Phyllis Gates was not more than a BEARD (used as a COVER-UP for Hudson's homosexuality)
(9 November 1955 - 13 August 1958) (divorced)
A secretary for influential Hollywood agent Henry Willson when she agreed to marry actor Rock Hudson, whom she had been a fan of. The marriage was not a happy one, and Gates claimed that he struck her on several occasions. They divorced a few years later. To this day, she insists she didn't know that Hudson was gay and the marriage was for publicity only.
Married Hollywood heartthrob Rock Hudson in the 1950's and later insisted that she married him out of love and not to cover up his homosexuality.
Gates met Rock Hudson in October 1954. They started dating some time later and were married in Santa Barbara, California, on November 9, 1955, shortly after he finished filming Giant. Following a brief honeymoon in Jamaica, their marriage began to disintegrate. They separated in 1957, following rumors that Hudson had committed adultery while on location in Italy for the film A Farewell to Arms. The rumors were later confirmed by a close friend of Gates', who also revealed to her that the individual Hudson had the affair with was a man. The divorce was eventually finalized in 1958. In her autobiography, published after Hudson's death from AIDS in 1985, Gates wrote that she was in love with Hudson when they were married. She stated that she did not know Hudson was homosexual when they married, and that she was not complicit in his deception.