Back in the day, Rock Hudson got slicked down & greased up for this Oscars stunt
Before he was Rock Hudson, he was a living Oscar
Mark
Back in 1949, the marvelous he-man hunk we know and love as Rock Hudson was still in the process of being born. In Hollywood terms, that is. At that time, Hudson was fresh off of military service and taking on acting gigs at Universal-International Studios. To the public, he was still known only as Roc Hudson, a bit player who wasn’t yet commanding the leading man roles he’d find in the 1950s.
But he was tapped to play one highly coveted, exceptionally strange role in 1949: as Mr. Oscar, a physical embodiment of the iconic Oscars statuette.
At the 1949 Press Photographer’s Ball in front of Ciro’s Restaurant, Hudson posed alongside fellow up-and-coming starlet Vera-Ellen wearing nothing but gold paint and underpants. The famous physique that would become Hollywood’s magnificent obsession by the mid-50s could be seen in some truly uncomfortable-looking, probably not very skin safe makeup ahead of the award ceremony, and photographers snapped their fill of the golden god that night not knowing just how huge Rock would soon become.
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Vera-Ellen and Rock Hudson posing as life-size Oscar statuettes at the Hollywood Press Photographers Ball, which was held at Ciro’s restaurant, 1949
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The “Mr. and Mrs. Oscar” stunt was masterminded by Hudson’s agent at the time, a closeted gay man named Henry Wilson who grew famous for picking beefcakes out of obscurity and finding them work in the movies. In 1949, Rock was still Wilson’s most promising client. By the end of the 1950s, Wilson would have a full stable of hot men with ridiculous names, from Tab Hunter to Trax Colton, ready to take on any hunky Hollywood role available. But before all that, he was trying his best to make Rock Hudson happen, and this bizarre stunt was part of it.
Before Hudson took on the role of Mr. Oscar, the statuette itself enjoyed an interestingly homoerotic history. Bette Davis famously claimed that the award was nicknamed “Oscar” because the statue’s tush resembled that of her first husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. Later on, another possible origin story cropped up concerning the tall, thong-wearing gold statuette. Mexican actress Dolores Del Rio, who was dating art director (and Oscar statue designer) Cedric Gibbons in the 30s, may have pitched Mexican actor and director Emilio Fernandez, aka El Indio, as a model, and Fernandez later claimed that it was his perfect behind that gave the Oscar statue that je ne sais quoi. Honestly, we can absolutely see it.
We don’t have too much information about how or why Hudson lent his own beautiful body for this seemingly grueling stunt years later, but considering the control Henry Wilson had over his clients, it’s easy to imagine how Rock got roped into this. It was this same quality of Hudson’s—his blank, passive beauty—that attracted Douglas Sirk to him later on. Together, the two would make many beautiful movies together. But apart from his 1957 Best Actor nomination for Giant, Hudson himself never took home a gold statue: the closest he came was in physically becoming the coveted award in those pre-mega-fame days of 1949.
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