Speaker 1: This show contains mature content and adult themes. It may
Speaker 1: not be suitable for young audiences.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, Harvey Weinstein was outed as a serial
Speaker 2: sexual abuser. Many brave women came forward and told their stories.
Speaker 2: They exposed one of Hollywood's most powerful moguls as a
Speaker 2: vicious sexual predator who operated horrifically and seemingly without consequences.
Speaker 2: But Weinstein was standing on the shoulders of monsters. For
Speaker 2: so many years, those monsters remained unchecked in Hollywood, shielded
Speaker 2: by the millions of dollars they made for their studios.
Speaker 2: Sex for fame is not new. In fact, it's as
Speaker 2: old as Hollywood itself. Today, we'll look at the career
Speaker 2: of Henry Wilson, the Hollywood agent who specialized in spotting
Speaker 2: young actors with star potential. He would whine and dine them,
Speaker 2: and then if they wanted stardom badly enough, he would
Speaker 2: take them home to bed. Legend has it that Henry
Speaker 2: Wilson used the promise of fame to lure dozens of
Speaker 2: handsome young men onto his casting couch. He made stars
Speaker 2: of more than a few, and created a whole new
Speaker 2: genre of male eye candy. That came to be called Beefcake.
Speaker 2: Henry's legend faded after he died, but recently he was
Speaker 2: given another fifteen minutes of fame in Ryan Murphy's Netflix
Speaker 2: series Hollywood. Jim Parsons won an Emmy nomination for his
Speaker 2: highly fictionalized portrayal of Henry Wilson and his discovery and
Speaker 2: sexual coercion of Rock Hudson. In today's episode of Variety Confidential,
Speaker 2: will open Variety's archives to separate fact from fiction about
Speaker 2: Henry Wilson, a deeply closeted, sexually abusive agent and starmaker
Speaker 2: in mid century Hollywood. From Variety and iHeart Podcasts, I'm
Speaker 2: Tracy Patton. This is the secret history of the Casting Couch.
Speaker 2: Today's episode Closet Monster, The Man who invented Beefcake, and
Speaker 2: with Me Today's Matt Donnelly, Variety Senior Entertainment and Media writer. Welcome, Matt.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me, and it's great.
Speaker 2: To have you here to get your Hollywood perspective and insights.
Speaker 3: You know the cliche of there's nothing new under the sun. Yes,
Speaker 3: I think that's particularly true in terms of the methods
Speaker 3: and the mechanics of the casting couch. For instance, there's
Speaker 3: a term we use in journalism. Catch and kill. Has
Speaker 3: become so prominent in the past few years that that
Speaker 3: was actually the title of Ronan Pharaoh's book about sexual
Speaker 3: predators in the entertainment industry. What it basically means is
Speaker 3: is that a power broker will trade the cover up
Speaker 3: of one piece of very salacious information by trading another
Speaker 3: incredibly slatious piece of information. In this Henry wilson saga
Speaker 3: catch and kill has an especially sort of odious place
Speaker 3: in his career. He practically patented a technique to do
Speaker 3: this nearly three quarters of a century ago.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and for those unfamiliar, Henry Wilson was a talent
Speaker 2: agent and manager who worked in Hollywood from the nineteen
Speaker 2: thirties to the sixties. Wilson had scored big as an
Speaker 2: agent with stars like Lona Turner and Tab Hunter, but
Speaker 2: Rock Hudson was the jewel in his management crown. He
Speaker 2: couldn't afford a whiff of scandal to damage the luster
Speaker 2: of this major leading man. There was a problem, however,
Speaker 2: rock Hudson's homosexuality. Inevitably, stories about Hudson's gay trysts surfaced
Speaker 2: and Confidential magazine was eager to expose Rock's gay relationships,
Speaker 2: so Henry Wilson swung into action with catch and Kill,
Speaker 2: and he sacrificed the careers of lesser stars or those
Speaker 2: who had parted ways with him. Among the victims were
Speaker 2: Tab Hunter, who had severed his business ties with Wilson,
Speaker 2: and his important but more expendable TV star Rory Calhoun.
Speaker 2: Wilson leaked Calhoun's criminal record to Confidential magazine, and he
Speaker 2: provided proof that Hunter had been caught at a gay party.
Speaker 2: Rock Hudson's secret remained safe thanks to Wilson's methods, but
Speaker 2: these two other actors saw their careers hugely damaged by
Speaker 2: his catch and kill methods.
Speaker 3: Well, let's dive in. Tell me about Henry's early life.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was born in nineteen eleven in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: outside Philadelphia. His father was Horace Wilson, vice president of
Speaker 2: the Columbia Phonograph Company, a precursor to Columbia Records.
Speaker 3: So they were pretty well off.
Speaker 2: Yes, they were wealthy enough to send him to boarding
Speaker 2: school and then to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and then
Speaker 2: after college he went to work writing gossip items for
Speaker 2: Variety in New York. He got a byline on some
Speaker 2: of them, which was good for a kid right out
Speaker 2: of college. He moved to Hollywood in nineteen thirty three
Speaker 2: and found work writing for Photoplay, The Hollywood Reporter, and
Speaker 2: New Movie Magazine. In nineteen thirty four, that experience led
Speaker 2: to work as a talent agent for a small firm
Speaker 2: in Beverly Hills. He was twenty four then, and his
Speaker 2: job was to find young talent.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a little embarrassing. He worked at Variety. That's
Speaker 3: a pretty good entry level job, though, so, which obviously
Speaker 3: would give him some visibility in the industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he apparently did very well. Variety announced two years
Speaker 2: later that Henry had been hired by the Zeppo Marx Agency.
Speaker 2: Before he opened the agency, Zeppo had been the fourth
Speaker 2: brother in the world famous Marx Brothers comedy act, along
Speaker 2: with Graucho, Chico and Harpo. Zeppo got tired of playing
Speaker 2: the straight man to his brother's zany antics. He quit
Speaker 2: the act in nineteen thirty three and opened what became
Speaker 2: a successful talent agency.
Speaker 3: But his next job was even more fastigious, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: He went to work for David ozelsnig Yes.
Speaker 2: From Variety again. On June thirtieth, nineteen forty three, Henry
Speaker 2: Wilson had joined Vanguard Films, Selznick's new production company as
Speaker 2: head of the talent division. Selznick had produced some of
Speaker 2: the biggest movies in Hollywood history, the original King Kong
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty three, the original A Star Is Born
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty seven, and Gone with the Wind in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, one of the highest grossing movies of
Speaker 2: all time. Not bad, yeah, but he was infamous for
Speaker 2: his out of control spending in his compulsive gambling. By
Speaker 2: April nineteen forty nine, Vanguard was underwater. Selznik closed it
Speaker 2: that spring and auctioned its assess for five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Henry went to work in new talent development for the
Speaker 2: Famous Artists Agency, one of the top agencies in town.
Speaker 2: Later he handled new talent for Worldwide Management. He also
Speaker 2: operated several independent agencies over the years.
Speaker 3: So Henry made quite a name for himself as an
Speaker 3: aggressive agent. He was incredibly committed to his clients. Is
Speaker 3: that right?
Speaker 2: Yes, it is, and he seems to have insinuated himself
Speaker 2: into their lives. He became their friend, the parent, the protector,
Speaker 2: and in many cases their lover.
Speaker 3: And by the way, some of them became huge stars.
Speaker 3: I mean, it doesn't get bigger than Lana Turner, Rock
Speaker 3: Hudson or Natalie Wood.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Henry was Lana Turner's first agent. She was Judy Turner,
Speaker 2: a student at Hollywood High School when she was signed
Speaker 2: by the Zeppo Marx agency and assigned to Henry. After
Speaker 2: a makeover, her name was changed from Judy to Lana.
Speaker 2: The camera loved her, and Henry easily found walk on
Speaker 2: rolls for her, but none of those small, non speaking
Speaker 2: parts resulted in a contract. Eventually, a producer at Fox
Speaker 2: told Henry she can't act. Henry said, I didn't say
Speaker 2: she could act. I said she could be a movie star.
Speaker 2: And that summed up his approach. The acting can be
Speaker 2: added later, he would say. Henry knew that sex appeal
Speaker 2: was often more important on screen than acting ability. He
Speaker 2: also knew that that was true only up to a point.
Speaker 2: To achieve stardom, young actors would have to study acting,
Speaker 2: which is what Lana Turner did. After she learned the ropes,
Speaker 2: MGM put her under contract. She appeared in more than
Speaker 2: fifty movies over the years, almost always in the starring role.
Speaker 2: Many of them were hits like The Postman Always Rings
Speaker 2: twice in nineteen forty six and Imitation of Life in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine. She was nominated for Best Actress for
Speaker 2: Peyton Place in nineteen fifty seven. Natalie Wood was twelve
Speaker 2: years old when Henry became her agent. She already appeared
Speaker 2: in a dozen movies by then. Her breakthrough was at
Speaker 2: age nine in Miracle on thirty Fourth Street. Eventually, Henry
Speaker 2: helped her land the role of James Dean's love interest
Speaker 2: in Rebel Without a Cause. Natalie Wood appeared in twenty
Speaker 2: five movies after that. They included hits like All the
Speaker 2: Fine Young Cannibals in nineteen sixty, Splendor in the Grass
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty one, The Original West Side Story in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one, Gypsy in nineteen sixty two, and others.
Speaker 3: Now Henry's first important discoveries as an agent were two
Speaker 3: men who later made it really big on television.
Speaker 2: And before Henry renamed them, they were Robert Moseley Junior
Speaker 2: and Frank McCown. Afterward, they became famous as Guy Madison
Speaker 2: and Rory Calhoun. Both men were muscular and beefy and
Speaker 2: incredibly good looking. Guy Madison was photographed shirtless dozens of times.
Speaker 2: A gossip columnist coined a new term for Guy's physique
Speaker 2: photo He called them beefcake. Guy and Rory were inexperienced
Speaker 2: in acting, but loaded with sex appeal. In both cases,
Speaker 2: the acting did come later. Both men had successful careers
Speaker 2: in television in the nineteen fifties. Guy Madison starred in
Speaker 2: Wild Bill Hiccock from nineteen fifty one to nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 2: and Rory Calhoun in The Texan. In the late nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: Henry Wilson had a run of good luck placing his
Speaker 2: clients as leads in television series. Along with Guy and Rory,
Speaker 2: Henry represented Guy Williams, who starred in Zoro, Don Durant
Speaker 2: starred in Johnny Ringo, Nick Adams in The Rebel, and
Speaker 2: Craig Stevens and Peter gunn So.
Speaker 3: Two of Henry's later discoveries, were both blondes who became
Speaker 3: teen idols in the nineteen fifties and sixties. He discovered
Speaker 3: Troy Donna Hue formerly Merril Johnson Junior in the fifties,
Speaker 3: and he signed tab Hunter formerly Arthur Glean in nineteen
Speaker 3: forty nine.
Speaker 2: And Troy Donahue had a surfer boy look that made
Speaker 2: him a teen heartthrob in the early nineteen sixties. In
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine, appeared in Imitation of Life with Lana
Speaker 2: Turner and A Summer Place. In nineteen sixty two, he
Speaker 2: starred in Rome Adventure with Suzanne Pluchette, who he later
Speaker 2: married briefly, and he appeared in Palm Springs Weekend with
Speaker 2: Connie Stevens. Tab Hunter had acted in high school plays,
Speaker 2: but had no acting ambition until he was discovered. In
Speaker 2: his case, the acting followed fairly quickly. He eventually appeared
Speaker 2: in more than fifty movies, often in lead roles, and
Speaker 2: then in nineteen fifty seven he became a teen idol
Speaker 2: with the release of Young Love, a number one pop
Speaker 2: hit in both the US and UK. Other hits followed.
Speaker 2: Tab Hunter hosted his own television show in nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: and sixty one. He returned to movies in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: four when he appeared in John Waters's Lust in the Dust,
Speaker 2: playing opposite a fearless drag performer called Divine.
Speaker 3: And Yet Henry's biggest discovery was, of course, Rock Hudson.
Speaker 2: Yes, Rock said later, it was September nineteen four seven.
Speaker 2: I don't think anything important ever happened to me until
Speaker 2: I walked into Wilson's office that day. His name was
Speaker 2: Roy Fitzgerald before Henry gave him a makeover. He had
Speaker 2: exceptional good looks and, like the others, no acting experience
Speaker 2: or natural talent. But Henry believed in him. He spent
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars on turning the former truck driver into
Speaker 2: a movie star. He paid for acting and vocal lessons
Speaker 2: in capped Rock's teeth. He also paid for Rock's room
Speaker 2: and board, and bought him a whole new wardrobe. But
Speaker 2: Rock's first big audition was a disaster. The casting director
Speaker 2: at MGM and Henry were friendly. She told him she
Speaker 2: couldn't cast Rock because he was too effeminate. Henry taught
Speaker 2: him how to be butch, how to smile, how to walk,
Speaker 2: cross his legs, even how to smoke a cigarette. When
Speaker 2: he was done, Henry Wilson really had invented Rock Hudson.
