Rock Hudson in Palm Springs

As a follow-up to yesterday's entry on The Colony Palms Hotel, today's post features 50's matinee idol Rock Hudson during a few visits to Palm Springs. Bob Beerman, staff photgrapher for Modern Screen Magazine, shot these images between 1954 & 1955.

Betty Abbott was a script girl at Universal, working on nine successive Rock Hudson pictures at the beginning of his career. At night, the two would get together socially and gab about what had happened during the day at the studio.



The gossip rags of the day claimed that Betty was on her way to being the "second Mrs. Hudson," which would seem fairly believable when looking at these photos taken at the Palm Springs Racquet Club.



As most are aware of now, Hudson was gay and most of the dating fodder published in the rags was for appearance's sake. Whether Betty knew she was being used for publicity purposes or not is unknown.



From much of what I have read though, most in Hollywood knew about Rock and his sexual preferences.



Here the two enjoy a frosty treat at a local ice cream shop.





Rock butches it up for these two photos, as he looks under the hood of the car of Palm Springs resident and actor Charles Farrell.



Farrell was big in the silent era and had a respectable career that spanned into the talkies as well as TV "My Little Margie." Once retired from the screen, he opened up The Racquet Club along with actor Ralph Bellamy.



See more Rock Hudson photos on my Rock Hudson photo web page.