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When a dying Rock Hudson was a friend in need, Nancy Reagan refused to get involved
The year before he died, Rock Hudson was photographed looking very chummy at a White House event with old friends President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan.
But by the summer of 1985, Hudson was dying from AIDS and flew to Paris for treatment. He collapsed after checking in to The Ritz and was rushed to the American Hospital of Paris.
It was then that he reached out for help from the Reagans and did not get it, according to an investigative report by BuzzFeed News.
Hudson, the closeted gay star of such classic films as Giant, Pillow Talk and A Farewell to Arms, needed to be transferred to the military hospital in order to be treated by the French army doctor who had earlier secretly treated him for AIDS.
Hudson’s US publicist sent a desperate telegram to the White House pleading for help with the dying actor’s transfer to the military hospital.
The telegram was addressed to a 23-year-old Reagan staffer named Mark Weinberg who tells BuzzFeed: ‘I knew the Reagans knew Rock Hudson, obviously from their years in Hollywood, and for that reason I decided to call (Mrs. Reagan).’
Rather than intervene, Mrs. Reagan opted to go along with a recommendation to refer the matter to the US Embassy in Paris.
‘The view was, ‘Well, we’re so sorry’ — and she was, they were both very sorry for Rock’s condition and felt for him and all the people — but it just wasn’t something that the White House felt that they could do something different for him than they would do for anybody else,’ Weinberg said.
But Mrs. Reagan did want it publicly known that her husband called Hudson in Paris and the actor took the call. At that time, four years into the AIDS epidemic, Reagan had not publicly acknowledged the disease.
The French doctor was eventually able to see Hudson who returned to the US and died two months later on 2 October in 1985.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
VDUFFORD says:
This was a really awful time…remember it so very well.
You wonder if a republican president should one get elected in todays world might handle the Aids crisis or Rocks sad crisis any differently?
I somehow doubt it!
Unless of course you could unleash our full military power on it and shoot blindly at it.
Lexxvs says:
As a non American and after seeing HBO’s The Normal Heart, I’m not surprised by their level of hypocrisy (no, that compelling movie was not my only historical source but gives a shocking emotional first hand view). The thing is that those kinds of “friendships” abound in certain circles and for some ingenuous people is a good reminder. Some people only have mutually beneficial business/political partners they like to call friends, but from time to time someone gets confused by the use of words.
FAEN says:
Reagan et al did nothing to stem the deaths from AIDS because in their eyes the disease was killing the right people. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the Reagan’s sat back and let Rock, whom they considered a friend, languish in pain and despair. With friends like them who needs enemies right?
FAEN says:
@Lexxvs-If you enjoyed ‘The Normal Heart’ check out the documentaries ‘We were here’, ‘How to survive a plague’ , ‘Before Stonewall’ and ‘After Stonewall’ if you haven’t already. They are amazing, informative and moving.
Joe says:
Not surprising at all. The Reagans were/are not very gay-friendly. It drives me up a wall when people say how much they loved Reagan as president. Ugh! He was awful and she was as cold as ice. Karma catches up. Reagan didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground when he died, and Nancy must be about 214 years old by now. What goes around always comes around….whether you see it or know it.