July 25, 1985: Rock Hudson's AIDS Diagnosis Is Revealed

July 25, 1985: Yanou Collart, publicist for actor Rock Hudson, publicly confirms a rumor that had been swirling around show business circles: Hudson has AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. He was among the earliest mainstream celebrities to have been diagnosed with the disease.

Born on November 17, 1925 as Roy Harold Scherer Jr., in the Chicago suburb of Winnekta, Illinois, Hudson became a Hollywood star and heartthrob in 1954, in the film Magnificent Obsession. This was followed by Giant in 1956, in which he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor and, in his last performance before the car crash that killed him, James Dean. In 1959, he began a series of romantic comedies with Doris Day, with Pillow Talk. In 1961, he starred with Italian bombshell Gina Lollobrigida in Come September. 

His dashing looks, and his co-starring with Taylor, Day and Lollobrigida, although all of them were married to others, made people imagine that women fell over themselves for him, and that he was happy to oblige. But Hudson was gay, and while the general public didn't know, it was one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood. In 1955, to help quash the rumor, Hudson's manager, Henry Willson, convinced his secretary, Phyllis Gates, and Hudson to marry. It lasted only 3 years, because she found out the truth. Neither ever married again.

Not happy with the films he was offered in the 1960s, Hudson turned to television, starring with Susan Saint James in the NBC crime drama McMillan & Wife from 1971 to 1977. But his years of heavy smoking and drinking began to catch up with him. In 1981, he began filming The Devlin Connection, a private-detective series for NBC, but had a massive heart attack, and his recovery pushed the show back a full year. The momentum was lost, and it was canceled after just 13 episodes.

In December 1984, he began appearing on the ABC evening soap opera Dynasty. But, unbeknownst to his castmates, he had been diagnosed with HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which causes AIDS, the preceding June 5. It is not known if he got it through sexual transmission or through tainted blood in a transfusion from his heart surgery. Regardless, his Dynasty co-stars easily saw the decline in his health. When it became clear that he could no longer continue, he was written out of the series, and his character was later said to have died.

Hudson traveled the world, looking for a cure, or at least a treatment to slow the progression of the disease. Nothing worked. On July 16, 1985, he joined his old friend Doris Day for a Hollywood press conference announcing the launch of her new TV cable show, Doris Day's Best Friends. She was 63 (although she usually lied about her age, claiming to be 2 years younger), and looked terrific; he was 59, and looked 10 years older.

Like her contemporary Betty White, Day was

an animal-rights activist who especially loved dogs.

On July 18, he went to Paris for another round of treatment. On July 21, he collapsed in his room at the Ritz Hotel. His American publicist, Dale Olson, released a statement to the media that he had inoperable liver cancer, and denied that he had AIDS. But on July 25, Hudson's French publicist, Yanou Collart, admitted the truth. On July 30, he was flown back to Los Angeles, and spent a month at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. They released him to private hospice care at his home in nearby Beverly Hills, where he died on October 2.

Up until then, AIDS had been considered a disease of gay men only, which already wasn't true. Evangelicals considered it "God's punishment for homosexuality." As if gay people weren't facing enough bigoted nonsense.

Earlier that year, As Is, the 1st Broadway play to discuss AIDS, premiered. Its author, William M. Hoffman, said, "If Rock Hudson can have it, nice people can have it. It's just a disease, not a moral affliction." Comedian Joan Rivers, who had a devote gay fanbase, said, "Two years ago, when I hosted a benefit for AIDS, I couldn't get one major star to turn out. Rock's admission is a horrendous way to bring AIDS to the attention of the American public, but by doing so, Rock, in his life, has helped millions in the process. What Rock has done takes true courage." Actress Morgan Fairchild said, "Rock Hudson's death gave AIDS a face."

In a telegram Hudson sent to a September 1985 Hollywood AIDS benefit, Commitment to Life, which he was too ill to attend in person, he said: "I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive worth."

Shortly after his death, People magazine reported: "Since Hudson made his announcement, more than $1.8 million in private contributions (more than double the amount collected in 1984) has been raised to support AIDS research and to care for AIDS victims (5,523 reported in 1985 alone). A few days after Hudson died, Congress set aside $221 million to develop a cure for AIDS." Hudson's former co-star Elizabeth Taylor became a major fundraiser for AIDS research, as did openly gay rock star Elton John. Both began hosting fundraising "afterparties" following the annual Academy Awards.

