Rock Hudson: The Gentle Giant by David Bret

Author:David Bret [Bret, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2017-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

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In the film, Rock plays dashing American aviator Major Larrabee, who Lili’s boss has ordered her to befriend because he is supposedly in the know about an imminent Allied invasion. We see him engaged in an aerial dogfight with the infamous Baron von Richtofen, though it is a good half hour into the film before he pronounces his first lines when he turns up at Lili’s lodgings at three in the morning—and asks her out on a picnic! She falls for him, but fails to get any information out of him, only that he is involved with “Operation Crepe Suzette”. Again, to say more would only spoil the film for those who may not have seen it—save that it ends as it began, with Lili Damia-like on the stage, performing the same song at a victory benefits concert while in the background are ghostly images of soldiers lost in action, compelling us to reach for our handkerchiefs.

While shooting Darling Lili, Rock was reunited with Massimo, but he was still pining for his new lover and asked Paramount’s French representative to make arrangements for Jack Coates to be flown out to the set—his argument being that he and Massimo had conducted an open affair in Rome without creating a fuss. The studio’s Hollywood executives were virulently against this. They had cautioned him before assigning him to the film, having accused him of allowing his sexual indiscretions to get out of hand since leaving Universal. Now, they threatened to recall him to Hollywood, should he persist in this career suicide.

As had happened with Jack Navaar, Rock was ordered to get rid of Coates, and additionally told that if he was fired from Darling Lili at this late stage (the production had been shooting for several weeks when Rock joined it, and would acquire further problems along the way, delaying its release for two more years) Paramount would sue for compensation. Rock—whose hatred of Julie Andrews was by now said to have been such that he would have done anything not to keep on working with her—called the

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