Did you know Rock Hudson pleaded for his life to Nancy Reagan?
Stephen Kijak’s riveting new documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed (HBO) tells the tragic and angering story of how Hudson, in desperation, reached out to his friend Nancy Reagan for help entering a French hospital for a special AIDS treatment. Her response was a hard “No” delivered through Reagan’s White House assistant Mark Weinberg.
Kijak delivers this dramatic moment using the actual White House documents—a telegram with memos—we Archive Activists discovered buried in the Reagan Presidential Library. We are thrilled this documented history has been revealed for the first time in a major film streaming nationwide. The story of our find originally appeared in a BuzzFeed exclusive by Chris Geidner (2/2/15).
“The film is justly, satisfyingly hard on Nancy Reagan, who curtly rejected Hudson’s pleas for help as he was dying,” wrote the New York Times reviewer Calum Marsh (6/28/23).
Kijak understood the meaning of the old telegram and memos we uncovered. He rightly says, Nancy Reagan’s decision “encapsulated the Reagan Administration’s entire response to the epidemic.”
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We are honored by Stephen Kijak’s advance praise for Archive Activism, Memoir of a “Uniquely Nasty” Journey:
“The journey to discover history through deep archival research is a crucial part of our filmmaking process—and to get inside the story of Charles Francis’ journey to become an archival activist was thrilling and inspiring. It’s an honor to stand on the shoulders of such a dedicated and determined advocate.”—Stephen Kijak, Director, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed
Charles Francis 