Rock Hudson was a famous leading man during Hollywood’s golden age. He kept his sexuality hidden for much of his career. He projected the life of a straight man but behind closed doors lived and loved as a gay man. One of Rock’s lovers was author Armistead Maupin.
Armistead opened up about his affair with Rock to Interview magazine. He remembered doing poppers (recreational drug amyl nitrate) in bed with him. He also recalled how intimidated he was by Rock's star power.
Armistead recalled how he first met Rock. It's kind of a long story. “A friend of mine invited me to Palm Springs to some event that he said Rock Hudson was going to be present at,” he began. Rock ended up not being there, but an adventure was had nonetheless.
“I ended up going home with a bunch of guys from the party who took me out to some house in the middle of the desert where we took some drug called TT1, which I’m told was a relaxant given to women in childbirth,” he continued. “It certainly relaxed me. It was the perfect place to do it, frankly.” No Rock yet, but a fun story.
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Armistead’s luck changed after his drug-induced trip. “I met this lovely guy who turned out to have been a former boyfriend of Rock’s,” he continued. “He invited me the next time they were going to see Rock in at the San Bernardino Playhouse.”
The play was not good, but it worked as a meet-cute. “Rock was part of why it was awful,” Armistead recalled. “It was just not right for him. I remember he had to die on stage and when his body hit the ground it was like thunder, like timber falling. We went backstage afterwards to see him. The moment I had my hand in his, the lights went out.”
Armistead couldn’t pass up the opportunity to know Rock better. They “got together on various occasions.” He thought Rock was “so hot.”
Armistead was aware of Rock’s double life. “There was enormous pressure on him to keep quiet,” he explained. As a writer, he wanted so badly to tell Rock’s story.
Armistead was out but he knew Rock was not. Rock’s partner at the time, Tom Clark, did not want him to write about him. Tom didn’t want his mom to find out. Armistead didn’t understand that because as he put it: “If I was [expletive] Rock Hudson, I would tell my mother first thing.”
From here, the interview naturally turned to the subject of Armistead and Rock’s sex life. Armistead admitted the sex wasn’t great but that it was his fault. “It was massively intimidating,” he explained. “He said, very touchingly at one point, ‘You know I’m just another guy like you,’ which is all he wanted. I said, ‘No, you’re not, and I’m Doris Day,’ and he got it. But yeah, it was extremely intimidating.”
Armistead revealed another anecdote from his affair with Rock. “He had the cutest little poppers case you’ve ever seen,” he recalled. “A little leather case that said 'RH' on it. That partially was one of the things that intimidated me. I’m killing myself that I didn’t buy it from his estate.”
Armistead talked about his relationship with Rock publicly around the time that news broke Rock had HIV. He didn’t see this as a betrayal. “Somebody had to say he was a gay guy and the whole of Hollywood knew he was gay,” he explained. “And he has nothing to be ashamed of, so that’s what I did.” While their love affair was long over, Rock did send his biographer to talk with Armistead because he knew his old friend would always tell the truth.
