Benjamin A. Railton's Blog

[On December5th, 1945, five naval jets disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle,helping establish an urban legend that has endured to this day. Sothis week I’ll AmericanStudy five such urban legends, leading up to a crowd-sourcedweekend post!]

On threetelling stages in the development of alocal legend.

1)     Word of mouth: The basic outline of the Bell Witch legend is that between1817 and 1821, in Robertson County,Tennessee, the family of farmer John Bell Sr. was repeatedly haunted by afemale spirit who came to be known as Kate, and who seemed to be particularlyobsessed with Bell’s teenage daughter Betsy. Meanwhile, a young militaryofficer named John R. Bell (apparently not related to the farmer, which is craycray but might also explain why the name “Bell Witch” caught on for this legend)was part of Stephen H.Long’s 1820 expedition to the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, andrecorded in hisdetailed journal that during a stop in Robertson County he was told thestory of a young woman who was haunted by a ghostly voice. Sometimes that’s allit takes to get an urban legend going, some oral historystorytelling and a figure and text that can help pass the word of mouthalong.   

2)     Media Investigations: One explorer’s journal wouldn’tlikely be enough to perpetuate a legend for generations, though—for that, ittakes the kinds of repeated rediscoveries and reports that media outlets canprovide. One of the main such outlets for the Bell Witch legend was none otherthan my public scholarly home The Saturday Evening Post, which supposedlyreported on the legend sometime around 1850 (the details are,appropriately, sketchy). Those reports were then picked up later in the 1850s bytwo New England periodicals, the NewEngland Farmer and GreenMountain Freeman, both of which credited the Post. A few decadeslater, we see another example of this trend, as a pamphlet associated with the 1880 Nashville Centennial Expositionincluded a new account of the Bell Witch legend, presumably based on one ormore of these earlier versions. The legend continues!

3)     An obsessed author: Those various versionswould likely have ensured that the Bell Witch legend didn’t die out completely,but they seem sufficiently isolated in both time and place that they wouldlikely not have been enough to lead to tons of 20thand early 21st century pop culture representations. For that, ittook what it often takes, an obsessive individual willing to do a very, very deepdive. In this case, that individual was the strikingly named Martin Van Buren Ingram,a Kentucky Civil War veteran turned journalist who became interested in the legendaround 1890 and in 1894published a book witha title I am obligated to repeat in full: An Authenticated History ofthe Famous Bell Witch. The Wonder of the 19th Century, and UnexplainedPhenomenon of the Christian Era. The Mysterious Talking Goblin that Terrorizedthe West End of Robertson County, Tennessee, Tormenting John Bell to His Death.The Story of Betsy Bell, Her Lover and the Haunting Sphinx. If I told youthat its publisher, Clarksville’s W.P. Titus, reporteda delay due to the witch herself haunting the premises—well, what’s moreurban legend than that?

Next urbanlegend tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Urban legends you’d highlight for the weekend post?

[Thanksgivingis a hugelyfraught holiday for us AmericanStudiers, but I also have a ton I’mthankful for. So this year I wanted to combine those two perspectives byhighlighting indigenous voices, past and present, for whose contributions toour collective conversations I’m profoundly appreciative!]

On one crucialway a recent book revises our stories, and one small but beautiful way.

Way backin July 2012, I dedicated an entire weeklong blog series to my wonderfullyfortuitous rediscovery (in my late grandfather’s library, a moment that now powerfullyechoes my time combing through my late father’s books to decide what I want tokeep) of the revisionist historian Francis Jennings. As I wrote in thefirst post in that series, which I’ll ask you to check out if you would (andideally the rest of the week’s posts as well, but most definitely that firstone), Jennings’s groundbreaking book The Invasionof America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (1975) hadbeen a game-changer for me back in grad school (both because of its trulyrevisionist-in-the-best-senses content, but also because it was written by awhite man), and I was delighted by the chance to return to and deepen myappreciation for Jennings.

