Exploring Rock Hudson’s Legacy Through a New Lens
Rock Hudson was the ultimate midcentury movie star, turning heads and breaking hearts as the camera lit his chiseled face and rugged frame.
The double life he led as a gay man — and his death from AIDS-related causes at 59 in 1985 — have sealed him in Hollywood lore, but he is largely unknown to new generations of film fans.
For Stephen Kijak, the director of the documentary “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed,” premiering Sunday at the Tribeca Festival (and streaming on Max on June 28), the actor was a fascinating figure to explore, both as a quintessential midcentury movie star and a gay icon.
Mr. Kijak, who has directed several L.G.B.T.Q.-themed films, spoke recently from his Los Angeles home about the legacy of and enduring fascination with a movie star who lived a gay life almost out in the open and who, in a true act of openness as one of the first celebrities — if not the first — to go public about his illness, changed the course of how the world responded to the AIDS epidemic.