Speaker 3: But with Rock, the acting part really did come later.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, At first, Rock was cast in a series
Speaker 2: of adventure films, cowboy pictures, and war movies, and then
Speaker 2: he had a major breakthrough in nineteen fifty four with
Speaker 2: the melodrama Magnificent Obsession. That movie made him a bona
Speaker 2: fide star, but it was his role in the nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty six epic Giant with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean
Speaker 2: that made him an A list movie star.
Speaker 3: Both Rock and James Dean got Oscar nominations that year
Speaker 3: for Best Actor, and the ap named Rock number one
Speaker 3: at the box office that year.
Speaker 2: And later he made romantic comedies co starring Doris Day
Speaker 2: that were big hits. He moved to television in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies and became the highest paid actor in TV,
Speaker 2: starring with Susan Saint James in McMillan and Wife, which
Speaker 2: ran from nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy seven. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, he joined the cast of Dynasty. He
Speaker 2: began to drink heavily again and then quit all together
Speaker 2: when he was diagnosed with HIV.
Speaker 3: So Henry had many other clients, and arguably he had
Speaker 3: sex with most of them. Like almost all casting couch
Speaker 3: abuse back in the day, Henry's went unreported. He was
Speaker 3: never held accountable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was complicated by the fact that he
Speaker 2: was deeply closeted, like all gay people were back then.
Speaker 2: But it is possible that Henry's sexuality and his casting
Speaker 2: couch abuses were an open secret in Hollywood. The powerful
Speaker 2: men who depended on him for a steady supply of
Speaker 2: fresh talent had good reason to protect him, and of
Speaker 2: course many of them had casting couch abuses of their own.
Speaker 2: But that dynamic changed after nineteen fifty eight, when Rock's wife,
Speaker 2: Phyllis Gates, hired a private eye to bug their home
Speaker 2: above the Sunset Strip. She planned to use the recording
Speaker 2: as leverage in their divorce.
Speaker 3: So three years earlier, rumors about rock sexuality had put
Speaker 3: his career at risk, and Henry sprung into action. He
Speaker 3: convinced Rock to marry Phyllis, the secretary in Henry's office,
Speaker 3: and that wedding took place in November nineteen fifty five
Speaker 3: at the Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it probably seemed like a brilliant plan at
Speaker 2: the time, but the strategy quickly fell apart in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of the divorce. Henry's sexuality was exposed, he became
Speaker 2: radioactive to his most important prospective new clients, handsome young men.
Speaker 2: A new actor hoping for stardom could not afford to
Speaker 2: be associated with homosexuality without a robust ci and tell
Speaker 2: of new potential stars. Henry's value to the industry slowly evaporated.
Speaker 3: So Phyllis's recording may have well brought him down right. Yes.
Speaker 2: By nineteen fifty eight, Phyllis could no longer tolerate Rock's
Speaker 2: addiction to gay hookups. He was putting his career and
Speaker 2: their movie star lifestyle at risk, so she decided to
Speaker 2: sue for divorce. Phyllis knew she needed leverage, otherwise it
Speaker 2: was her word against theirs. She said, he said. She
Speaker 2: hired legendary Hollywood private investigator Fred Otash to bug their house.
Speaker 2: Although the transcript was not made public until nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: it is likely that word got out that Rock had
Speaker 2: admitted on the tape that he'd slept with Henry to
Speaker 2: help his career. Phyllis got almost everything she wanted in
Speaker 2: the divorce, so there was no public expose of Rock
Speaker 2: Hudson's sexuality or his sham marriage. The majority of his
Speaker 2: fans never knew any of it, and it didn't affect
Speaker 2: his career. Inside the industry, it was a different story.
Speaker 2: The scandal led to a gradual erosion of Henry's value
Speaker 2: to producers. It tainted his agency's reputation and exposed his
Speaker 2: male clients past and present to accusations of homosexuality. It
Speaker 2: gradually reduced Henry's access to new talent and drove prospective
Speaker 2: new clients to other agencies. Troy Donahue said that he
Speaker 2: didn't sign with Henry until after he was under contract
Speaker 2: with Universal. Henry was still very well connected in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: he said, but I didn't want to be indebted to him.