Early inthe second chapter of his magisterial, National Book Award-winning TheRediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History(2023), Ned Blackhawk approvingly quotes and expands upon a line from TheInvasion of America. Which is very appropriate, because I’d say that’s exactlywhat Blackhawk’s book does—build on the important work of early revisionisthistorians like Jennings, but also add so, so much more to the story, to ourunderstanding of our collective histories, than has been the case previously.Partly that’s because there’s so much more that he’s able to research and sharethan was the case 50 years ago, of course; but mostly it’s because of thebreadth and depth of his researches and his storytelling alike. I wouldsimilarly link Blackhawk’s book to another about which I’ve writtenin this space, Ronald Takaki’s ADifferent Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993), but onceagain Blackhawk is able to go so much further than Takaki could, even in hisdefinition of “America” (which for Blackhawk extends thoughtfully andimportantly to all of North America and often well beyond).

That’s the significantrevision Blackhawk’s book accomplishes. But it also offers so many smaller butstill hugely meaningful reframings of our American stories, and I wanted toshare one example here. At the start of that second chapter, Blackhawk quotesan early explorer who described Northeast Native peoples as having the capability(but not the tools) to “erect great buildings” that “may have rivaled theancients.” Two paragraphs later, he expands that idea into a stunning metaphorI’m going to quote in full to end this series: “In Puritan accounts, thisregion’s Indigenous history possesses nothing remarkable, certainly nothingcomparable to classical Europe. Many histories of the United States have takenthis same tack, as the Native Northeast seems to provide a familiar past thatis easily understood because of its simplicity. Since Puritan settlement in the1620s, the superiority of Europeans to this world has been proclaimed, fuelingconstruction of ancient edifices of a different kind. Molded not of the region’salabaster but from ideas of immutable difference, an ideological mortar undergirdsstudy of the Northeast. It was an idea so pervasive that the insights of the firstEuropean to venture ashore, who uttered ‘various cries of wonderment’ at whathe encountered, are completely overshadowed.”

NovemberRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Indigenous voices or texts you’d highlight, or other thanks you’dshare?

[Thanksgivingis a hugelyfraught holiday for us AmericanStudiers, but I also have a ton I’mthankful for. So this year I wanted to combine those two perspectives byhighlighting indigenous voices, past and present, for whose contributions toour collective conversations I’m profoundly appreciative!]

As I’vedone for most of the posts in this week’s series, I’m going to start by askingyou to check out two prior pieces of mine:

This SaturdayEvening Post Considering History columnon Wamsutta (Frank) James and the 1970 speech in which he proposed a NationalDay of Mourning.

And thisblog post where I expanded on that column to further consider why and howwe could pair that Day of Mourning with Thanksgiving.

I said agood bit of what I’d want to say today, on this especially fraught ThanksgivingDay, in that blog post in particular. If we can’t find a way to do those multiplethings at once—to remember and mourn while we gather and express gratitude, totruly engage with our worst while we still work for our best, to live with bothsadness and joy—I genuinely don’t know if we can endure as a nation, at least notone with any community worth the name. And Wamsutta James felt the same, as wesee in the moving close of hisspeech: “We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of abeginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 yearslater, it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: theAmerican Indian.” Bringing past and present together, James reminds us that a NationalDay of Mourning can still be—indeed, if done right would still be—somethingcelebratory and optimistic. Here on the first Thanksgiving since theloss of my father, I’m as personally as I am professionally grateful forthat vision of mourning, of the holiday, and of us all.

Lastthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Indigenous voices or texts you’d highlight, or other thanks you’dshare?

[Thanksgivingis a hugelyfraught holiday for us AmericanStudiers, but I also have a ton I’mthankful for. So this year I wanted to combine those two perspectives byhighlighting indigenous voices, past and present, for whose contributions toour collective conversations I’m profoundly appreciative!]

As was thecase with yesterday’s subject William Apess, Sarah Winnemucca is a figure aboutwhom I’ve had the chance to write a good deal:

As acentral part of this We’re Historypiece on Malheur in Oregon.

As thefocus of a chapter in my book RedefiningAmerican Identity: From Cabeza de Vaca to Barack Obama (2011).

