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In twenty seventeen, Harvey Weinstein was outed as a serial sexual abuser. Many brave women came forward and told their stories. They exposed one of Hollywood's most powerful moguls as a vicious sexual predator who operated horrifically and seemingly without consequences. But Weinstein was standing on the shoulders of monsters. For so many years, those monsters remained unchecked in Hollywood, shielded by the millions of dollars they made for their studios.
Sex for fame is not new. In fact, it's as old as Hollywood itself. Today, we'll look at the career of Henry Wilson, the Hollywood agent who specialized in spotting young actors with star potential. He would whine and dine them, and then if they wanted stardom badly enough, he would take them home to bed. Legend has it that Henry Wilson used the promise of fame to lure dozens of handsome young men onto his casting couch. He made stars of more than a few, and created a whole new
genre of male eye candy. That came to be called Beefcake. Henry's legend faded after he died, but recently he was given another fifteen minutes of fame in Ryan Murphy's Netflix series Hollywood. Jim Parsons won an Emmy nomination for his highly fictionalized portrayal of Henry Wilson and his discovery and
sexual coercion of Rock Hudson. In today's episode of Variety Confidential, will open Variety's archives to separate fact from fiction about Henry Wilson, a deeply closeted, sexually abusive agent and starmaker in mid century Hollywood. From Variety and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Tracy Patton. This is the secret history of the Casting Couch. Today's episode Closet Monster, The Man who invented Beefcake, and with Me Today's Matt Donnelly, Variety Senior Entertainment and Media writer. Welcome, Matt.
Thank you so much for having me, and it's great.
To have you here to get your Hollywood perspective and insights.
You know the cliche of there's nothing new under the sun. Yes, I think that's particularly true in terms of the methods and the mechanics of the casting couch. For instance, there's a term we use in journalism. Catch and kill. Has become so prominent in the past few years that that was actually the title of Ronan Pharaoh's book about sexual
predators in the entertainment industry. What it basically means is is that a power broker will trade the cover up of one piece of very salacious information by trading another incredibly slatious piece of information. In this Henry wilson saga catch and kill has an especially sort of odious place in his career. He practically patented a technique to do this nearly three quarters of a century ago.
Indeed, and for those unfamiliar, Henry Wilson was a talent agent and manager who worked in Hollywood from the nineteen thirties to the sixties. Wilson had scored big as an agent with stars like Lona Turner and Tab Hunter, but Rock Hudson was the jewel in his management crown. He couldn't afford a whiff of scandal to damage the luster of this major leading man. There was a problem, however,
rock Hudson's homosexuality. Inevitably, stories about Hudson's gay trysts surfaced and Confidential magazine was eager to expose Rock's gay relationships, so Henry Wilson swung into action with catch and Kill, and he sacrificed the careers of lesser stars or those who had parted ways with him. Among the victims were Tab Hunter, who had severed his business ties with Wilson, and his important but more expendable TV star Rory Calhoun.
Wilson leaked Calhoun's criminal record to Confidential magazine, and he provided proof that Hunter had been caught at a gay party. Rock Hudson's secret remained safe thanks to Wilson's methods, but these two other actors saw their careers hugely damaged by his catch and kill methods.
Well, let's dive in. Tell me about Henry's early life.
Yes, he was born in nineteen eleven in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. His father was Horace Wilson, vice president of the Columbia Phonograph Company, a precursor to Columbia Records.
So they were pretty well off.
Yes, they were wealthy enough to send him to boarding school and then to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and then after college he went to work writing gossip items for Variety in New York. He got a byline on some of them, which was good for a kid right out of college. He moved to Hollywood in nineteen thirty three and found work writing for Photoplay, The Hollywood Reporter, and New Movie Magazine. In nineteen thirty four, that experience led to work as a talent agent for a small firm
in Beverly Hills. He was twenty four then, and his job was to find young talent.
Oh, it's a little embarrassing. He worked at Variety. That's a pretty good entry level job, though, so, which obviously would give him some visibility in the industry.
Yeah, he apparently did very well. Variety announced two years later that Henry had been hired by the Zeppo Marx Agency. Before he opened the agency, Zeppo had been the fourth brother in the world famous Marx Brothers comedy act, along with Graucho, Chico and Harpo. Zeppo got tired of playing the straight man to his brother's zany antics. He quit the act in nineteen thirty three and opened what became a successful talent agency.
But his next job was even more fastigious, wasn't it. He went to work for David ozelsnig Yes.
