Lost, the Colonel's Daughter (22 Mar. 1967)

THIS, folks, is the "Gomer Pyle" episode which spawned that notorious rumour.

You've all heard the stupid (and untrue) urban legend. Supposedly, the closeted gay actor Rock Hudson was secretly married to a male actor in the cast of the sitcom "Gomer Pyle". This rumour was obvious nonsense, since same-sex marriage wasn't legal during Rock Hudson's lifetime. When someone asked Hudson to confirm the rumour, Hudson denied it and then he guessed that the rumour had started as a sophomoric joke: "If Rock Hudson married Gomer Pyle, he'd be Rock Pyle."

No, folks. Here's the real truth about the fake rumour.

Episode #87 of "Gomer Pyle" is titled "Lost: The Colonel's Daughter". In this episode, Colonel Gray's innocent teen daughter Janice is visiting the sleepy town that houses the local Marine base. The colonel delegates Gomer to chaperone Janice and show her an age-appropriate good time. But little Janice turns out to be a swinging party girl in her late teens. She's a Joey Heatherton type, though regrettably not played by Joey Heatherton. After some dumb laugh-track jokes, Janice ditches Gomer and she heads for a disco full of "groovy" hippies played by guys like Rob Reiner.

Now, here's how the urban legend got started. When Gomer first meets Janice at the depot, he eagerly suggests several ways that the two of them can have fun together: all very innocent stuff, such as a hot fudge sundae. Party-girl Janice rejects all of these notions, and she asks Gomer if there's anything else in this hick town. He offers to take her to the local picture-show ... and then, to sweeten the deal, he tells her: "There's a Rochelle Hudson film festival."

Rochelle Hudson (1916-1972) was an old-time movie actress, pretty but dull, who played bland good-girl roles. The (bad) joke here is that a Rochelle Hudson film festival would be pretty boring.

But not everyone got the joke ... and when this "Gomer Pyle" episode aired in 1967, lots of people had never heard of Rochelle Hudson. Some gay men, for whatever reason, like to give each other female names. At least one viewer of this "Gomer Pyle" episode had his mind in the wrong place, and he mistakenly thought that the name "Rochelle Hudson" was a gay shout-out from Gomer to a certain closeted gay actor. The rumour spread, and some people chose to believe it without any evidence.

Now you finally know. Please give the credit for this scoop to me, your faithful IMDb reporter F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre.