the American Dream: Hofler examines a world where physical desire and the hunger for power meet and intertwine freely.

Broadly stated, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson concerns the lengths many now well-known men were willing to go to be given an opportunity at stardom. For a great number, this meant repeatedly spending time on the homosexual casting couch, regardless of what their own public persona, sexual orientation, or marital status might be. The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson supports the idea that yesterday's gossip and scandal is often presages today's historical record.

While the book focuses on Willson, Hofler makes it clear that he was only one of many Hollywood agents and talent scouts who typically found the average handsome young man on the California streets more than willing to climb into his bed in return for even a slight industry favor. Hofler underscores that, once his reputation was established, Willson was not always the initiator; while he freely exploited his clients, he was also actively pursued by men who offered their bodies to him freely. At the height of Willson's power, which endured for decades, the problem was not too few willing candidates, but too many: one witness recalls the line of male hopefuls trailing down the stairs of the agent's second floor office and continuing down the block.

Despite the publication and notoriety of the Kinsey Report on Male Sexuality in 1948, most Americans of the era remained ignorant about same sex relationships; many were unable to conceive of how such a relationship was possible or could be enacted physically. Supporting Kinsey's conclusions, Hofler provides abundant evidence that there was indeed a much wider range of sexual behavior occurring between males of the period than generally assumed, especially among the ambitious and the opportunistic.

Thus, ironically, the idols of millions of teenaged girls, as well as many of the ruggedly handsome heroes of television westerns of the Fifties and Sixties, who were the masculine role models for American men and boys everywhere, were actually both Willson's clients and his sexual partners.

The difference between The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson and similar books is that Hofler names names, and names names hand over fist. Hofler is unafraid to refer to Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, and Caesar Romero as "homosexuals," or follow the meandering path of a sexual relationship between Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun, going so far as to inform readers which man was the physically dominant partner and which the submissive.

Like many of the men discussed, Troy Donahue seems to have lived in an uncomfortable state of liminal sexual orientation, but Hofler quotes him as admitting that he "got into a pile" at one of his agent's all-male orgies. A later passage describes a firsthand account in which Donahue, "zonked out of his mind," is found hosting a "midday drug orgy" composed of "degenerates," "degenerates" being standard code of the era for "homosexual." Hilariously, Donahue's new bride, Suzanne Pleshette, files for divorce when she finds her spouse sneaking in "through the bathroom window at 5 a.m."

Unsurprisingly, those clients of Willson's who are still living, such as John Saxon and Mike Connors, state they were able to successfully fend off the agent's advances, or that no advances upon them were ever made, while evidence suggests that most of those who have passed away surrendered willingly or succumbed eventually.

Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Anthony Perkins, Roddy McDowall, Farley Granger, George Nader, even Raymond Burr--not all of whom were Willson clients--Hofler tosses the idols of a generation on the fire. Other famous "Willson boys" included Alain Delon, John Gavin, Robert Fuller, Clint Walker, Van Williams, Guy Williams, and Chad Everett.

Willson, who also arranged sham marriages, publicly betrayed those who had outlived their sexual usefulness, and threatened those who opposed him with extreme violence, is today as fondly remembered by some as he is loathed by others.

The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson will make uncomfortable reading for those who would rather not know either the facts or the compromises that many of their childhood heroes made in the name of entertainment industry success. Readers will also have to decide whether the evidence presented is credible on a case by case basis.

But Hofler's book, like the missing piece of a complex mosaic, balances out several equations, including the extreme and awkward stratification between 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual' identities still presumed to exist today.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Compelling but flawed., December 31, 2005

By	Richard Adkins (Toluca Lake, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I recently went to purchase this book at a primarily gay bookstore where, as it turns out, it had sold out. It was backordered and there wouldn't be any available copies for another month. When I went to a regular chain book store, it was readily available. Therein lies the tale of the market for this book. The book preaches to the choir, however the preacher isn't looking to save anyone. Quite the opposite. Despite excellent research, the writer reiterates the same stories over the length of the book, sprinkling the Rock Hudson-Phyllis Gates story over at least three different chapters with only slight additional facts each time, and the Tab Hunter-Confidential tale being equally spaced out. Hasn't this guy heard of chronological order? Also, there is no objectivity, but a very democratic disgust and dislike for everyone - straight, gay, innocent and guilty. Why not just let the story - which has it's own sordidness, stand on it's own? The emphasis is on demonizing Willson, who is demon enough, and less on a system in which straight agents, managers, studio heads and stars took as much advantage of female aspirants as Willson and his ilk did.
The most telling anecdote is when Hofler asks Farley Granger if he thinks Willson's behavior is any different than that of male entertainment figures towards women. Granger's response was "Well, if you want to look at it that way" which is kind of the way Hofler wants to look at Willson. It's all flesh-peddling, it's just that it has always been more acceptable to be open about making women sex objects. Read this book for the facts, but try to dismiss the editorializing - and the lack of structure.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tabloid-style biography, June 11, 2006

By	Ken Kardash (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You would think the ironic story of Rock Hudson's "hyper masculine" image being crafted by his homosexual agent and mentor, Henry Willson, would delve into the psyche of the latter and the times that produced him. No such luck here. In fact, the background and upbringing of the ostensible subject of this biography is not addressed until the fourth chapter. Willson was agent and promoter for a stable of post-WWII film and television stars, Rock Hudson being the most famous. Although not all male, gay, and bedded by him, that was the basis of Willson's notoriety. That and his penchant for renaming his clients with what he thought were iconic, masculine monikers that today sound like gag names (hilariously skewered with Tony Curtis's reminiscence of the apocryphal "Ben Dover").
This book consists of a collection of short, disjointed and somewhat repetitive chapters that read like an anthology of tabloid gossip articles. The ones most revealing of the characters and the industry concern the lengths to which Willson would go to protect Hudson, his most lucrative client, from being "outed" in the media. These ranged from physical coercion of would-be blackmailers to arranging a highly-publicized marriage between his secretary and the star. Interspersed are hearsay accounts of the sexual preferences and partners of his other, lesser-known clients. This culminates in Chapter 18, comprised entirely of a voyeuristic description of a speculative tryst between two of Willson's clients in a parked car. Then there is the completely unsubstantiated innuendo about the sexuality of Robert Wagner, Raymond Burr and even the erstwhile Mrs. Hudson! The journalistic standards here would make Kitty Kelly blush.
If you enjoy leafing through tabloid gossip about the sex lives of Hollywood stars (even if you won't admit it), this will be a real page-turner. As biography or social history of sexual hypocrisy in Hollywood, though, it's definitely lightweight material.