Andnumerous times on this blog, including hereon how reading her autoethnographic book changes our sense of the West, hereas a context for one of my favorite TV characters, and hereas part of a post on fraught and crucial questions of “authenticity” andidentity.

There’s alot that I love about Winnemucca’s voice, as captured so powerfully in thataforementioned book, Life Among thePiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). But most of all I love the way shecombines self-reflection and humility with pride and confidence, blends her hugelycomplex individual story with impassioned activism, recognizes the most multilayeredrealities yet refuses to allow them to stop her work. We can see that withparticular clarity in the book’s final final two sentences: “Finding itimpossible to do any thing for my people I did not return to Yakima, but afterI left Vancouver Barracks I went to my sister in Montana. After my marriage toMr. Hopkins I visited my people once more at Pyramid Lake Reservation, and theyurged me again to come to the East and talk for them, and so I have come.” I’mso grateful that she did!

Nextthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Indigenous voices or texts you’d highlight, or other thanks you’dshare?

[Thanksgivingis a hugelyfraught holiday for us AmericanStudiers, but I also have a ton I’mthankful for. So this year I wanted to combine those two perspectives byhighlighting indigenous voices, past and present, for whose contributions toour collective conversations I’m profoundly appreciative!]

First,just some of the many pieces I’ve published about Apess:

Countlessblog posts, including hereon his critical patriotic masterpiece ”Eulogy on King Philip,” hereon Apess as an autoethnographic writer, and hereon why we should collectively remember him so much more fully.

Thisfor the American Writers Museum blog.

And aspart of this SaturdayEvening Post Considering History columnon the Mashpee Revolt.

In themiddle of those three hyperlinked blog posts, I dedicated my last paragraph toApess’s stunning sermon “AnIndian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man” (1833). If I were forced to boilApess down to one thing all Americans should learn, it would be that text,which is quite possibly the most sarcastic and smart, bracing and beautiful, righteouslyangry and generously graceful—to put it simply, the most human—work in theAmerican literary canon. I could say more, but instead I’ll ask you to readthat hyperlinked version (which seems to be working—the hyperlink in my priorblog post had died, as they so often do) and listen to this unique and vitalAmerican voice, for whom I will be forever grateful.  

Nextthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Indigenous voices or texts you’d highlight, or other thanks you’dshare?

[Thanksgivingis a hugelyfraught holiday for us AmericanStudiers, but I also have a ton I’mthankful for. So this year I wanted to combine those two perspectives byhighlighting indigenous voices, past and present, for whose contributions toour collective conversations I’m profoundly appreciative!]

On a movingmemoir that’s also much more.

I’ve had aluckylifelong connection to Martha’s Vineyard, thanks to my grandfatherArt Railton’s enduring love for the island and the multigenerational familystory that he inaugurated there: first as a 1930s teenager working with hisfisherman uncle, then as a 1950s husband and father bringing his own youngfamily on vacation, and finally as a 1970s retiree who became the island’sleading historian. The family has finally had to sell my grandparents’house, but we were determined to keep the Vineyard connection going in someform this year, and were able to do so in late June thanks to my older sonrunning (and runningdamn well) in the Chappy Point to Point road race. While we were there, wehappened into a gift shop near the Aquinnah Cliffs, and there I learned of awonderful forthcoming (and now published) book written by the shop owners’ son:Joseph Lee’s NothingMore of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity.

Lee’s bookis first and foremost a memoir, the story of growing up part of the island’slongstanding, challenged, and still evolving Aquinnah Wampanoag community(along with other layers to Lee’smultiracial heritage, family, and identity that he includes in the book aswell). We can see the power of that personal perspective in this early passage:“In tribal summer camp, I learned our versions of first contact between Wampanoagsand the English and the First Thanksgiving. These stories, stripped of theusual patriotic flourishes, made me grow to resent the standard narrative ofAmerica’s founding. I proudly announced to my first-grade class that I did notwant to be friends with any ‘Europeans’ since they were the ones responsiblefor the killing of my ancestors. But the contrast between my tribal experience andwhat my history textbooks said confused me.” Lee’s voice is an intimate andvital one that we should all read, this week and all year long.

