Late in the evening on September 30, 1955, screenwriter William Bast sat at his typewriter in his cramped L.A. apartment surrounded by suitcases, banging out a movie outline. The next morning, he planned to carry those suitcases out to Sherman Oaks, where James Dean, his best friend and onetime lover, had invited him to move in together in a large rented house.
As Bast told the story decades later, after a long, confusing courtship, full of starts and stops, denials and doubts, Dean wanted them to live together as partners and lovers, not just as friends. Around sunset, the phone rang with the news that Dean, just 24, was dead—killed when his Porsche collided with another car in the California desert. Bast dropped the phone and fell out of his chair, blacking out at the news.
For half a century after, he carefully guarded Dean’s reputation, forcefully denying increasingly insistent rumors about the sexuality of the most famous movie star in the world and the idol of millions. In death, Dean would become the perfect celebrity—a silent one—onto whom generations could project their fantasies and themselves.
Death delivered Dean the fame, the love, and the acclaim he struggled to achieve in life. So famous is the photo of him leaning against a wall in blue jeans that he is credited with making jeans the American uniform.
More than 65 years later, he remains omnipresent in pop culture. His face sells everything from blue jeans to cars to luxury watches. Photos of him walking through New York or lazing in a cowboy hat hang from countless college guys’ dorm room walls. Generations of young actors have competed to be “the next James Dean.”
Lookalikes from the young Martin Sheen to Luke Perry to KJ Apa have dominated Hollywood for half a century. A porn star even borrowed his moniker. Dean’s name appears in more popular songs than almost any other, from David Essex’s classic “Rock On” to the Jonas Brothers’ “Cool.” This spring, Kaskade released another one, “New James Dean.” It’s an extraordinary run at the top for someone who was last alive when Joe Biden was entering puberty and whose body of work consists largely of three movies, only one of which most could even name. His last movie, Giant, hit theaters sixty-five years ago this fall.
Pop culture has endlessly reimagined James Dean from the moment he died—he is straight, bisexual, and gay; sensitive and aggressive; misunderstood and manipulative; victim and predator; the best of us and the worst.
As new information slowly emerged over the decades, and social attitudes changed, so, too, did the mix of man and myth passing under the “James Dean” name. Only now, with a new generation rejecting old assumptions about gender roles and sexuality—one in six members of Gen Z self-identify as queer, according to a recent Gallup survey—is it possible to see James Dean as he really was.
We can see just how much he, more than any other star of the twentieth century, pointed the way toward modern masculinity. And we can see how heavily previous generations censored and censured his legacy to try to tame its radical potential.
To write about him now is to describe Gen Z seventy years early. A recent study by the ad firm Bigeye found 50 percent of Gen Z describe traditional gender binaries as outdated, and James Dean had already blurred that line in the oppressive heart of the 1950s. He loved both sports and theater, motorcycles and making art. He was self-centered and narcissistic but befriended marginalized people. He was arrogant but wracked with self-doubt. He took countless selfies in the mirror and performed outrageous stunts for the midcentury version of likes. He wasn’t afraid to cry.
On screen, he could convey thunderous emotion with a glance, his performances erupting with tears and screams and howls, a raw vulnerability few young men had ever seen someone their age express.
by Anonymous | reply 229 | November 12, 2021 3:28 AM |
To his teenage admirers, he represented freedom. To his adult detractors, he was ornery, unpleasant, and effeminate. Pauline Kael, then a rising film critic, complained in 1955 that watching him was like stumbling onto the vulgar eroticism of homosexual cruising grounds—“grossly explicit,” too indulgent of boys and their “autoerotic” fixations. Unconsciously, she intuited something hidden and recoiled.
The trouble, from the beginning, was that James Dean wasn’t straight.
In the summer of 1951, Dean, just 20, met and moved in with a much older man, Rogers Brackett, whose bed he shared. “This guy’s a fairy,” a college friend told Dean after meeting the cosmopolitan Brackett, according to Ronald Martinetti’s 1975 biography of Dean. “I know,” Dean replied, worried that others might think the same of him. He lied and told friends and his agent that they had separate beds. It didn’t matter, though. Powerful people made their assumptions. After Dean acted in a live TV broadcast in 1952, the director told him there might be more parts for him if Dean would let him suck his cock. He knew a refusal might end his career, so Dean focused all his attention on a fly crossing the ceiling until it was over. He later said these acts—and there were several, with different powerful men—made him feel like a whore. “It’s no big deal,” Bill Bast recalled him saying, but years after he felt only anger. Too often, his negative experiences erupted in rude, aggressive, or dangerous behavior, what Bast suspected was Dean’s way of taking revenge on a society that wronged him.
The Hollywood rumors started as soon as Dean made the papers, whispers that he was bisexual or gay. His studio, Warner Bros., promoted him alongside Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, two closeted gay men, as their most eligible bachelor. He burned through a series of short, intense, and tempestuous relationships with women that were often more emotional than sexual, and had furtive encounters with men that were often more sexual than emotional.
Much ink would be spilled over the years trying to pin down his sexuality—straight, bisexual, gay, asexual all found their advocates—but he resisted labels, not least because the labels were tied up in bigger questions of masculinity and manhood. In those days, “homosexual” was synonymous with a campy, effeminate stereotype he couldn’t identify with. After all, he played basketball and raced cars. “I’m not a homosexual,” he told a reporter who asked if he was gay, “but I’m not going through life with one hand tied behind my back.”