Speaker 2: He had this reputation.
Speaker 3: So there are very few first hand accounts of Henry
Speaker 3: Wilson's casting couch abuses, which is you're in most cases
Speaker 3: before the me too movement.
Speaker 2: But Tab Hunter wrote about Henry and his autobiography, tab
Speaker 2: Hunter Confidential. The book was published in two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: the same year he came out as gay. In the book,
Speaker 2: tab wrote about his time as Henry's client and described
Speaker 2: Henry's casting couch tactics. He said Henry's routine was to
Speaker 2: whine and dine young men his prospective clients at a
Speaker 2: list night spots like chasen' Ciro's or the Macombo. After
Speaker 2: dinner and drinks, he would make a pass. If the
Speaker 2: guy was unreceptive to his advances, Henry would get out
Speaker 2: of it by saying, come on, you know, I was
Speaker 2: only joking. But if the young actor was receptive, they
Speaker 2: would adjourn to Henry's house. Tab wrote that's how Henry
Speaker 2: earned his less than sterling reputation as Hollywood's lecherous gay Svengali.
Speaker 2: I wasn't comfortable with his sexual shenanigans, he said, but
Speaker 2: I did play along up to a point. Henry had
Speaker 2: a magnetic personality, but it certainly wasn't strong enough to
Speaker 2: lure me up onto the casting couch. I knew exactly
Speaker 2: where my line was drawn. Late in his life, Troy
Speaker 2: Donahue denied rumors that he was gay. He blamed them
Speaker 2: on the fact that he and tab Hunter looked similar
Speaker 2: and had similar names. He said, people confused meet with
Speaker 2: tab Hunter. His being gay created problems for me, and
Speaker 2: that's where the story started interesting.
Speaker 3: Neither Guy Madison nor Rory Calhoun never commented on whether
Speaker 3: Henry demanded section them but Rory did accept Henry's invitation
Speaker 3: to spend two weeks with him in a cabin in
Speaker 3: the San Gabriel Mountains, And.
Speaker 2: There were rumors about them back then, but they both
Speaker 2: had active romantic lives with women.
Speaker 3: Well, there were straight actors who slept with Henry. Dennis Hopper,
Speaker 3: who was not Henry's client, said that wanta be actors,
Speaker 3: both gay and straight, had sex with Henry hoping for
Speaker 3: a chance at stardom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Henry's assistant confirmed that. He said Henry had
Speaker 2: gay clients who did not sleep with him, and heterosexual
Speaker 2: clients who did, And I thought this was interesting. Henry
Speaker 2: advised his straight clients to sleep with male and directors.
Speaker 2: He said, it will take you longer if you don't.
Speaker 2: If they objected, Henry would tell them you're an actor,
Speaker 2: so act, you know.
Speaker 3: Tony Curtis, who was also not Henry's client, said, the
Speaker 3: whole town knew what Henry Wilson represented. Everybody who went
Speaker 3: with him had to sexually express himself to Henry. I'm
Speaker 3: putting it nicely. With Henry, it was almost mandatory.
Speaker 2: And Roddy McDowell, the British actor, who also was not
Speaker 2: a client, was disgusted by Henry's casting couch tactics. I
Speaker 2: often think what would have happened if I signed with him,
Speaker 2: McDowell said. Farley Granger, who came out as bisexual in
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, agreed it was awful what he
Speaker 2: made his clients do. Men like Rock and young actors
Speaker 2: weren't the only victims of Wilson's callous approach to career management.
Speaker 2: Before he was the Beefcake King. Wilson biographer Bob Hoffler
Speaker 2: notes that Wilson served as a virtual pimp for studio
Speaker 2: bigwig Darryl Zanik and played a role in trying, unsuccessfully,
Speaker 2: as it turns out, to recruit young actresses to Xanik's
Speaker 2: casting couch. During the shooting of nineteen forty four's romantic
Speaker 2: drama Since You Went Away, Selznik tried to bet all
Speaker 2: three headliners, Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, whom he would later wed,
Speaker 2: and even Shirley Temple, but Wilson's efforts warn enough to
Speaker 2: procure their sexual favors for his lecherous boss.
Speaker 3: You know, abuse, especially sexual abuse, often takes a toll
Speaker 3: on the victims in the form of alcoholism or drug use.
