Greg Berlanti to direct new film about gay Hollywood heartthrob Rock Hudson
The director and screenwriter is best known for the LGBT coming-of-age movie 'Love, Simon'
By Steve Brown
Words: Steve Brown
Greg Berlanti will direct a new film about closeted Hollywood heartthrob Rock Hudson.
Berlanti – who is openly gay – helmed this year’s gay blockbuster smash Love, Simon and according to Deadline, he will be directing a film adaptation of the new book ‘All That Heave Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson’.
Berlanti is reportedly set to direct and produce – along with Sarah Schechter and Sherry Marsh – the new movie about the gay icon who was forced to project a heterosexual image during the Hollywood Golden Age of Cinema.
In a statement, Berlanti and Schechter said: “When Sherry Marsh brought this book to us, we jumped at the chance to be involved.
“Rock Hudson’s life and legacy is a vital piece of both LGBTQ history and Hollywood history and has to be given the big-screen treatment it deserves.”
Hudson – who is best known for movies such as Magnificent Obsession, Pillow Talk, Giant and All That Heaven Allows – was gay but due to homosexuality being illegal in the 1950s and 1960s, he was forced to live a lie – like so many other Hollywood stars.
He even married a woman for the sake of appearances. Although his career faded during the late 1960s, he had a comeback with the TV series McMillan & Wife.
Hudson became one of the highest-profile celebrities to be diagnosed with Aids in the 1980s and although he denied he had the virus, he eventually confirmed it. He died in 1985.