HBO documentary film “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” examines the life and career of Rock Hudson, one of the most prominent star actors in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Although the documentary is not particularly revealing in case of his homosexuality and how it was hidden behind his all-American heterosexual image for many years, it is still engaging to observe how some of his notable movie performances have become more fascinating these days, and the documentary also delves a bit into some interesting aspects of his personal life.

At first, the documentary focuses on how Hudson’s acting career was started in the 1950s. When he moved to Hollywood for becoming a movie actor shortly after the end of his military service period in 1946, he was just a tall, handsome lad from Illinois, but then his potential soon got noticed mainly thanks to an influential Hollywood agent named Henry Wilson. After appearing here and there in several films during next several years, he came to work with Douglas Sirk in “Has Anybody Seen My Gal?” (1952), and then he quickly became the next new male star to watch after appearing with Jane Wyman in Sirk’s two classic melodrama films “Magnificent Obsession” (1954) and “All That Heaven Allows” (1955).

In addition, Hudson also appeared in George Stevens’ epic drama film “Giant” (1955), which garnered him the sole Oscar nomination in his career. While he often did not get along that well with his fellow Oscar nominee James Dean on the set, Hudson quickly befriended Elizabeth Taylor, and that was the beginning of their long friendship which lasted until his death in 1985.

Meanwhile, millions of audiences continued to adore Hudson, and they were all naturally interested in whom he would marry in the end. Despite being almost 30 around that time, he did not show much interest in marriage even though he was often photographed along with several actresses, and, of course, that was a fertile ground for lots of rumors and speculations about his sexuality.

Via several interviewees who were close to Hudson in one way or another during that time, the documentary details how he managed to keep his homosexuality under his seemingly exemplar façade. First, his agent did a lot of works to hide anything about his homosexuality from those hungry tabloid magazines such as Confidential (Yes, that is where the title of James Ellroy’s classic noir novel “L.A. Confidential” came from), and Hudson even married his agent’s secretary, though their married life was quickly ended a few years later.

In addition, Hudson was very discreet about whatever he was doing in private, and everybody was willing to go along with his clean-cut star image because, well, a star actor like him could be tolerated a lot in Hollywood as long as he did not make any big trouble or annoyance outside. He was also surrounded by a small group of closeted gay friends he could fully trust, and they all certainly shut up about their, uh, private fun.

Nevertheless, Hudson’s homosexuality was always around some of his notable movie performances, and that is all the more evident from our 21st century perspective. For example, he often looks rather too perfect as an object of heterosexual desire in Sirk’s melodrama films, and that contributes a lot to the ironically artificial qualities of Sirk’s deliberately stylized melodramatic storytelling. In case of several comedy films he appeared along with Doris Day, Hudson plays straight guys pretending to be gay, and this surely feels to us like a sort of twisted joke on his private life now.

When the Golden Age of Hollywood was being over in the 1960s, Hudson tried to get more freedom as an actor, but he only found his stardom declining bit by bit. Although he was still respected as an old Hollywood star actor, he was not that prominent at all, and that was why he appeared in TV series “McMillan & Wife” during the 1970s.

Even during that period, Hudson did not come out of his closet at all although the American society became relatively more tolerant to LGBTQ+ people than before. As one of his friends observes in the documentary, he seemed so accustomed to his dual life that coming out of his closet was nearly impossible for him, though that did not prevent him at all from having some casual sexual fun from time to time.

However, there later came a point where Hudson could not possibly hide his homosexuality anymore. In 1984, he was notified that he was suffering from AIDS just like thousands of other unfortunate gay people in US during that time, and this grim fact was eventually recognized under his permission when he subsequently got very ill in Paris in the very next year. While they could have helped him to some degree, President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy did not do anything about that despite being two of his close friends, and that really shows us how much they were indifferent to the ongoing AIDS epidemic in US during that period. At least, Hudson received full support from Elizabeth Taylor later, and he became more comfortable with his homosexuality while also being active in raising funds for medical research on AIDS during the last several months of his life.

Overall, “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed”, directed by Stephen Kijak, may not tell you anything new especially if you are familiar with its main subject, but it is still worthwhile to watch as the entertaining presentation of Hudson’s life and career. He may not be a great actor, but he surely had an interesting life and career, didn’t he?