From Variety again. On June thirtieth, nineteen forty three, Henry Wilson had joined Vanguard Films, Selznick's new production company as head of the talent division. Selznick had produced some of the biggest movies in Hollywood history, the original King Kong in nineteen thirty three, the original A Star Is Born in nineteen thirty seven, and Gone with the Wind in nineteen thirty nine, one of the highest grossing movies of all time. Not bad, yeah, but he was infamous for
his out of control spending in his compulsive gambling. By April nineteen forty nine, Vanguard was underwater. Selznik closed it that spring and auctioned its assess for five hundred thousand dollars. Henry went to work in new talent development for the Famous Artists Agency, one of the top agencies in town. Later he handled new talent for Worldwide Management. He also operated several independent agencies over the years.
So Henry made quite a name for himself as an aggressive agent. He was incredibly committed to his clients. Is that right?
Yes, it is, and he seems to have insinuated himself into their lives. He became their friend, the parent, the protector, and in many cases their lover.
And by the way, some of them became huge stars. I mean, it doesn't get bigger than Lana Turner, Rock Hudson or Natalie Wood.
Absolutely. Henry was Lana Turner's first agent. She was Judy Turner, a student at Hollywood High School when she was signed by the Zeppo Marx agency and assigned to Henry. After a makeover, her name was changed from Judy to Lana. The camera loved her, and Henry easily found walk on rolls for her, but none of those small, non speaking parts resulted in a contract. Eventually, a producer at Fox told Henry she can't act. Henry said, I didn't say she could act. I said she could be a movie star.
And that summed up his approach. The acting can be added later, he would say. Henry knew that sex appeal was often more important on screen than acting ability. He also knew that that was true only up to a point. To achieve stardom, young actors would have to study acting, which is what Lana Turner did. After she learned the ropes, MGM put her under contract. She appeared in more than fifty movies over the years, almost always in the starring role.
Many of them were hits like The Postman Always Rings twice in nineteen forty six and Imitation of Life in nineteen fifty nine. She was nominated for Best Actress for Peyton Place in nineteen fifty seven. Natalie Wood was twelve years old when Henry became her agent. She already appeared in a dozen movies by then. Her breakthrough was at age nine in Miracle on thirty Fourth Street. Eventually, Henry helped her land the role of James Dean's love interest
in Rebel Without a Cause. Natalie Wood appeared in twenty five movies after that. They included hits like All the Fine Young Cannibals in nineteen sixty, Splendor in the Grass in nineteen sixty one, The Original West Side Story in nineteen sixty one, Gypsy in nineteen sixty two, and others.
Now Henry's first important discoveries as an agent were two men who later made it really big on television.
And before Henry renamed them, they were Robert Moseley Junior and Frank McCown. Afterward, they became famous as Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun. Both men were muscular and beefy and incredibly good looking. Guy Madison was photographed shirtless dozens of times. A gossip columnist coined a new term for Guy's physique photo He called them beefcake. Guy and Rory were inexperienced in acting, but loaded with sex appeal. In both cases, the acting did come later. Both men had successful careers
in television in the nineteen fifties. Guy Madison starred in Wild Bill Hiccock from nineteen fifty one to nineteen fifty eight, and Rory Calhoun in The Texan. In the late nineteen fifties, Henry Wilson had a run of good luck placing his clients as leads in television series. Along with Guy and Rory, Henry represented Guy Williams, who starred in Zoro, Don Durant starred in Johnny Ringo, Nick Adams in The Rebel, and Craig Stevens and Peter gunn So.
Two of Henry's later discoveries, were both blondes who became teen idols in the nineteen fifties and sixties. He discovered Troy Donna Hue formerly Merril Johnson Junior in the fifties, and he signed tab Hunter formerly Arthur Glean in nineteen forty nine.
And Troy Donahue had a surfer boy look that made him a teen heartthrob in the early nineteen sixties. In nineteen fifty nine, appeared in Imitation of Life with Lana Turner and A Summer Place. In nineteen sixty two, he starred in Rome Adventure with Suzanne Pluchette, who he later married briefly, and he appeared in Palm Springs Weekend with Connie Stevens. Tab Hunter had acted in high school plays, but had no acting ambition until he was discovered. In
his case, the acting followed fairly quickly. He eventually appeared in more than fifty movies, often in lead roles, and then in nineteen fifty seven he became a teen idol with the release of Young Love, a number one pop hit in both the US and UK. Other hits followed. Tab Hunter hosted his own television show in nineteen sixty and sixty one. He returned to movies in nineteen eighty four when he appeared in John Waters's Lust in the Dust, playing opposite a fearless drag performer called Divine.
