‘Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed’ Examines the Gay Man Behind the Movie Star
Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, the latest in-depth documentary portrait by Sid & Judy director Stephen Kijak.Kijak’s films, both narrative and nonfiction, have delved into cultural icons from Judy Garland to Lynyrd Skynyrd to the Backstreet Boys.
For this entertaining bio, he worked closely with author Mark Griffin — whose 2018 All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson is considered definitive — “to look at all the facets and angles, and the reflections and double meanings and mirror selves” presented by the bright, ex-Navy seaman from Winnetka, Illinois, who became Rock Hudson.“He was in some of the more indelible films of those classic eras,” Kijak says, ticking off Hudson’s famous Douglas Sirk-directed romances Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows. “I mean, Giant, the George Stevens [film], it’s him, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean.
They’re just magnificent films. When he’s good, he’s really good. The classics are these towering classics of old Hollywood.”Yet, Kijak admits, Hudson’s enduring popularity as a big-screen heartthrob has been overshadowed. “I think there is a generation that has completely forgotten him,” Kijak says. “James Dean or Marilyn Monroe tower over those decades.
They’re the ones you remember, because, you know, ‘Die young, Stay pretty,’ right? They are these eternally perfect icons that are in the firmament forever.
