ABSTRACT
Rock Hudson's was a body to fill, even to overflow, the enlarging film screen of the 1950s. In response to its new competition of television, Hollywood touted and technologically reinvented the spectacular size of its image. 1 And Rock Hudson's body, featured in five cinemascope productions, seemed writ in particularly large-screen proportion. At 6'4” and 200 pounds, Hudson was physically the largest male star of the day and his hunky physique was emphasized, even pumped up, by his films and fan magazine photographs (fig. 1). His 1956 film Giant, for example, was promoted as a “big story of big things and big feelings.” 2 In it, Hudson, as (big) rancher Bick Benedict, iconized both the state of Texas and the film's own delirious grandeur: “Rock Hudson is gigantic, relaxed, rocklike indeed, and right for the part,” 3 exclaimed Newsweek's reviewer at the time.
