The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson SALE

Title : The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson
Category: Actors & Entertainers
Brand: Brand: Carroll Graf Publishers
Item Page Download URL : Download in PDF File
Rating : 3.9
Buyer Review : 77

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Henry Willson started off as a talent scout under powerhouse mogul David O. Selznick, for whom Willson procured women. The starmaker-to-be was therefore on the lookout for promising newcomers—as actors, lovers and sometimes both—when he received an unsolicited photograph from a movie star hopeful named Roy Scherer. Unbeknownst to Willson, the photograph of the handsome young man with bad teeth would have not only a career-defining impact for himself but, more importantly, redefine Hollywood’s concept of the male heartthrob. Roy Scherer became Rock Hudson and for the next twenty-five years Henry Wilson became the man behind movie “beefcake.”

The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson delves into Willson’s life in explicit, unsparing detail. Variety reporter Robert Hofler deftly chronicles Willson’s maneuvers to sidestep the FBI's investigation into Hudson's sex life; the starmaker's use of off-duty L.A.P.D. cops and Mob ties to scare off Hudson's blackmailers; Hudson's "arranged" marriage to Willson's secretary, Phyllis Gates; as well as Hudson’s affair with a Universal Pictures vice-president to help secure starring roles in Magnificent Obsession and Giant. Additionally, the book digs into Willson’s other star clients, including Robert Wagner, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, and John Derek.

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Review :
The American Dream Measured in Width and Inches
As any number of books on the subject have shown, including Mary Astor's 'My Story' (1959), editor Rudy Behlmer's 'Memo From David O'Selznick' (1972), Kenneth Anger's 'Hollywood Babylon' (1981), Lawrence J. Quirk's Norma: 'The Story of Norma Shearer' (1988), and John Gilmore's 'Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder' (1998), life near the power centers of the entertainment industry during Hollywood's Golden Age wasn't any less desperate a place than it is today.

At first glance, Robert Hofler's 'The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson' (2005) appears to be little more than another lowbrow show business expose, but Hofler is actually providing a service by responsibly shedding some badly-needed light into the darker corners of the American psyche. One of the book's themes is the sociology of the American Dream: Hofler examines a world where physical desire and the hunger for power meet and intertwine freely...
Tabloid-style biography
You would think the ironic story of Rock Hudson's "hyper masculine" image being crafted by his homosexual agent and mentor, Henry Willson, would delve into the psyche of the latter and the times that produced him. No such luck here. In fact, the background and upbringing of the ostensible subject of this biography is not addressed until the fourth chapter. Willson was agent and promoter for a stable of post-WWII film and television stars, Rock Hudson being the most famous. Although not all male, gay, and bedded by him, that was the basis of Willson's notoriety. That and his penchant for renaming his clients with what he thought were iconic, masculine monikers that today sound like gag names (hilariously skewered with Tony Curtis's reminiscence of the apocryphal "Ben Dover").

This book consists of a collection of short, disjointed and somewhat repetitive chapters that read like an anthology of tabloid gossip articles. The ones most revealing of the characters and the...
The Price of Fame
Henry Willson (the David Gest of his time) knew that women would not accept gay men as romantic leads in films, and he was adept at butching up even the most femme actor so that he would pass the smell test over at RKO.

The facade of heterosexuality he, um, erected around these actors was the seed of his eventual undoing. The schmaltzy names didn't help. Pretty soon, everyone knew that Henry Willson represented gay actors and even his own clients began to diss him in public (even while disrobing for him in private).

No one knew the major players, or kept track of films in development, shooting schedules, last minute substitutions, etc., as well as Henry Willson did. It was only when Confidential Magazine, and a slew of imitators, started nipping at his (and his closeted clients') heels in the mid-50's that the spell was broken and Henry Willson found himself spending as much time extinquishing scandals as he did stoking the careers of his stars...