But likemany of the other indigenous-authoredmemoirs I’ve discussed in this space, including those by the subjects of thenext two posts in this week’s series (WilliamApess and SarahWinnemucca), Lee’s book would best be characterized as an autoethnography,as interested in communal stories and identities as in personal ones. Not longafter that opening anecdote about Lee’s educational experiences in and out ofschool, he turns his attention to one of his first such autoethnographictopics: the amazing historical document known as Mittark’sWill. As the last will and testament of a 17th-century Wampanoagleader, this document is certainly part of Lee’s legacy as a 21st-centurydescendant. But it also opens up the historical, contemporary, and profoundly significantlenses on land, community, and power that Lee’s title and subtitle suggest, andthat he likewise introduces early on: “Over time, I’ve learned that land is notsomething that is simply lost forever, but something that Indigenous people acrossthe country have been fighting over—losing, regaining, losing again, and rebuilding—foras long as any of us can remember.”

Nextthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Indigenous voices or texts you’d highlight, or other thanks you’dshare?

[OnNovember 17th, 1925, Roy HaroldScherer Jr.—better known as —was born.His iconic career and complex life open up a lot of American histories, so thisweek I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of them, leading up to this weekend post onother 20C gay celebrities who lived their lives in the closet.]

Quick takeawaysfrom five complex lives (in chronological order of their birth years).

1)      (1904-1986): Every one of the entries in this post will have at leastsome ambiguity, but none more so than the legendary actor who was bornArchibald Leish in Bristol, England, but refashioned himself into one of themid-century’s true icons. Grant livedwith a fellow actor, Randolph Scott, for a dozen years, and by all accountstoldmultiple friends and family members that he was in love with Scott. But he alsowas marriedto five different women across his life. Was he bisexual? Were thosemarriages all beards? Biographers disagree, but one thing seems clear: Grant’spublic persona and private life were nearly as distinct as those of the maincharacter in North ByNorthwest.

2)     Liberace (1919-1987): Inthe late 1950s, the legendary pianist and showman successfullysued the British newspaper The Daily Mirror for libel after gossip columnistCassandra (the pen name for William Connor) strongly implied that he was gay.He would similarlysue and settle with the U.S. gossip magazine Confidential over theirfrequent such allegations, including a July1957 cover story “Why Liberace’s Theme Song Should Be ‘Mad About the Boy!’”Liberace’s homosexuality is far less ambiguous or disputed than Cary Grant’s,and so the ambiguity here is what we do with such lawsuits—whether we see themfor example as expressions of his own tortured inner psyche, or as instead thekinds of media control with which Grant’s agent Henry Willson was so adept.

3)      (1920-1966): In this case of this Hollywood screen icon, who passedaway tragically young from a heart attack, the ambiguity is interconnected withhis most famous professional and personal relationship. Cliftand Elizabeth Taylor were very close, starring together in three romantic 1950sfilms and maintaining a famously tightoff-screen friendship (and perhaps more) throughout. So when Taylor said,while being honored atthe 2000 GLAAD Media Awards for her LGBTQ+ advocacy, that Clift had beengay, the admission was both surprising and seemingly accurate. Yet the detailsof his life and relationships seem to suggest at least bisexuality, anotherreminder of how difficult it is to tell the life story of closeted publicfigures.

4)      (1932-1992): As part of a 2000ABC News piece entitled “The Real Mike Brady,” Reed’s Brady Bunch costarand on-screen wife Florence Henderson remarked, “Here he was, the perfectfather of this wonderful little family, a perfect husband. Off camera, he wasan unhappy person—I think had Bob not been forced to live this double life, Ithink it would have dissipated a lot of that anger and frustration. I neverasked him. I never challenged him. I had a lot of compassion for him because Iknew how he was suffering with keeping this secret.” I’ve bloggedbefore about sitcom dads, and it’s particularly interesting to think (as Hendersoncertainly does in that quote) about the experiences of an actor playing thatkind of iconically heteronormative role while living as a closeted gay man.

5)     Freddie Mercury(1946-1991): As compared with earlier icons like Grant and Clift, Freddie Mercury’sbisexuality seems to have become pretty well-established in the years afterhis tragic death from AIDS. But not if you watch the recent acclaimedfilm biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), which portrays Mercury asalmost entirely gay (with one influential early relationship with a woman).Indeed, the film’s Mercury says to that woman, Mary Austin, that he “might bebisexual,” to which shereplies, “Freddie, you’re gay.” Clearly cultural representations of these figuresare just as complicated and fraught as were the stories and lives themselves!

Thanksgivingseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

[OnNovember 17th, 1925, Roy HaroldScherer Jr.—better known as —was born.His iconic career and complex life open up a lot of American histories, so thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of them, leading up to a weekend post onother 20C gay celebrities who lived their lives in the closet.]

On onepast and one present reason why Hudson’s diagnosis was so fraught, and aninspiring effect of it nonetheless.

In 1955,thirty years before Rock Hudson’s death, the gossipmagazine Confidential threatened to expose the then-rising star’sidentity as a closeted gay man. Hudson’s lifelong and domineeringagent, Henry Willson, quashed the story by disclosingprivate information about two other clients, Rory Calhoun and Tab Hunter.From what I can tell, that was how it went from then on, as illustrated by Hudson’ssubsequent three-yearmarriage to Willson’s secretary Phyllis Gates (which ended when she filedfor divorce in April 1958 on grounds of “mental cruelty,” although it seemsshe too could be cruel). Bob Hofler’s 2005 biography of Willson is entitledTheMan Who Invented Rock Hudson (subtitle: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Dealsof Henry Willson), and if we think about that name as representing thefictional identity that Roy Scherer Jr. inhabited for his whole professionalcareer, the phrase makes a lot of sense. All of which meant that when Hudson becameso visibly ill in 1984 and the rumorsof his diagnosis with AIDS began to spread, the moment’s complexity wassignificantly deepened by these decades of media misinformation andmanipulation.

At thesame time, an AIDS diagnosis in 1984 (Hudson was diagnosedon June 5th) needed no decades-old contexts to be hugely complexand fraught. The firstcluster of HIV-infected patients had been identified just three years earlier,the association between HIV and AIDS had only been fullyestablished in 1983, and to say that themoment was ripe with extreme and paranoid rumors and fears would be tounderstate the case. And if that was true for an entirely privatecitizen like Ryan White, whose initial diagnosis was also in 1984, then ofcourse it was even more true for a very public figure like Rock Hudson—who had attendeda White House state dinner with his longtime friend President Reagan justthree weeks before his diagnosis, for example. The fact that Reagan did notpublicly address AIDS in any form untilSeptember 1985, even though it has since been revealed that he calledHudson in his Paris hospital room inJuly 1985, illustrates just how much those rumors and fears drove thepublic conversation about the disease in the era. As does the silly but veryreal controversy over Hudson’s late-1984 televisedkiss with Dynasty co-star Linda Evans about which I wrote in Tuesday’spost.

While Hudson’sdiagnosis thus did not change those narratives and fears, it nonethelesssignificantly and inspiringly affected both conversations around AIDS and supportand funding for research into the disease. After Hudson’sdeath in October 1985, People magazine reported that more than $1.8million had been raised in private contributions since his July confirmation ofthe diagnosis (more than double the total for all of 1984); shortly thereafterCongress earmarkednearly $200 million to develop a cure. JoanRivers noted, “Two years ago, when I hosted a benefit for AIDS, I couldn'tget one major star to turn out. Rock's admission is a horrendous way to bringAIDS to the attention of the American public, but by doing so, Rock, in hislife, has helped millions in the process. What Rock has done takes true courage.”And Hudsonhimself agreed, telegramming the September 1985 Commitment toLife AIDS benefit that “I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy thatI have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my ownmisfortune has had some positive worth.” It most definitely did, a moving finalact in this complex career and life.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rock Hudson memories or connections you’d share?

[OnNovember 17th, 1925, Roy HaroldScherer Jr.—better known as —was born.His iconic career and complex life open up a lot of American histories, so thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of them, leading up to a weekend post onother 20C gay celebrities who lived their lives in the closet.]

