Transforming a Gay Truck Driver into the Biggest Star in Hollywood: Rock Hudson's Rise & Fall

Matt Baume

In the middle of the 1950s, America fell in love with Rock Hudson. Ranked the #1 box office draw in the country, Rock was an American ideal of masculinity — strong, confident, and above all, romantic. But the figure that America worshiped as the perfect man was really a façade propped up by years of