"What's wrong with Rock Hudson? He looks ill." Those words were uttered, more than once, by my parents and maternal grandmother (who was visiting us at the time) in our living room one night as we sat around the TV watching Rock Hudson and Linda Evans on Dynasty . "There's something wrong with him," they continued. It was the mid-1980s, and I'd never heard of Rock Hudson, let alone HIV or AIDS. All of that was about to change. Today, on World AIDS Day, I remember that night from over thirty years ago very clearly, along with the news, not long after, that Hudson was suffering from something called Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It was something not often spoken of publicly. Our own president didn't even utter the terms "AIDS" until 1987, some two years after it had killed his friend Hudson. This would be the old Hollywood friend whom the Reagans ignored when he came to them for help. Rock Hudson's death shone a spotlight on ...