Nancy Reagan refused to help dying Hollywood star Rock Hudson get a bed at a French hospital at the forefront of experimental treatment for AIDS, it has been claimed. Then First Lady Mrs Reagan turned down a request from Hudson's publicist for help getting the actor transferred to a French military hospital where he could be seen by Dr Dominique Dormant. Dr Dormant, who had treated Hudson for AIDS months earlier, was at the time working on an early experimental drug that promised to help bolster the immune systems of AIDS sufferers. Scroll down for video Secret illness: Rock Hudson looks frail and weak as he stands with Liza Minelli and Elizabeth Taylor at the Golden Globes in January 1985, less than nine months before his death from AIDS
@highlight
Actor sought a bed at French hospital at forefront of AIDS treatment
@highlight
Hudson's U.S. publicist sent telegram begging First Lady to intervene
@highlight
But she refused saying she didn't want to be seen to help out friends
@highlight
French officials eventually helped Hudson get a bed at the military hospital
@highlight
But by then his AIDS had progressed too far and he couldn't be helped
Rock Hudson in 1985: By the mid-1980s @placeholder was no longer the broad-shouldered embodiment of 'the American man', but he was still keeping his illness - and his homosexuality - a secret