Lee Garlington, Whom the Late Rock Hudson Once Called His ‘True Love,’ Dead at 86: He ‘Was One-of-a-Kind’

Lee Garlington — the late Rock Hudson’s “true love” — has died, his husband Paul Garlington confirmed to PEOPLE. He was 86 years old.

The Atlanta-born stockbroker died on Dec. 6, 2023, in Laguna Beach, California, while he and Paul — who moved to New Zealand about two decades ago — were visiting the city to celebrate their 37th anniversary.

“We went back to where we used to live and it was wonderful,” Paul tells PEOPLE.

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Lee died of complications from internal bleeding and prostate cancer and was buried in Arrowtown, New Zealand, where Paul will finally be buried next to him, he says.

“I’m lucky to have had the love of Lee Garlington,” Paul tells PEOPLE. “We were very compatible in many ways, intellectually and aesthetically, in our tastes in art, history, cars and even dogs. We traveled the world together. And one of the things that was wonderful about Lee was that he was loyal to me.”

“Lee was one of the kindest and kindest human beings I’ve ever met and the most important person I’ll ever meet,” he continues, “and I’d like him to be remembered as the love of many people’s lives, but most especially mine and Rock Hudson’s.”

Rock Hudson and Lee Garlington. Courtesy of Lee Garlington

The “shy” stockbroker, who secretly dated Hudson in the mid-’60s, didn’t care for the glitz and glamor that came with a successful career as a movie idol. “He just loved it,” says Paul.

“Everybody loved Rock because he was a movie star and because of his beauty and charm, but everybody wanted something from him,” he tells PEOPLE. “But Lee loved him for who he was, not what he could do for Lee. Lee just loved him.”

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Recalling her late husband’s relationship with the star decades ago, Paul says Lee and Hudson “stayed at home and watched movies and enjoyed themselves as a quiet domestic male couple.”

“When they were together, it took a lot of courage and cunning because they were never allowed to be photographed together,” says Paul. “They would go to movie premieres at different times and with female companions. They would be very discreet to the point that after sleeping over Lee would get in his car and drive down the road [from Hudson’s house] in Beverly Hills without starting the engine so the maid wouldn’t know he’d spent the night.”

“They even put a facade in his house,” he adds.

Rock Hudson.

Courtesy of Lee Garlington/HBO

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By the late ’80s, when Lee and Paul began dating, Lee was still occasionally nervous about making public displays of affection. “When we first got together, we went to see a movie Out of Africa and he wouldn’t hold my hand in a darkened movie theater,” Paul recalls.

“I told him I only had one hour and if I didn’t hold his hand in a darkened movie theater, we wouldn’t get that time back,” he says. “And if he wanted to be with me, he should have held my hand – and he did.”

Paul, 59, tells PEOPLE that as a man of his generation, he has “passed through two worlds.”

“And yes, we were dealing with AIDS, but I was fully capable of being authentic, being myself, and Lee saw examples of what I was doing and I think I brought him out of the closet a little bit,” he says. “That was brave of him.”

As for Hudson’s statement that Lee was his one “true love” — which Lee learned only after the star’s death from his posthumous biography Rock Hudson: His Story — Paul says Lee “didn’t know Rock felt that way.”

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Reflecting years later, Lee told PEOPLE, “I broke down and cried.”

“He said his mother and I were the only people he ever loved,” Lee recalled. “I had no idea I meant so much to him.”

Paul says the revelation “also highlighted Lee’s regret at not staying with Rock,” who died of AIDS on Oct. 2, 1985. Lee always regretted missing his funeral.

“Rock and Lee never saw each other after 1977, and Lee wanted to go to a memorial service and was told Rock wouldn’t recognize him [because he was so weak and ill at the time]”, says Paul.

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“Lee was unique because he was so kind and he was, above all, a very decent person who taught me love and loyalty and whose legacy will live on in me for the rest of my life,” says Paul .. “And I miss him terribly.”

“I was lucky to have known him, loved him and been married to him,” she says.

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