Speaker 3: You know, for gay people living in the closet back then,
Speaker 3: there was also potential for psychological damage caused by stress
Speaker 3: from fear and rejection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Henry Wilson was both a product of his
Speaker 2: time and a promoter of a toxic system that he
Speaker 2: profited from. One could speculate it destroyed him, along with
Speaker 2: the many gay people whose lives were damaged by being
Speaker 2: forced to live in the closet. He won't be gay
Speaker 2: when I get through with him is a famous Wilson
Speaker 2: quote that says it all. Tab Hunter, who claimed he
Speaker 2: fended off Henry's advances, was a social drinker. He didn't
Speaker 2: me experiencing alcoholism or drug abuse in his book. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, Troy Donahue, who denied he was gay,
Speaker 2: succumbed to alcohol and drug abuse. He did get sober
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two when he was forty six, and
Speaker 2: lived another nineteen years. Rock Hudson was a heavy drinker
Speaker 2: and smoker. After a heart attack in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 2: he cut his fifteen drinks per night to two, but
Speaker 2: only for a while. He began to drink heavily again
Speaker 2: and then quit altogether when he was diagnosed with HIV.
Speaker 2: Henry Wilson did abuse drugs and alcohol. His substance abuse
Speaker 2: problems became worse after the Rock Hudson scandal affected his business.
Speaker 2: He continued working into his sixties, but his business failed
Speaker 2: in the end. Eventually, Henry Wilson lost it all. He'd
Speaker 2: spent everything he'd ever made. In nineteen seventy four, with
Speaker 2: his health failing, he moved into the motion picture and
Speaker 2: television country house and hospital. He died there on November two,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight, from cirrhosis of the life liver. He
Speaker 2: was sixty seven years old. So, Matt, after hearing all
Speaker 2: of this, what have you learned about Henry Wilson that
Speaker 2: you might not have thought about before?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, thank god he's not working now
Speaker 3: all I can say. But no, honestly, I think it's
Speaker 3: an incredibly sad story. And I also think that what's
Speaker 3: really worthy about telling a story like Henry Wilson's is
Speaker 3: that we see that victims come in all shapes and sizes,
Speaker 3: and there are probably a lot of young men whose
Speaker 3: careers and hopes and identities were dashed because of this
Speaker 3: sort of predation and also playing on their worst fears.
Speaker 3: It's just a really yet another incredibly dark chapter in
Speaker 3: the history of this town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as we said at the top, a lot
Speaker 2: of people know Henry Wilson because they watched Ryan Murphy's
Speaker 2: Hollywood series on Netflix. But first, for those who haven't
Speaker 2: seen the series, Matt, can you give us a gist
Speaker 2: of the plot?
Speaker 3: Sure? So, Ryan Murphy cast Jim Parsons, you know, the
Speaker 3: beloved star of the Big Bang Theory, to play Wilson,
Speaker 3: and I think a pretty brave role as the sort
Speaker 3: of lecherous you know, all the things that we just heard.
Speaker 3: Henry Wilson was Jim sort of embodied, and we saw
Speaker 3: laid bare the horrible practices he used to manipulate, control
Speaker 3: and ultimately bully promising young men in this town to
Speaker 3: fit his sexual predation, to sort of abuse and to
Speaker 3: also profit from.
Speaker 2: And you know what's so interesting to me about Ryan
Speaker 2: Murphy's series is he has said this that he created
Speaker 2: a what if scenario so people who don't know the
Speaker 2: real history of what it really was like back then,
Speaker 2: this is a fantasy of what could life have been
Speaker 2: like if gay men were allowed to walk the red
Speaker 2: carpet right as a couple and if a black gay
Speaker 2: man could be the writer of a series.
Speaker 3: Sure be under contract at a major studio. Yeah, it is,
Speaker 3: it is. It's a sort of a wonderful but again
Speaker 3: pure fantasy in that way, especially for the time period
Speaker 3: had set in. But I'm glad that the one thing
Speaker 3: Ryan Murphy preserved though, you know, before sort of letting
Speaker 3: it drift off into as you said, what if I
Speaker 3: was immortalizing and being very factual about someone like Henry
Speaker 3: Wilson and how he absolutely sort of destroyed a lot
Speaker 3: of young men that came into his path, and so
Speaker 3: much of it I think too when you watch the
Speaker 3: series and even hearing about Henry's life comes from a
Speaker 3: self loathing, which I think is common in closet and
Speaker 3: gay men two, but it's a real his real self loathing,
Speaker 3: like not even being able to stomach himself, and projecting
Speaker 3: that onto hopeful in Hollywood has just been terrible.
