Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean.Getty Images
In the HBO documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, biographer Mark Griffin explores the rivalry between Rock Hudson and up–and-coming heartthrob James Dean.
Viewers are left to come to their own conclusion about the true nature of the actors’ relationship.
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“According to some accounts, James Dean was rather disdainful of Hudson,” Griffin says in the film. Dean — who, by the way, was also rumored to have had sex with men — “considered it hypocritical that Rock was maintaining this hetero façade in public while privately hitting on Dean, if we’re to believe the rumor mill.”