And Yet Henry's biggest discovery was, of course, Rock Hudson.
Yes, Rock said later, it was September nineteen four seven. I don't think anything important ever happened to me until I walked into Wilson's office that day. His name was Roy Fitzgerald before Henry gave him a makeover. He had exceptional good looks and, like the others, no acting experience or natural talent. But Henry believed in him. He spent thousands of dollars on turning the former truck driver into a movie star. He paid for acting and vocal lessons
in capped Rock's teeth. He also paid for Rock's room and board, and bought him a whole new wardrobe. But Rock's first big audition was a disaster. The casting director at MGM and Henry were friendly. She told him she couldn't cast Rock because he was too effeminate. Henry taught him how to be butch, how to smile, how to walk, cross his legs, even how to smoke a cigarette. When he was done, Henry Wilson really had invented Rock Hudson.
But with Rock, the acting part really did come later.
Yes, yes, At first, Rock was cast in a series of adventure films, cowboy pictures, and war movies, and then he had a major breakthrough in nineteen fifty four with the melodrama Magnificent Obsession. That movie made him a bona fide star, but it was his role in the nineteen fifty six epic Giant with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean that made him an A list movie star.
Both Rock and James Dean got Oscar nominations that year for Best Actor, and the ap named Rock number one at the box office that year.
And later he made romantic comedies co starring Doris Day that were big hits. He moved to television in the nineteen seventies and became the highest paid actor in TV, starring with Susan Saint James in McMillan and Wife, which ran from nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy seven. In nineteen eighty four, he joined the cast of Dynasty. He began to drink heavily again and then quit all together when he was diagnosed with HIV.
So Henry had many other clients, and arguably he had sex with most of them. Like almost all casting couch abuse back in the day, Henry's went unreported. He was never held accountable.
Yeah, and it was complicated by the fact that he was deeply closeted, like all gay people were back then. But it is possible that Henry's sexuality and his casting couch abuses were an open secret in Hollywood. The powerful men who depended on him for a steady supply of fresh talent had good reason to protect him, and of course many of them had casting couch abuses of their own.
But that dynamic changed after nineteen fifty eight, when Rock's wife, Phyllis Gates, hired a private eye to bug their home above the Sunset Strip. She planned to use the recording as leverage in their divorce.
So three years earlier, rumors about rock sexuality had put his career at risk, and Henry sprung into action. He convinced Rock to marry Phyllis, the secretary in Henry's office, and that wedding took place in November nineteen fifty five at the Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel.
Yeah, and it probably seemed like a brilliant plan at the time, but the strategy quickly fell apart in the aftermath of the divorce. Henry's sexuality was exposed, he became radioactive to his most important prospective new clients, handsome young men. A new actor hoping for stardom could not afford to be associated with homosexuality without a robust ci and tell of new potential stars. Henry's value to the industry slowly evaporated.
So Phyllis's recording may have well brought him down right. Yes.
By nineteen fifty eight, Phyllis could no longer tolerate Rock's addiction to gay hookups. He was putting his career and their movie star lifestyle at risk, so she decided to sue for divorce. Phyllis knew she needed leverage, otherwise it was her word against theirs. She said, he said. She hired legendary Hollywood private investigator Fred Otash to bug their house.
Although the transcript was not made public until nineteen seventy six, it is likely that word got out that Rock had admitted on the tape that he'd slept with Henry to help his career. Phyllis got almost everything she wanted in the divorce, so there was no public expose of Rock Hudson's sexuality or his sham marriage. The majority of his fans never knew any of it, and it didn't affect his career. Inside the industry, it was a different story.
The scandal led to a gradual erosion of Henry's value to producers. It tainted his agency's reputation and exposed his male clients past and present to accusations of homosexuality. It gradually reduced Henry's access to new talent and drove prospective new clients to other agencies. Troy Donahue said that he didn't sign with Henry until after he was under contract with Universal. Henry was still very well connected in Hollywood, he said, but I didn't want to be indebted to him.
He had this reputation.
So there are very few first hand accounts of Henry Wilson's casting couch abuses, which is you're in most cases before the me too movement.
