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

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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.

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.

Henry Willson (the David Gest of his time) knew that women would not accept gay men as romantic leads in films, and he was adept at butching up even the most femme actor so that he would pass the smell test over at RKO.

The facade of heterosexuality he, um, erected around these actors was the seed of his eventual undoing. The schmaltzy names didn't help. Pretty soon, everyone knew that Henry Willson represented gay actors and even his own clients began to diss him in public (even while disrobing for him in private).

No one knew the major players, or kept track of films in development, shooting schedules, last minute substitutions, etc., as well as Henry Willson did. It was only when Confidential Magazine, and a slew of imitators, started nipping at his (and his closeted clients') heels in the mid-50's that the spell was broken and Henry Willson found himself spending as much time extinquishing scandals as he did stoking the careers of his stars.

That's why it seemed sad to me that when he died, he died completely alone and broke, forgotten by the actors who made a Faustian (sexual) bargain with him. Obviously, there had to be a double standard when it came to gay agents. Straight agents screwed their clients with impunity. But Henry got dragged over the coals for it, both by the powers that be, and his clients. After all was said and done, and Henry's boys became stars, they were ashamed of their affiliation with him.

He sure knew how to pick 'em though.

This book is beautifully written. It's a polished gem of gossip for the ages. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in that optimistic period of Hollywood history after WWII and before Vietnam.

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.

Robert Hofler's "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson" is a magnificently- written and searingly honest biography of actor's agent, Henry Willson.

Mr. Willson, a Hollywood reporter turned agent during the golden age of Hollywood (when the so-called "Dream Factory" was literally in full swing) emerges as a larger than life tragic and sympathetic figure.

Described as a homely homosexual man, with an expertly trained eye for spotting male beauty, he more than compensated for his paucity of good looks by elevating himself, by sheer will and talent alone, into one of the most powerful and influential starmakers in the motion picture industry.

Thought of by many as being a predator who sexually preyed upon innocent, naive, and unsuspecting young men - the opposite, actually, was quite true in retrospect.
While they might well have been naive in the ways of Hollywood, itself, these young men were certainly all well-enough versed in the ways of life to know exactly what it was they really wanted, and what they would be willing enough to submit to in order to achieve it. Nobody twisted their arm. Nobody forced them into doing anything that they, themselves, didn't voluntarily consent to do in the first place.

The question then arises - if Mr. Willson stands guilty of unfairly taking advantage of all the young men that he so carefully nurtured and fashioned into celebrities - why would he so strongly have felt the compelling need to always travel that extra proverbial mile in their behalf, fighting tenaciously, with every fiber of his being, to secure for them the very best of everything in their career and personal lives.

After he had used his very own money, invaluable amounts of time, and unique salesmanship skills in turning them into the successful commodity that they eventually became - they then proceeded to drop him like a hot potato when they no longer had any need for him. When the veritable truth of all these realizations come together, a disturbing, yet vitally important, thought is left to ponder. Who, indeed, appears to have been the most severely emotionally damaged victim (or victims) here? The stable of "pretty boys" he had groomed for stardom? Or the desperately lonely man who, in a futile effort to belong, spent a lifetime trying to fit in by surrounding himself with beautiful people. It was almost as if constantly being in their presence, managing their careers, and sometimes even their personal lives, compensated, somewhat, for the good looks he had been denied, and had the intoxicating power to elevate and place him on an equal playing field with all of them. As hard as he tried, never truly did he ever belong. He was an outsider who always remained on the outside. A physically unacceptable outcast in a self-contained world of superficial beauty, with only looking-in privileges. Yet, his is the character of main focus here, and the driving force that literally propels this mesmerizing biography and sends it crashing clear through the roof.

Most of the so-called "stars" who appear in this biography emerge as rather vain, shallow, unfeeling people who can only be momentarily true to those who give them exactly what they think they need at the very moment that they think they need it. At least, Mr. Willson had feelings enough to show his deep hurt and devastation each time one of his boys (clients) dropped him and went on to someone else who they thought could do more for them. (As most of them later found out - changing wasn't always the better route - and their careers suffered bitterly because of it.)

That Henry Willson suffered immeasurably because of these betrayals, goes without saying. That he died alone and penniless, goes without saying. That he was the better human-being, definitely goes without saying.

With master strokes of an artist's brush, Mr. Hofler has vividly painted the unique and unforgettable portrait of a flawed, but generously big- hearted man, who, at one time in motion picture history, cast a giant shadow across the make-believe landscape of Hollywood. A fairytale state of mind where much heartbreak, sadness, and the unsightly debris of wrecked and shattered lives, that can never be resurrected, are to be found haplessly scattered along the confection-laced, but treacherously dangerous, highway that runs directly through the very center of its heart and soul.

Robert Hofler's "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson", is a stunning, skillful, and insightful biography that stands as one of the finest ever written. For a fascinating, in-depth, behind the scenes look at the shady workings and double-dealings of an unscrupulous Hollywood in the days of its early beginnings, this biography is a definite must read.

Henry Willson came to Hollywood from the East Coast and became a part of a group called the Puppets, which consisted of young people seeking to become involved in the ever burgeoning field of talking movies.

Willson had sound instincts when it came to identifying with current tastes. He began as a stringer writing freelance columns about the New York stage while an undergraduate at Wesleyan College in Connecticut. With the Depression making stirring inroads he saw that Broadway was fading while public demand increased to see films.