Speaker 2: I mean, he really was Henry Wilson really was the
Speaker 2: ultimate in the casting couch of that era. I mean,
Speaker 2: he really was such an integral part, and so many
Speaker 2: people have never heard of him, including Jim Parson, did
Speaker 2: not know who he was before he got the role. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and also, what do you think about Ryan Murphy combining
Speaker 2: the fact and fiction calling it faction. I think that's
Speaker 2: pretty interesting.
Speaker 3: It is. I mean, I think that for a younger audiences,
Speaker 3: which you know, Ryan Murphy tends to attract, that it's
Speaker 3: a good way to reframe history and to maybe give
Speaker 3: it a little bit more positive a spin. I don't
Speaker 3: know that it ultimately serves anyone at the end, not
Speaker 3: telling the truth about how these things pan out. For instance,
Speaker 3: I didn't know Henry Wilson is buried in an unmarked grave,
Speaker 3: But in a way, I think it's a very fitting
Speaker 3: end for someone who perpetrated such crazy crimes and also
Speaker 3: was just such a scourge on so many young men's lives.
Speaker 3: Like that, to me is poetic justice. But you know,
Speaker 3: Ryan Murphy is going to do what Ryan Murphy's going
Speaker 3: to do. At least he's surfacing in these conversations, which
Speaker 3: I think are really important to have.
Speaker 2: And I think so because I do think young Spring
Speaker 2: chickens like you, please, well look at this and think
Speaker 2: about what it was like for somebody like raw Hudson,
Speaker 2: and it really gives you that you really get a
Speaker 2: sense of the struggle even though Ryan Murphy made it
Speaker 2: all kind of work out in many ways. I think
Speaker 2: it opens just like me too. It opens people's eyes
Speaker 2: to the struggles.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think it ultimately makes you a question
Speaker 3: like what is worth it? What is stardom really worth
Speaker 3: it at the end of the day for what people
Speaker 3: have to give away for it?
Speaker 2: And that is a whole other conversation. I wish we
Speaker 2: had an hour because I find that super fascinating. What
Speaker 2: lengths would people go to become successful in Hollywood? Because
Speaker 2: it's so competitive, you're kind of forced to go to
Speaker 2: great lengths, we'll say, to find success and get an
Speaker 2: opportunity and get the audition and all those things.
Speaker 3: Not to sound super academic, but I think the rules
Speaker 3: of stardom have changed a bit. I think a lot
Speaker 3: more of it now is about sort of how much
Speaker 3: you're personally willing to exploit yourself. You know, if you
Speaker 3: think about the role of reality television, of social media,
Speaker 3: it's sort of about how far you're willing to go
Speaker 3: to sort of carve out a personality on your own terms,
Speaker 3: maybe not at the best of somebody else. I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, many people have said and keep saying that
Speaker 3: the movie star is a dying concept, but in this
Speaker 3: context and the architecture of this town, this is the
Speaker 3: era we're talking about. I don't know if it's worth it.
Speaker 3: I think some people would say it was. I'm sure
Speaker 3: Rock you, Rock had one of the most incredible Hollywood
Speaker 3: careers I think anyone's had. But look at what cost
Speaker 3: it came out.
Speaker 2: I wonder what Rock would say today.
Speaker 3: I do too. I hope he would. I hope he
Speaker 3: would say fire my agent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great place to end our episode today.
Speaker 2: Thank you Matt Donnelley so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you again to Matt Donnelley, Variety's senior Entertainment and
Speaker 2: Media writer, for joining us. We'll be back next time
Speaker 2: with another episode in the six part series The Secret
Speaker 2: History of the Casting Couch from Variety Confidential. This has
Speaker 2: been Couch Monster, the man who invented Beefcake for Variety
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. I'm Tracy Patton. Variety Confidential is a
Speaker 2: production of Variety Content Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It was
Speaker 2: produced by Sidney Kramer, John Ponder, and Tracy Patten and
Speaker 2: written by Stephen Gatos with John Ponder and Tracy Patton.
Speaker 2: Research by John Ponder and Tracy Patton with Karen Mizogucci.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Da Lawrence and Stephen Gatos. Variety confidentials recorded, edited,
Speaker 2: and mixed at the Invisible Studios, West Hollywood. Recording engineer,
Speaker 2: editor and mixer Charles Carroll