But Tab Hunter wrote about Henry and his autobiography, tab Hunter Confidential. The book was published in two thousand and five, the same year he came out as gay. In the book, tab wrote about his time as Henry's client and described Henry's casting couch tactics. He said Henry's routine was to whine and dine young men his prospective clients at a list night spots like chasen' Ciro's or the Macombo. After
dinner and drinks, he would make a pass. If the guy was unreceptive to his advances, Henry would get out of it by saying, come on, you know, I was only joking. But if the young actor was receptive, they would adjourn to Henry's house. Tab wrote that's how Henry earned his less than sterling reputation as Hollywood's lecherous gay Svengali. I wasn't comfortable with his sexual shenanigans, he said, but
I did play along up to a point. Henry had a magnetic personality, but it certainly wasn't strong enough to lure me up onto the casting couch. I knew exactly where my line was drawn. Late in his life, Troy Donahue denied rumors that he was gay. He blamed them on the fact that he and tab Hunter looked similar and had similar names. He said, people confused meet with tab Hunter. His being gay created problems for me, and that's where the story started interesting.
Neither Guy Madison nor Rory Calhoun never commented on whether Henry demanded section them but Rory did accept Henry's invitation to spend two weeks with him in a cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains, And.
There were rumors about them back then, but they both had active romantic lives with women.
Well, there were straight actors who slept with Henry. Dennis Hopper, who was not Henry's client, said that wanta be actors, both gay and straight, had sex with Henry hoping for a chance at stardom.
Yeah, and Henry's assistant confirmed that. He said Henry had gay clients who did not sleep with him, and heterosexual clients who did, And I thought this was interesting. Henry advised his straight clients to sleep with male and directors. He said, it will take you longer if you don't. If they objected, Henry would tell them you're an actor, so act, you know.
Tony Curtis, who was also not Henry's client, said, the whole town knew what Henry Wilson represented. Everybody who went with him had to sexually express himself to Henry. I'm putting it nicely. With Henry, it was almost mandatory.
And Roddy McDowell, the British actor, who also was not a client, was disgusted by Henry's casting couch tactics. I often think what would have happened if I signed with him, McDowell said. Farley Granger, who came out as bisexual in two thousand and seven, agreed it was awful what he made his clients do. Men like Rock and young actors weren't the only victims of Wilson's callous approach to career management.
Before he was the Beefcake King. Wilson biographer Bob Hoffler notes that Wilson served as a virtual pimp for studio bigwig Darryl Zanik and played a role in trying, unsuccessfully, as it turns out, to recruit young actresses to Xanik's
casting couch. During the shooting of nineteen forty four's romantic drama Since You Went Away, Selznik tried to bet all three headliners, Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, whom he would later wed, and even Shirley Temple, but Wilson's efforts warn enough to procure their sexual favors for his lecherous boss.
You know, abuse, especially sexual abuse, often takes a toll on the victims in the form of alcoholism or drug use. You know, for gay people living in the closet back then, there was also potential for psychological damage caused by stress from fear and rejection.
Yeah, and Henry Wilson was both a product of his time and a promoter of a toxic system that he profited from. One could speculate it destroyed him, along with the many gay people whose lives were damaged by being forced to live in the closet. He won't be gay when I get through with him is a famous Wilson quote that says it all. Tab Hunter, who claimed he fended off Henry's advances, was a social drinker. He didn't
me experiencing alcoholism or drug abuse in his book. On the other hand, Troy Donahue, who denied he was gay, succumbed to alcohol and drug abuse. He did get sober in nineteen eighty two when he was forty six, and lived another nineteen years. Rock Hudson was a heavy drinker and smoker. After a heart attack in nineteen eighty one, he cut his fifteen drinks per night to two, but only for a while. He began to drink heavily again and then quit altogether when he was diagnosed with HIV.
Henry Wilson did abuse drugs and alcohol. His substance abuse problems became worse after the Rock Hudson scandal affected his business. He continued working into his sixties, but his business failed in the end. Eventually, Henry Wilson lost it all. He'd spent everything he'd ever made. In nineteen seventy four, with his health failing, he moved into the motion picture and television country house and hospital. He died there on November two,
nineteen seventy eight, from cirrhosis of the life liver. He was sixty seven years old. So, Matt, after hearing all of this, what have you learned about Henry Wilson that you might not have thought about before?
Well, first of all, thank god he's not working now all I can say. But no, honestly, I think it's an incredibly sad story. And I also think that what's really worthy about telling a story like Henry Wilson's is that we see that victims come in all shapes and sizes, and there are probably a lot of young men whose careers and hopes and identities were dashed because of this sort of predation and also playing on their worst fears.
It's just a really yet another incredibly dark chapter in the history of this town.
Yeah, and as we said at the top, a lot of people know Henry Wilson because they watched Ryan Murphy's Hollywood series on Netflix. But first, for those who haven't seen the series, Matt, can you give us a gist of the plot?
