As he prepared to publish his first book in a decade, Armistead Maupin reminisced on encounters with Joan Rivers, Rock Hudson, and more.
first went to bed with Rock Hudson, the ‘50s heartthrob had a surprise up his sleeve. He pulled out “the cutest little poppers case you’ve ever seen,” says Maupin, chatting on a recent afternoon in his cozy south London home. “That partially was one of the things that intimidated me.”at the sight of Rock Hudson proffering a hit of amyl. But the encounter threw some other generational differences into sharp relief, too.
MYERS: Some of the most striking scenes are actually between Mona and Wilfred. I think there’s a whole chapter which is about a mother’s natural protective instinct of her son. What is really striking is your ability to thread the needle between a young man’s desires, and then this kind of context and balancing the two.
MAUPIN: I don’t know if it’s subsided, I’m told that things get very busy in Hampstead and on Clapham Common. The appeal was to go back to a time before the internet when people didn’t have Grindr. I liked the idea of it being an adventure. When I realized I could do that for straight folks, too… What the fuck is it called, when they sit in their car?MAUPIN: Yeah, I could relate to it because of gay cruising.
MYERS: You were a local celebrity presumably, because of your column. You would get recognized in the bars. Fans introduced themselves to you.MAUPIN: By taking it a day at a time. I really didn’t know it was going to last as long as it did. But in the beginning, I simply had to write 800 words a day to keep the column going in the paper.MAUPIN: Yes, it’s exactly like blogging. I’ve seen it described as weekly in several places and I always cringe when I see that, because it was five days a week.
MAUPIN: Yeah, I did. I knew it was my responsibility to do that. But the old queen that ran the flower shop in San Francisco clucked his tongue at me as I walked past. I’ve never felt it was a betrayal of an old friend. We were at a point in history where this had to be done. Somebody had to say he was a gay guy and the whole of Hollywood knew he was gay. And he has nothing to be ashamed of, so that’s what I did.MAUPIN: No. He sent his biographer to talk to me, I was shocked.
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