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Today is Rock Hudson's 100th birthday. With a career that spanned over three decades, he was one of the most prominent male stars during Hollywood's Golden Age. From his debut in a small uncredited part in Fighter Squadron (1948), he went on to achieve leading man status with acclaimed performances in films such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Giant (1956) — for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor — and Pillow Talk (1959). Tall, dark and handsome, he represented the Hollywood ideal of masculinity in the 1950s and 1960s, but societal norms of the time meant that his true nature had to be kept hidden from the public. In 1985, he became one of the first celebrities to reveal he had been diagnosed with AIDS, which claimed his life at the age of 59. At the height of the AIDS pandemic, the disclosure of Rock's diagnosis had a an immediate impact on the visibility of the disease and on the funding of medical research t...

Rock Hudson was one of the most popular leading men in the 1950s and 1960s. Considered a classic example of the «heartthrob» of Hollywood's Golden Age, he achieved stardom in films such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Giant (1956), the latter of which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. His starring role opposite Doris Day in the hugely successful Pillow Talk (1959) made him the number-one male actor in America at that time. In a career that spanned four decades, Rock appeared in nearly 70 films and starred in several television productions, notably the procedural drama McMillan & Wife (1971-1977), with Susan Saint James. But before Rock, there was Roy. Rock Hudson, one of the most popular leading men in the 1950s and 1960s.   Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. on November 17, 1925, in the village of Winnetka, Illinois. His parents were Katherine «Kay» ( née Wood), a homemaker and later telephone operator, an...

Ginger Rogers sunbathing in 1936 (Side note: I LOVE her shoes!) Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart with their son, Steven (early 1950s) Ava Gardner in Phillip Island, Australia during the making of On the Beach (1959) Rita Hayworth and Robert Mitchum in Trinidad and Tobago during the filming of Fire Down Below (1957) Natalie Wood and Steve Rowland at the Thalians Beach Ball in Malibu (July 1956) Henry Fonda at the Atlantic Beach Club (1936) Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks at Catalina Beach in 1929 Diane Ellis and Carole Lombard at the beach in 1929 Rock Hudson at the pool (1950s) Audrey Hepburn in Monaco during the making of Monte Carlo Baby (1951) Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan in their pool (1940) Randolph Scott and Cary Grant poolside at their Santa Monica beach house (1935) I hope you are having an amazing summer!