Sure? So, Ryan Murphy cast Jim Parsons, you know, the beloved star of the Big Bang Theory, to play Wilson, and I think a pretty brave role as the sort of lecherous you know, all the things that we just heard. Henry Wilson was Jim sort of embodied, and we saw laid bare the horrible practices he used to manipulate, control and ultimately bully promising young men in this town to fit his sexual predation, to sort of abuse and to also profit from.
And you know what's so interesting to me about Ryan Murphy's series is he has said this that he created a what if scenario so people who don't know the real history of what it really was like back then, this is a fantasy of what could life have been like if gay men were allowed to walk the red carpet right as a couple and if a black gay man could be the writer of a series.
Sure be under contract at a major studio. Yeah, it is, it is. It's a sort of a wonderful but again pure fantasy in that way, especially for the time period
had set in. But I'm glad that the one thing Ryan Murphy preserved though, you know, before sort of letting it drift off into as you said, what if I was immortalizing and being very factual about someone like Henry Wilson and how he absolutely sort of destroyed a lot of young men that came into his path, and so much of it I think too when you watch the series and even hearing about Henry's life comes from a self loathing, which I think is common in closet and
gay men two, but it's a real his real self loathing, like not even being able to stomach himself, and projecting that onto hopeful in Hollywood has just been terrible.
I mean, he really was Henry Wilson really was the ultimate in the casting couch of that era. I mean, he really was such an integral part, and so many people have never heard of him, including Jim Parson, did not know who he was before he got the role. Yeah, and also, what do you think about Ryan Murphy combining the fact and fiction calling it faction. I think that's pretty interesting.
It is. I mean, I think that for a younger audiences, which you know, Ryan Murphy tends to attract, that it's a good way to reframe history and to maybe give it a little bit more positive a spin. I don't know that it ultimately serves anyone at the end, not
telling the truth about how these things pan out. For instance, I didn't know Henry Wilson is buried in an unmarked grave, But in a way, I think it's a very fitting end for someone who perpetrated such crazy crimes and also was just such a scourge on so many young men's lives. Like that, to me is poetic justice. But you know, Ryan Murphy is going to do what Ryan Murphy's going to do. At least he's surfacing in these conversations, which I think are really important to have.
And I think so because I do think young Spring chickens like you, please, well look at this and think about what it was like for somebody like raw Hudson, and it really gives you that you really get a sense of the struggle even though Ryan Murphy made it all kind of work out in many ways. I think it opens just like me too. It opens people's eyes to the struggles.
Absolutely, and I think it ultimately makes you a question like what is worth it? What is stardom really worth it at the end of the day for what people have to give away for it?
And that is a whole other conversation. I wish we had an hour because I find that super fascinating. What lengths would people go to become successful in Hollywood? Because it's so competitive, you're kind of forced to go to great lengths, we'll say, to find success and get an opportunity and get the audition and all those things.
Not to sound super academic, but I think the rules of stardom have changed a bit. I think a lot more of it now is about sort of how much you're personally willing to exploit yourself. You know, if you think about the role of reality television, of social media, it's sort of about how far you're willing to go to sort of carve out a personality on your own terms,
maybe not at the best of somebody else. I think that, you know, many people have said and keep saying that the movie star is a dying concept, but in this context and the architecture of this town, this is the era we're talking about. I don't know if it's worth it. I think some people would say it was. I'm sure Rock you, Rock had one of the most incredible Hollywood careers I think anyone's had. But look at what cost it came out.
I wonder what Rock would say today.
I do too. I hope he would. I hope he would say fire my agent.
Yeah, exactly.
Well.
I think that's a great place to end our episode today. Thank you Matt Donnelley so much.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you again to Matt Donnelley, Variety's senior Entertainment and Media writer, for joining us. We'll be back next time with another episode in the six part series The Secret History of the Casting Couch from Variety Confidential. This has been Couch Monster, the man who invented Beefcake for Variety and iHeart Podcasts. I'm Tracy Patton. Variety Confidential is a
production of Variety Content Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It was produced by Sidney Kramer, John Ponder, and Tracy Patten and written by Stephen Gatos with John Ponder and Tracy Patton. Research by John Ponder and Tracy Patton with Karen Mizogucci. Executive producers are Da Lawrence and Stephen Gatos. Variety confidentials recorded, edited, and mixed at the Invisible Studios, West Hollywood. Recording engineer, editor and mixer Charles Carroll