But the stigma of AIDS still did not go away. It would take more, including the transfusion-induced illnesses of tennis star Arthur Ashe and teenager Ryan White, and the admission of the very heterosexual basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson, for people to understand that AIDS could happen to anybody.

President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy, both former actors and friends of Hudson's made no public statement concerning Hudson's condition. However, the President phoned Hudson privately in his Paris hospital room where he was being treated in July 1985 and released a condolence statement after his death.

Afterward, Reagan stopped ignoring AIDS, and asked Congress to increase federal funding for research into it. I call it "The Rock Hudson Principle": Conservatives never care about something that hurts others, until it begins to hurt someone they care about. (Then again, in 1981, Reagan was shot by a mentally ill man who should have had a gun, and nearly died, and in the 2020s, they still don't give a damn about gun control.)

The increased enabled new treatments to be developed, much of it under the National Institutes of Health, in a unit led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who would later lead the fight against COVID-19.

A personal note: Online, I've talked to a few people who claimed to have met Rock Hudson. Some of them said they knew at the time that he was gay. Others said they didn't know. But they all said he was a wonderful person. Certainly, he didn't deserve to suffer the way he did.

*

July 25, 1985 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played: 

* The New York Mets beat the Houston Astros, 6-3 at Shea Stadium. Dwight Gooden went the distance, although it was not one of his big strikeout games, fanning 6. Gary Carter hit a home run.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Cincinnati Reds, 1-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Reds player-manager Pete Rose, determined to break Ty Cobb's record for career hits, got no closer on this day, going 0-for-1 with 3 walks. Bill Gullickson (7 2/3rds innings) and Jeff Reardon combined on a 4-hit shutout.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Wade Boggs went 1-for-5.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-4.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the California Angels, 7-0 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Dave Stieb pitched a 7-hit shutout. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3 with a walk. Rod Carew went 0-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Eddie Murray hit a grand slam, although Cal Ripken went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 11-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Robin Yount and Paul Molitor each had 2 hits, but the rest of the Brewers only got 4 more off Tim Birtsas, who went the distance.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-2 at the Metrodome.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres, 9-6 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Former Yankee Graig Nettles hit a home run, and Tony Gwynn went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI, but it wasn't enough.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* And the New York Yankees, the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers were not scheduled.

May 1, 1972: Johnny Carson Moves "The Tonight Show" to Los Angeles

May 1, 1972: For the 1st time, at 11:30 PM Eastern Time on NBC, this announcement is made: "From Hollywood: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. This is Ed McMahon along with Doc Severinsen and the NBC Orchestra, inviting you to join Johnny and his guests... "

In this case, the guests were, in order: Comedian Bob Newhart, whose sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show, would debut on CBS the following September 16; Cal Worthington, the biggest car dealer in Southern California, whose persona and TV commercials would become the target of many jokes in Carson's monologue over the next 20 years; Darlene Conley, an actress best known for her soap opera roles; Don Rickles, one of the top comedians of the era; Nancy Reagan, then the First Lady of California, as her husband Ronald was then Governor, and both were former actors; and actress Shelley Winters, then filming The Poseidon Adventure. (Newhart turned out to be the last survivor of those guests.)

McMahon, Carson's announcer and sidekick since he became host of The Tonight Show in 1962, said, "From Hollywood," but it wasn't quite true. Hollywood is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles. But, at the time, most of the TV shows produced by NBC were actually taped, or filmed, in the adjoining city of Burbank.

This led to jokes about "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" on the variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973, and Carson picked up on it, poking fun at "Burbank's legendary Restaurant Row," which included "Vinnie Abruzze's Little Touch of Newark." (Being from Newark, my parents took offense at this, but they still watched Johnny.)

For most of the 20th Century, New York, particularly Midtown Manhattan, had been the center of the American entertainment industry. The musical theater branch of it, based on Broadway (the street giving the industry its name, much as "Hollywood" would come to mean the American film industry as a whole), led to Midtown becoming the center of the songwriting world. The radio networks, and the TV networks they founded, operated out of there, because that's where the writers, singers and actors were.

After World War II, television boomed, and its writers and producers filmed most of their shows in New York. But the desire to film outdoors, and the corresponding need to have good weather, made filming in New York problematic. By the 1950s, many TV shows were being made in Los Angeles, even if they were said to take place in New York. This is still the case today: There are some shows that do New York location shots, but most do their main filming in L.A. (CBS' FBI franchise is an exception, with the flagship show filming entirely in New York. NBC's One Chicago franchise, which, despite being on a different network, is made by the same production company and thus takes place in the same "fictional universe" as "The FBIs," films entirely in Chicago.)

TV variety shows tended to be done in New York, including at NBC's studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza at Rockefeller Center. The Tonight Show had begun in 1954, hosted by Steve Allen, at the Hudson Theatre at 139 West 44th Street, just off Times Square and the actual Broadway. Jack Paar became the host in 1957. When Carson took over in 1962, production was moved to the NBC studios at "30 Rock."

And there they remained for 10 years. And variety shows like The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS, and talk shows like The Tonight Show on NBC, would have Broadway stars on their show, doing scenes from their plays, whether dramatic scenes, comedic scenes, or songs.

But in the 1950s, record companies began realizing that recording soundtracks to films and TV shows would be easier if the records were made where the shows and films were made. So record companies began moving west. The Capitol Records Tower opened in 1956. By the 1960s, nearly every recording company had a Los Angeles-area studio, including the 3 major networks: NBC through RCA Victor, CBS through Columbia Records, and ABC through ABC-Paramount. (Paramount Pictures had nothing to do with it.)

Ed Sullivan had gotten his start as the Broadway columnist for the New York Daily News, and he loved bringing Broadway stars onto his show. He was always mixing up names, much like baseball manager Casey Stengel. But as the 1960s wore on, it was happening more often. Finally, CBS recognized that he was in cognitive decline, and The Ed Sullivan Show was canceled in 1971, after 23 years.

Carson saw the writing on the wall, and realized that Broadway was no longer the center of the entertainment world, Hollywood was. So he moved lock, stock and Carnac the Magnificent, and headed west. He remained there until he retired in 1992, still "the King of Late Night."

NBC Studios, Burbank

Of course, Carson wasn't always in California. He liked his vacations, and had enough pull with NBC to eventually get Mondays off; later, Tuesdays, too. On those nights, either there would be a "guest host," usually another well-known comedian like Joey Bishop, David Brenner, Joan Rivers, and, eventually, his official successor-in-waiting, Jay Leno; or there would be a repeat, under the banner The Best of Carson.

He joked about it himself, once introducing himself by saying, "My name is Johnny Carson. You all know me from The Best of Carson." He once pointed out President Reagan's tendency to head off to his ranch outside Santa Barbara by saying, "Ronald Reagan spends more time in California than I do!"

The move to Burbank came with another big change for Carson. Most of his shows that had been taped in New York had already been lost, due to the high cost of videotape: Some of the master copies had simply been taped over. He formed Carson Productions, so that every Tonight Show he hosted from 1972 to 1992 would be preserved.

Once Leno took over, while he did most of the tapings in Burbank, he would take it elsewhere, as befitting his already-long lifestyle as a traveling comedian. He would do a week in Las Vegas, a week in Chicago, a week in Washington to mine material from the federal government, and, occasionally, back at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

In 1994, he went back to New York for the first time. Jack Paar, who had been a guest of Carson's only twice, in 1986 and 1987 (and once with baseball player-turned-broadcaster-turned Today Show correspondent Joe Garagiola as guest host in 1968), was a guest of Leno's on the 1st show back in New York. Before sitting down in the chair closest to Leno's desk, Jack told Jay, "Mrs. Roosevelt sat in this chair. John F. Kennedy sat in this chair. Martin Luther King sat in this chair. Never let Madonna sit in this chair." Madonna had recently made a profanity-riddled appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.

The next night, Madonna was a guest on the show. I hope Jay at least put her in a different chair.

*

May 1, 1972 was a Monday. Actress Julie Benz was born on this day.

As Monday is often a travel day in Major League Baseball, there were only 3 games played that day:

* The New York Mets beat the San Francisco Giants, 7-4 at Candlestick Park. Tom Seaver got the win.

* The Houston Astros beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-8 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Football was out of season. The NBA Finals were in progress, although this was a travel day between them. Ironically, they went the other way: The 1st 2 games were played in Los Angeles (well, Inglewood, not Hollywood or Burbank), while the next 2 were played in New York. Then tied 1-1, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the New York Knicks in 5 games.

The Stanley Cup Finals were also underway, with Game 1 having been played the day before, at the Boston Garden. The Boston Bruins would go on to beat the New York Rangers in 6 games.