Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty; Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty Mamie Van Doren, in a new interview, remembered the date she went on with Rock Hudson Though everyone at the studio knew he was "gay," Van Doren still said he "came on" to her Van Doren was a star of the '50s and '60s and considered one of Hollywood's major blondes after Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield Mamie Van Doren is looking back on her long career. In an interview withIndieWirepublished July 28, Van Doren, 94, reflected on her years as an actress at Universal, where she became one of Hollywood's major sex symbols. To bolster her profile, Universal Studios set up dates for her with other movie stars, includingRock Hudson. Hudson, who found stardom with films in Magnificent Obsession,All That Heaven Allows, andGiant, died in October 1985 from complications of AIDS. When his AIDS diagnosis became public a few months before his death, friends and colleagues disclosed for the first time that he was gay, a well-known fact inside most Hollywood circles. Bettmann Archive/Getty But Van Doren told IndieWire that it was a little more complicated than that, as she learned when she went on her arranged date with him. "With Rock Hudson, they said he was gay at the studio… 'You don't have anything to worry about.' But that's not true. That was not true at all," Van Doren said. "He came on to me, and in my book I told about having [on] a Crimmins skirt and him getting very passionate and rolling on the kitchen floor." Van Doren published a memoir,Playing the Field: My Story, in 1987. Van Doren spoke to PEOPLE back in the summer of 1985 in agroundbreaking cover storyabout Hudson and his diagnosis. She said at Universal, "We all knew Rock was gay, but it never made any difference to us." Archive Photos/Getty She continued, "Universal invested a lot of money in Rock, and it was important for his image to remain that of a lady-killer. Rock did what was expected of him." Hudson was married once, toPhyllis Gates, from 1955 to 1958. In the '50s, Van Doren was considered the third of Hollywood's glamorous blondes, afterMarilyn MonroeandJayne Mansfield. She told IndieWire she met Monroe when she was 12, and they were "good friends." Van Doren worked widely in the '50s and '60s, including in many movies alongside male singers who were trying to break into acting. Universal dropped her after she got pregnant out of wedlock and gave birth to her son in 1956. "It was hard because there weren't any women at the studio… the men ran the studio and ran everything," she told IndieWire. "So I kept pushing and pushing, and sometimes I did things I shouldn't have done, and then… I found myself pregnant, and I got married afterwards, and then that was unheard of. At least it got me out of my contract at Universal." In 1987, Van Doren was one of the first celebrities to publicly support gay people, and she served as grand marshal for the LA Pride Parade. But she told Van Doren that she felt likeElizabeth Taylorminimized the work she did. Universal-International/Getty "Elizabeth Taylor came along trying to say that she was the first one that ever did anything for the community. And it was a very bad shock… I wasn't invited to anything after that," Van Doren said of the actress, who died in 2011 at age 79. She felt she and other advocates were "iced out." https://people-app.onelink.me/HNIa/kz7l4cuf "I want to make it very clear in history, she was not the first one," she said of Taylor's advocacy for those with AIDS. "She only did itafter Rock Hudson died." This September, Van Doren will be honored with the Legacy Award at the annual Cinecon Film Festival, which will also screen her 1959 filmGuns, Girls and Gangsters. Read the original article onPeople
