FBI Investigates Actor Rock Hudson for “Homosexual Tendencies”
An FBI report on this day indicated that the Bureau was investigating film star Rock Hudson for “homosexual tendencies.”
The investigation was one of many examples of how the FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, spent untold numbers of hours investigating people and issues that did not involve any possible violations of federal law, including private sexual activity. Th investigations, moreover, often led to secret files on individuals. Hoover created the FBI’s “Obscene File,” parts of which he kept in his office rather than regular FBI files, on September 30, 1942.
Rock Hudson died in 1985 as a result of AIDS-related illnesses, the first national celebrity to die because of the disease. It was widely believed that Hudson’s death prompted President Ronald Reagan to break his four-year silence and finally speak out publicly about the AIDS epidemic. Because Reagan was politically beholden to the Religious Right, which was opposed to homosexuality, his administration took no action on research or public health measures in response to the AIDS epidemic.
President Bill Clinton hosted the first White House conference on the AIDS epidemic on December 6, 1995.
FBI spying on other entertainers, without any legal justification, included a report on a planned trip to Mexico by movie star Marilyn Monroe. See the March 6, 1962. FBI report. The FBI lab examined the rock and roll classic “Louie, Louie” to determine if the lyrics were obscene. The Bureau could not decipher the lyrics, however (May 20, 1964).
Read the new book: Douglas Charles, Exposing the FBI’s ‘Sex Deviates’ Program (2015)
Read Rock Hudson’s FBI file: http://vault.fbi.gov/Rock%20Hudson
Learn more: Athan Theoharis, J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Antidote (1995)
Watch a video on Rock Hudson’s death: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fXW41oxvV8
Learn more: Rock Hudson and Sara Davidson, Rock Hudson: His Story (1986)
Read: Douglas M. Charles, The FBI’s Obscene File: J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau’s Crusade Against Smut (2012)
And more: Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (1987)