All That Heaven Allows Quotes

“It must be hard to switch from Doris Day to Roger Vadim,” journalist Bob Colacello suggested to Hudson when they chatted for Andy Warhol’s Interview. “That’s the fun of it,” Rock responded. “Ideally, I’d like to do a drama, a comedy, a western, a love story, a musical . . . I’ve tried every way I know to diversify.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Rock Hudson put Lee Majors on the road to fame and fortune . . . but as the AIDS-stricken actor fought for his life, Majors was not among the celebrities—including Liz Taylor, Roddy McDowall and Nancy Walker—who were rushing to his bedside. As the superstar lay dying, his protégé was nowhere to be seen.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Monroe as well as another troubled superstar. “If it wasn’t Marilyn Monroe crying on his shoulder, then it was Judy Garland,” Rupert recalled. “It was almost like they took turns. Marilyn would call one night and Judy the next. He was always very patient, very understanding with both of them, even though he wasn’t getting much sleep. I think he liked playing the big brother who comes to the rescue.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“We were shooting in a little village up near the Austrian border, near the Alps. It’s the last shot of the picture and I had to come out of a building sobbing, walking right past the camera. And De Sica saw that the director didn’t know how to tell me what to do . . . We went into a dressing room and in his very limited English, talked to me. And he got me so grief stricken that I couldn’t stop crying. I did the scene and that was that.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“It may have been derivative, lighthearted fluff but Once Upon a Dead Man also seemed like the ideal vehicle to help facilitate Rock Hudson’s transition from movie to television star (even if he dismissively referred to the tube as “illustrated radio”). The much-publicized two-hour movie would serve as the pilot for a new NBC series called McMillan & Wife.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Even though the Hudson-Nabors wedding was pure fantasy, the rumors surrounding it ended up causing some very real damage: CBS canceled The Jim Nabors Hour in 1971. While it’s been suggested that Nabors’s highly rated program fell victim to the network’s “rural purge,” many believe that the backlash from the gay marriage story doomed the show. Then there was the Rock Hudson version of damage control. “I’ll tell you one thing that makes me sad about this, and that’s that Jim Nabors and I are no longer friends. We can’t be seen together,” Hudson told a reporter in the early 1970s. Though even after the rumors had subsided, Hudson chose not to resume his friendship with Nabors.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Once Rock Hudson married Gomer Pyle, he would officially be known as “Rock Pyle.” With Truman Capote officiating and Liberace providing “musical accompaniment,” this should have been enough of a tip-off that the wedding was a lark, an irreverent gay fantasia.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“You are cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of Mr. Rock Hudson and Mr. Jim Nabors On Saturday afternoon, June 19, 1971”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Following The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964), Seconds was the third and final installment in director John Frankenheimer’s so called “paranoia trilogy,” a genuinely unsettling trio of films that were released during a period when political assassinations and government cover-ups seemed to be occurring with alarming frequency.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Only a couple of years earlier, Phyllis Gates had warned Rock that his promiscuity was adversely impacting his career. “The whole town is talking about your activities,” Gates warned. “I’ve heard that one of the major studios doesn’t consider you a good risk anymore.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Although Vittorio De Sica was revered as Italy’s great neorealist director (Bicycle Thieves, Miracle in Milan), he had been hired as an actor on A Farewell to Arms. De Sica would receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Major Alessandro Rinaldi, who suffers a breakdown after enduring one too many battlefront horrors. As Hudson remembered it, De Sica’s directorial instincts kicked in at a moment when his guidance was desperately needed. “De Sica was a marvelous man and a hell of a director,” Hudson said.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Over the years, filmmakers as diverse as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Allison Anders, Todd Haynes, and Kathryn Bigelow have all paid tribute to the film’s operatic intensity and its mesmerizing, dreamlike imagery. Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar echoed the feelings of many when he said, “I have seen Written on the Wind a thousand times and I can’t wait to see it again.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Rock may have had this association in mind when Jimmy turned up on the set of Has Anybody Seen My Gal. Dean’s friend, William Bast, remembered, “It was after his first day of shooting on that picture that Jimmy confided in me his contempt for Mr. Hudson, based on nothing more than Hudson’s hypocritical pose as straight on the set while privately trying to hit on him.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Long before the cameras rolled, director and star got down to work. “I was very grateful because he did all of the directing with me before the picture began,” Hudson said. “First of all, he got me thinking I was the richest son of a bitch in the world. And he got me all puffed up and full of myself by making me believe my opinion was important to every aspect of the picture. And he got me so bigoted, talking about the squalor and filth of the Mexicans . . . that I hated them. From then on, he hardly said a word.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson

“Phyllis Gates, who had been married to Hudson from 1955 to 1958, claimed that Rock and his omnipresent agent, Henry Willson, had ruthlessly manipulated her into participating in a sham marriage.”
― Mark Griffin, All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson