Ryan Murphy Has Found His Rock Hudson for Netflix’s “Hollywood”
Ryan Murphy is a very busy man.
The prolific producer's latest series, The Politician, just dropped on Netflix, and he is already working on his next series for the streaming platform, Hollywood.
Murphy describes Hollywood as “a love letter to the Golden Age of Tinseltown” and says the period drama will cover “several narratives from 1940s Hollywood.” He has also mentioned that it will explore what it was like to be a closeted star at the time.
It was previously announced that Darren Criss (American Crime Story), David Corenswet (The Politician), Jeremy Pope (Broadway's Choir Boy), and Patti LuPone were cast in the project, and now more names have been confirmed as series regulars, including Dylan McDermott, Joe Mantello, Holland Taylor, Samara Weaving, Maude Apatow, and Laura Harrier.
Jake Picking (pictured below), known for films like Patriots Day and Blockers, will play closeted heartthrob Rock Hudson, and Jim Parsons will play Henry Willson, the talent agent who discovered the Oscar-nominated Giant hunk. Willson was the subject of the 2005 biography The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson.
A leading man in the ’50s and ’60s, Hudson starred in films such as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and Pillow Talk. He was diagnosed with HIV in 1984, denied rumors he had AIDS for a year, and died in 1985 from AIDS-related complications at the age of 59. Nancy Reagan famously denied his pleas for help gaining access to experimental HIV treatment.
No word yet on when Hollywood will premiere, but it's just one of many projects Murphy has coming down the pike, including Netflix film adaptations of Broadway hits The Prom and The Boys in the Band.
Hooray for Hollywood!