Article : https://www.biography.com/actors/rock-hudson-coming-out-aids

All That Heaven Allows is a romance movie of the 1950s, meticulously focusing on the usage of colors and continuity editing to emphasize emotions and atmosphere. One of the most memorable things about this movie would be Rock Hudson, who was the epitome of a “romantic male protagonist” at the time because of his deep voice and height of six feet four. However, there was a twist-Hudson was actually a gay man. He couldn’t announce it front of the public, though, because the 1950s was the era of the “lavender scare,” when witch-hunting homosexual people was prevalent. Hudson’s revelation of his fight with AIDS was in 1985, shortly before his death due to the disease. This announcement, as a rather unexpected result, brought about a significant difference towards the AIDS epidemic.

Hudson was the first star to officially pass away due to AIDS, and his tragic last days greatly alerted the public to result in positive effects. The fact that no one at all can be immune to AIDS was engraved deep into the public, and various endeavors to increase the quality of public health were initiated. One AIDS patient, during an interview with the media, even said that after his disease became widely known as “The Rock Hudson Disease,” everything from people’s attitudes toward him to his treatment changed dramatically. It was during this period that people started calling AIDS by its proper name, instead of referring to it as “the gay disease,” as the majority of people did.

The United States government set a budget of $221 million to develop a cure for the disease, and the US National Institute of Health also reacted instantly by doubling their budget. As we can see in the picture, the Federal HIV Funding increased by 600% from 1983 to 1985, and continued a steep increase as the years passed.

Elizabeth Taylor, a fellow actress and best friend of Rock Hudson, joined the AIDS Project Los Angeles. In September that year, Taylor organized and held the world’s first AIDS charity, “Commitment to Life.” After her daughter-in-law, Aileen Getty, also passed away from AIDS, Taylor co-founded an AIDS research organization named “amFAR(American Foundation for AIDS Research)” with the 250,000 dollars of fortune Hudson had dedicated to medical research.

Also, the first mainstream movie to have AIDS as its theme was released in 1993 , titled <Philadelphia>. The film was about an AIDS patient named Andrew resisting against unjust discrimination he was facing because of his illness. This movie is also perceived as a result of Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor’s influence.

However, though many were attempting to change how AIDS was perceived and find a proper cure, some did not think the same way. After Hudson’s death, Marc Christian, one of his former boyfriends, filed a lawsuit of 10 million dollars on Hudson’s fortune. He claimed he was suffering mental pain due to the fact that Hudson, though fully aware that he had AIDS, had sexual activity with him several times without any attempt to prevent the spread of his disease. Hudson’s acquaintances strongly denied this claim, but were unable to prove it because Hudson was hiding his illness from everyone during that time. Marc Christian’s lawsuit continued for six years and ended in him receiving 6 million dollars. His ex-wife Phyllis Gates pretended to have known nothing about her husband, and lied about Hudson not showing up to any of their dates or not giving her any gifts during their marriage. Almost all of her claims about their marriage turned out to be false. In South Korea, though numerous American male actors such as Marlon Brando or James Dean were popular at that time, Rock Hudson lacked popularity because of how his revelation was seen as by the extremely conservative Korean society.

Overall, Hudson’s revelation brought about the rapid development of medical research methods and facilities while increasing alertness about AIDS and its dangers. Most importantly, he entirely changed the way how the disease was perceived. Randy Shilts, author of the drama And The Band Played On, remarked that “There was AIDS before Rock Hudson and AIDS after.” This quote shows how much influence he had on the society as a whole. If Rock Hudson did not pass away from AIDS, would the awareness and perception of this disease be different from what it is today?