Whileresearching this week’s series, I learned that Rock Hudson—probably still knownas Roy Harold Scherer Jr. at that point—servedin the U.S. Navy during the last couple years of World War II, spendingtime in the Philippines as an aircraft mechanic. I wish I had known that when Iwrote thisPride Saturday Evening Post Considering History column on thefraught but inspiring history of LGBTQ+ Americans in the armed forces, but I wasable to add it as a comment on that post, and wanted to dedicate today’s blogpost to sharing that column once more. Check it out if you would, thanks!

Last RockHudson post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rock Hudson memories or connections you’d share?

[OnNovember 17th, 1925, Roy HaroldScherer Jr.—better known as —was born.His iconic career and complex life open up a lot of American histories, so thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of them, leading up to a weekend post onother 20C gay celebrities who lived their lives in the closet.]

On how onetelevision role reiterated Hudson’s image, and one could help us revise it.

By the early1970s, Rock Hudson’s draw as a movie star was seemingly on the wane, with aseries of mid- to late-1960s boxoffice disappointments—among them Strange Bedfellows (1965), AVery Special Favor (1965), Ice Station Zebra (1968), and DarlingLili (1970)—a main contributing factor. To be clear, I’m not weighing in onthe quality of any or all of those films, especially because the only one ofthem I’ve seen, IceStation Zebra, is to my mind a pretty compelling spy thriller, based ona novel by my childhood fav AlistairMacLean; but all of them failed to recoup their budget, and we all know howHollywood responds to that trend. So, like so many fading movie stars did inthe second half of the 20th century (before the medium of televisionevolved to its current place, where it’s perceived as at least as high on thepecking order as film, and many of our most prominent actors work in TV firstby choice rather than career arc), Hudson took his talents to thesmall screen of TV.

He did sofirst with the very popular show highlighted in that last hyperlinked article: McMillan & Wife (1971-1977),a detective show in which Hudsonstarred as police commissioner Stewart “Mac” McMillan alongside Susan Saint James as hiswife Sally with whom he solves crimes. For this AmericanStudier, by far themost meaningful thing about McMillan & Wife was that it was one ofthree rotating shows in the original version of The NBC Mystery Movie,alongside Dennis Weaver’s fish-out-of-water cop show McCloud and, mostimportantly to your writer, PeterFalk’s Columbo. (How is that the only time I’ve blogged about Columbo??I’ll have to rectify that with a weeklong series at some point.) But if we’rethinking about the show in the context of Hudson’s career, I’d say it representeda pretty familiar and thus safe way to build on his film roles for this transitionto TV, with its irascible, lovable married couple protagonists for example verysimilar to the roles played by Hudson and Day in the trio of romantic comediesabout which I wrote in yesterday’s post. Nothing wrong with that—every performerhas a wheelhouse—but it’s not particularly interesting from a cultural studiesstandpoint.

Far more distinctand interesting was Hudson’s tragically final television role, a recurring guest starring role as wealthyhorse breeder (and HeatherLocklear’s Sammy Jo Carrington’s biological Dad!) Daniel Reece in the1984-85 fifth season of the primetimesoap opera Dynasty. Hudson’s deteriorating health due to his long-hiddenbut eventually publicized diagnosis and struggles with AIDS (about which I’llwrite in Friday’s post) led to him being written out of the show abruptly andprematurely, but before he was he shared a (to Hudson) fraughtkiss with costar Linda Evans. Knowing all we now know about AIDS, I’m not atall interested in the “controversy” around that kiss, which was of courseentirely safe. But I think that Hudson’s overarching connection to Dynastycan help us imagine a different potential career arc, one in which—perhaps throughouthis career, but at least in its final stage—his identityas a sexually adventurous gay man was publicly known and he could lean intoperformances that tapped into his full self. As I wrote in Monday’s post, thatdoesn’t mean he would have to play only gay characters, just that we could seea Hudson on-screen who was as comfortable as possible in his own skin off it.Tragically, that wasn’t the case with Dynasty, but the seeds are there.

Next RockHudson post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rock Hudson memories or connections you’d share?