Rear Mudson with Doris Day in Pillo alk (1959); and (right) as he appeared in Dyadaty (1984).

"He was actually very romantic. I've heard many stories about his past. If I were to believe it all, he would have been the most well-traveled man in history. Basically, with our relationship, he was very romantic, very old fashioned."

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Mine was. I don't know about him. I'm pretty sure it was. I mean, I didn't keep 24-hour tabs on him, but he was home everynight, so...

How did you meet him?

I met him when I was working with Gore Vidal, in the senatorial campaign of 1982. How did the relationship develop?

At the time, when we were first talking, it was about music. He wasn't really into politics. He had a vast collection of 78 records he wanted to transfer to tape, and I was doing that at the Record Institute anyway, and I told him I could do it for him. I gave him my number, and he called about three weeks later. He came over and heard part of my project, and was impressed, and then hired me the next week to start doing his records. He'd bring the records down to me and I would do it at the institute, because I couldn't come up to the house because he was living with Tom Clark. It was about three months into working with him and being around him that the relationship really started. It was a very slow and evolutionary thing.

And how long were you lovers, or whatever you want to call it?

We became intimate around springtime of '83, and then I moved in in fall of '83. I was there until just a month ago.

Tell me a little about this will thing. Well, I actually haven't seen the will. The only thing I know about it is that it was written in '74.

Did he ever change it after '74?

He didn't change the will, but he did amend it. He took Tom Clark out of it a year ago.

Who is Tom Clark?

Tom Clark was the man he was living with for ten years before I moved in.

Was Clark his lover then? Tom would like to think so, but Rock told me they weren't, [that] only once or twice were they ever intimate. It was basically that they were companions, and he was his personal manager, and they were more like living companions-separate rooms, you know. But Tom had been loyal to Rock, and he had originally put Tom in the will to receive his personal possessions after he would die. I don't know if that meant all the 22 NEW YORK NATIVE/DECEMBER 23

monies and everything, but at least personal effects and perhaps the house. So the only change in the will, a year ago--I remember when Rock went to New York to do it. He said, "I'm going to go to New York. I'm going to change my will and get Tom out, because I could have a car accident and he'd get everything, and I hate the son of a bitch now." And I said, "Well, what are you going to do with it?" And he said, "I don't know. I don't like charities." And I said, "Well, what about the actors' home?" He said, "I hate the actors' home." And I said, "What about the Actors' Fund in New York?" And he said, "That's a good idea. I like that." So he thought about the Actors' Fund, and he also thought about perhaps leaving it to dramatic schools-things that would help actors, the way he had been helped.

What about you? Did he ever say anything about you?

He used to say things in front of friends; it would kind of embarrass me. Saying, you know, well, "I hope that when I go one day, you'll take care of the house and love it as much as I do," and, "Everything I have is yours," and stuff. He would say that, and I'm sure he meant that, but he never sat me down and said, "I'm going to put you in my will," or, I'm going to do this legally, or that legally, because he never talked about his money.

Do you think you were in the will at any point?

I don't know. I really don't know. Now, the one thing I do know is that Mark Miller, who's living with George Nader, will be a recipient, because of the fact that he and George Nader have lived together 38 years, and the bulk of the interest earned on the will will go to George Nader. This is what they told me. I haven't seen that in writing, but they told me that George Nader will be the recipient. And they also knew he had AIDS. So maybe, at the time, Rock might have thought, "Gee, if I'm going to have this disease, and I'm going to have to rely on Mark Miller so much, they should be rewarded somehow for looking after me, and having to cope with whatever I'm going through."

Did he seek treatment for AIDS before this whole going-to-Paris business?

When he went to New York to take Tom out of the will, he then flew to Paris to go to 29, 1985

D

the Deauville Film Festival. Originally, Elizabeth Taylor was going to be there, and then she had to back out. At least, that's what I was told. He never did go to the Deauville Film Festival, as far as I know. What happened is, he had been diagnosed as having AIDS in June of '84-June 8, as a matter of fact-so in August, two months later, he went to Paris to be treated by the Pasteur Institute. He had the infusions, where it takes you four hours. He was there, I think it was for six weeks. Now I'm convinced that the reason he lived as long as he did was because those infusions did work, initially.

There are other people I know of who sought that same treatment and who continue to live today.

Yeah, right. So he took the treatment, came back to California in September of '84, and he never went back again. I think he was never encouraged to go back. Instead, he was encouraged to do Dynasty, and to do that Las Vegas strip war thing. When I went over to be tested myself, last August, I met a dozen Americans who were on HPA-23, who were doing incredibly well. Two in particular you would never know they had AIDS. One, who had a horrible case of KS, has maybe half a dozen spots now, and in the ten-day period I was there, I actually saw them deflate. They're on interferon and a combination of HPA-23. I'm not saying that works for everybody, but it certainly worked for the people I met there.

Let me get on to some more personal questions. Did you have friends in common with Rock Hudson?

Yeah. One great friend of both of ours is a man named Matthew West. He's from New Zealand. He was a publicist in England and Australia. As a matter of fact, he was Judy Garland's last publicist, and a very close friend of hers. A very down-to-earth man, a very intelligent man, who is not at all

Hollywood. Although he had dealt with stars, he was not impressed with the whole Hollywood thing, and I think that was something that both Rock and I liked about him. He is one of Rock's few friends that remains with me today.

What about other actors or actresses? I got on very well with Roddy McDowell, another intelligent man.

Is he still your friend?

Yeah, he's still my friend. But the others, like Ross Hunter, and a few other peripheral friends, I don't think they're too fond of me. I think mainly it's because I was very outspoken about things.

You mean about being gay?

No. They were outspoken about being gay; that's all they would talk about. If I tried to talk about Ingmar Bergman or Gore Vidal, they either weren't interested or they laughed about it. As a matter of fact, Ross Hunter told me that the reason why his Lost Horizon film failed was because Liv Ullmann was in it. I said, "Well then, why did you put her in it in the first place?" So basically, no, I don't see much of them.

I know this is a really terrible question in a lot of ways, but, would you consider yourself a promiscuous person before you

knew him?

No, I wouldn't.

Not at all?

No. I mean, I've had my share of fun. We all have.

I'm not saying I'm a Pollyanna or a Vestal Virgin. But, I never frequented the bathhouses or parks or things like that; that just wasn't my style. But I'd never judge anybody that did. After all, we grew up in the '70s, and we were told it was free. Sex was free, love was free.

And it was okay, we were told it was safe. And it was safe, and it was okay. And although it was my personal taste not to indulge, I saw no harm when people did. How's your career going?

My acting career is probably finished. Basically, I've been working on a music project, on the history of pop music from the time the phonograph was invented, and it probably will take another year to finish up.

Do you really believe that because of your coming out about this and because of the suit, that Hollywood is going to blacklist you?

That remains to be seen; I really don't know. It's funny. Since I came to New York, I've had people stop me on the streetstraight people, black people, white people--and just kind of give me, you know, some encouragement. Now, I've thought to myself, why are they doing this? Other than the fact that they're being friendly and nice. Because it was a personal thing that I had to do; I don't really see myself as a role model. Except that I do feel a responsibility that if I go on to a television show that I should act with a sense of intelligence and masculinity, because I'm tired of fingers being pointed at gay people all the time for being screaming queens on television.

That brings me to another personal question here. What was your love life like? Do you want to talk about that?

Well, there was no role-playing, basically; it was pretty 50-50. The thing I think attracted me to Rock, and vice versa, is that we were both fairly masculine, yet we weren't phony.

There was no top and no bottom role all the time?

No, no, it was happenstance. Although we weren't the macho type either, because that's just as phony.

Or the sadomasochistic type? No. No S/M.

None of the stuff like the rumors flying around now?

Oh, are there rumors about Rock being...?

Yes, there are rumors about Rock being into S/M.

No. Not at all. He was actually very romantic. I've heard many stories about his past. If I were to believe it all, he would have been the most well-traveled man in history.