Soon Willson moved into the agency field, discovering Lana Turner and Rhonda Fleming, but it was in the field of discovering young male talent where his fame and unique impact on the industry would be achieved. Discovering handsome male faces that brought audiences into the theaters and prompted young females to swoon was more than just a business to Willson. It was a labor of love borne of his strong attraction to them as a homosexual man.

He knew that caution needed to be employed in propelling to stardom's number one popularity position among actors a former truck driver from Winnetka, Illinois who gained international fame as Rock Hudson. Willson, a well bred man from a wealthy family whose father had been a leading executive at Columbia Records, assumed the role of surrogate father for Hudson as well as other stars of the Willson stable such as Rory Calhoun, Tab Hunter and Troy Donahue.

In addition to working hard to cultivate relations with those in the industry in positions to propel his clients toward stardom, the flamboyant and highly witty Willson played as hard as he worked, enjoying a good time and sex with many of the handsome men whose destinies he guided.

Since so much of promoting the young performers involved meeting people, Willson took them to local spots such as the famous nightclubs Ciro's and Mocambo as well as dining and drinking establishments such as Cock and Bull, Villa Frascati, Scandia and, at the end of his career, Panza's Lazy Susan, run by an acting client, and where he socialized with the likes of mobster Mickey Cohen.

Willson's excesses, particularly when it came to drinking, ultimately led to his demise, along with a changing studio structure. Within the wildly party atmosphere of Hollywood, along with the concurrent atmosphere of career tension, the Willson propensity for alcoholic consumption and drugs combined with voracious sex were traits he held in common with protégés Hudson and Donahue.

This is a work that captures the cinema capital in the same close-up fashion that Otto Friedrich's "City of Nets" with its focus on forties' Hollywood also did.

Unlike many, apparently, I read this book pretty much knowing what I was getting into. I was expecting something only mildly better than a National Enquirer expose, and with relatively moderate expectations, I was in for a pleasant surprise. I was not alive or viably so when most of the machinations of Henry Willson and his ilk were going on, so I found this quite informative in terms of the price paid for fame by both men and women who wanted to be in the movie business. I found the writing quite readable, and appreciated that the author didn't "purple his prose" and try to make things more melodramatic than they were. One caveat: although Hofler repeatedly mentions that Willson was also sought after, and that some would-be stars threw themselves at him, no specific example is presented. The occasional non-chronological narration did not throw me off at all; I found it built suspense, as I felt, correctly, it turns out, that future incidents alluded to in the developing story would be, uh, fleshed out later. All in all, this is not a "nasty" book, but a revealing, entertaining one, that at the end left me wanting to rent some of the movies referred and look at them, most for the first time, but all with "new eyes."

I liked a lot of this tawdry book...the pictures especially...and really got a feel for the back story and machinations of early Hollywood. However, I found it very suspect that every famous actor who was either discovered or repped by Henry Willson and who is now dead ( Rock Hudson, Rory Calhoun,) had sex with men and the same type of actors who were discovered or repped by the same man but are still alive ( Mike Connors, Robert Wagner, Tony Curtis)...NEVER had sex with men and managed to escape the apparently lecherous clutches of Henry Willson. Are the stories wishful thinking and fiction that cannot be proven or unproven??? Are the living threatening lawsuits?? I enjoyed reading about how the right look was all he needed to make a star..the talent was secondary , or could come later...I drew a lot of comparisons to today's stars, especially in the music business, and no longer have to wonder why so many mediocre singers and no-talents get so much press and get on so many shows. I guess there will be a book about the casting couch of today in about 40 years...

I was initially going to only give this book four stars because it is not a perfect book, but then I saw the negative reviews and became more than a little angry. First of all, this is one of the best written books I've yet to come across. In fact, the first thing that jumped out at me was the incredible urbane and sophisticated style of the writing. For that Robert Hofler gets an A+++++. Next, the content. He really did his homework and it shows. Also, this is not a "get even" type of book that tries to out those we didn't already know about, rather, it is a very honest, even-handed approach to not only Mr. Hudson's life, but those other clients of Henry Willson.

My only complaint with the book has been echoed by a couple of other reviewers. I found that the author would mention a star in the beginning of a chapter, then move on. Okay, I thought that was it. Then later, more stories about that star would emerge and the dates he would be discussing were out of sinc. In that way, I would have liked for the book to be more chronological.

The only other problem I had with the book was my own: I thought this was going to be more about Rock Hudson, when, in fact, and true to the title, the book was about the agent Henry Willson. This is not the author's fault, simply my own for mis-reading the title.

Overall, fascinating reading about a man whom I didn't know even existed. Also a very sad tale of the intricate workings of Hollywood and what happens to Henry Willson in the end--or rather, what doesn't happen.

Again, while this book was not perfect, I found it to be one of the most fascinating and well-written things I've ever read. I highly recommend it for those interested in Hollywood and its workings.

Would also recommend the biography of Cary Grant for another great book.

A very interesting and fascinating book about Hollywood of long ago, especially concerning the homosexual casting couch operated by Henry Willson. We never heard of Willson, but he created or invented many stars, many of whom, like Willson, were gay, the gayest being good ol' Rock. I found the book dull and boring at the beginning---but only the beginning. Then I could not put it down. As another reviewer here said, the date of Rock Hudson's death is inncorect--a glaring and inexusable error. All in all, this book is entertaining reading and I enjoyed it.