In a recent interview, Morgan Fairchild revealed that when her friend Rock Hudson began to look ill, she quickly understood that the actor had AIDS.
The 76-year-old actress, who was one of the first celebrities to advocate for awareness and research into the disease during the 1980s, told Entertainment Weekly that she feared the worst when Hudson suddenly became ill.
According to her, in 1984, during a period when both were working at the same studio, she on the soap opera “Falcon Crest” and he on “Dynasty”, the actor’s declining health was the topic of the moment.
“I heard that Rock was not looking good on Dynasty, so I knew immediately what it was,” she told the publication. “Americans didn’t know Rock was gay, but everyone in Hollywood knew. And I knew how great he looked when I had seen him just a few months earlier, so I knew immediately what it was.”
Fairchild, who became widely known for her TV work in the 1970s and 1980s, and later to younger audiences for playing Chandler’s mother on “Friends”, said that after Hudson announced he had been infected with the virus in 1985, she stepped forward to educate Americans about the disease, as she had already been researching the subject intensely for some time.
“I knew that talking about it would hurt my career, and it did, but I also knew I was the only famous face they would have to go on Nightline, (the former talk show) and explain what a retrovirus is, how it works and how you can or cannot contract it.”
“It was a very frightening time,” she explained. Four decades later, she remains one of the leading advocates for AIDS research and frequently uses her public visibility to support organizations that assist people affected by the disease.
Images: publicity reproduction. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
+ Karol Rosalin shows her almost four-month-old dog in video: “Look how big Lolita is”
+ Mark Zuckerberg appears with a US$2 million Rolex and reveals a side few people knew about