In 1955, on the brink of superstardom, Dean defied the studio censors at Warner Bros. In the heart of the homophobic ’50s, he and director Nicholas Ray quietly weaved a queer love story into his most famous film, Rebel without a Cause, a movie filled with questions about what masculinity meant in the postwar world. Dean advised his costar, Sal Mineo, to play up his character Plato’s attraction to Dean, which he reciprocated with knowing looks. Dean ended the film weeping hysterically over Plato’s death, a lover’s lament.
Generations of queer men saw hope in cinema’s first sympathetic depiction of same-sex teenage love, and its only such depiction for more than a generation, but few straight viewers noticed for half a century. Even the National League for Decency, a Catholic moral watchdog, rated the film “unobjectionable.” Roger Ebert only acknowledged its homoeroticism in print in 2005, and minimally at that. Viewers did, however, notice Dean himself, and the more they learned, the more uncomfortable they became.
The moment when he died shattered his life as much as his body. Like a fractured reflection in a broken mirror, those who later sought to find the “real” James Dean could only piece together a distorted image from fragments that never quite fit. Reading through the mountain of biographies and memoirs of James Dean is to enter something like a comic book multiverse, where a single soul is fractured across a thousand realities.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | October 1, 2021 2:48 PM |
Each version of the man shares a few basic facts—the same birthday in 1931, the same loss of his mother as a child, the same adolescence on his relatives’ Indiana farm, and the same rapid rise through television, Broadway, and movies—but no two writers ever encounter exactly the same man. As journalists and authors attempted to forge a biography from the short life and scant documentary evidence, James Dean became hopelessly intertwined with the characters he played on screen.
They needed some explanation for the power of his image. Each writer projected as much of himself—and they are mostly all men—onto Dean as they captured of the real man. In one of the most popular Dean biographies, David Dalton, a Rolling Stone co-founder taken with the New Age, even filled the gaps with pagan mythology and concluded in all seriousness that Dean was an avatar of the Egyptian god Osiris.
Across America, teenagers and young adults reacted to Dean’s death as though they lost their best friend. Girls fainted at the news. Boys choked back tears. Many refused to believe him gone. Hundreds of fan clubs sprang up, and the dead star received five thousand fan letters per month. It’s hard to imagine now just how deeply they loved the person they saw on the movie screen.
The unprecedented national grieving defined what would become America’s new love affair with adolescence and endless youth. Teens flocked to Dean’s next film, Rebel without a Cause, released just weeks after he died, and boys saw in its disaffected teenage hero a reflection of themselves, someone who also struggled to be a “real” man, who nevertheless could be both cool and vulnerable.
Suddenly, teenage boys had both power and purpose and a liberating role model. And their parents’ generation hated it, not least because they worried about their boys becoming like him—sensitive, unmanly, code for queer. And they had the power to do something about it.
Warner Bros. made moves to sanitize Dean’s biography, stripping away the problematic parts of his life, sanding off his anger and harder edges, and making his rebel act a commodity, one more acceptable to the parents of teens.
A year after Dean died, Ballantine Books commissioned a biography of Dean from Bill Bast, who followed his publisher’s orders without needing to be asked and purged Dean’s life of anything queer to protect the man he loved, even in death. That didn’t stop queer people from seeing in Bast’s biography and in Rebel what oblivious straight audiences could not.
The queer playwright W. Somerset Maugham read and understood, as did future gay activist Jack Fritscher. “James Dean was masculine; he was blond; he was hot; he was California; he was American; he was gay,” Fristcher recalled of his teenage infatuation. “I wanted James Dean. I wanted to be him.”
In 1956, Esquire itself scoffed at “The Apotheosis of James Dean,” depicting Dean’s face beneath shattered glass. In 1959 the magazine asked the famed novelist John Dos Passos to write about Dean for the magazine’s fiftieth anniversary. He complained scornfully of the “sinister” Dean’s “thwarted maleness; girl-boy almost,” and mocked teenage boys for dressing and acting like their unmanly idol, all vanity and narcissism and too much sensitivity. They weren’t real men. Teenagers didn’t care, of course. The old men scoffed, but the young men saw a freer, less confining, more honest idea of masculinity. At least for a while. But this was still the 20th century, and as they grew older, the grew less radical.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | October 1, 2021 2:51 PM |
In the mid-1970s, a quartet of biographies announced Dean’s sexual involvement with other men. Looking back, it’s easy to see how the straight boys who worshiped Dean, now middle-aged men, felt betrayed. They had modeled themselves and their manhood on one of those people. Worse, after the Stonewall Riot signaled the start of the gay rights movement, openly queer men like culture critics Parker Tyler and Jack Babuscio claimed Dean as an icon of gay liberation. His picture hung in gay bars. Gay magazines and newsletters discussed his sexuality, and San Francisco’s first leather bar, Fe-Be’s, commissioned a statue of a biker that remodeled Michelangelo’s David as a leather-clad James Dean.
Suddenly there was market for posthumously punishing Dean for his betrayal of heterosexual manliness. A generation of writers, both straight and gay, began claiming he was a sexual predator, a sociopath, someone who should be shamed for his sex life, which they wrongly envisioned in increasingly baroque ways.
Biographer Venable Herndon alleged that Dean had been a gay sex worker for whom no act was too degrading or too extreme. In Hollywood Babylon II, Kenneth Anger depicted him burning his flesh with cigarettes during what Anger described as sexual self-punishment. Just five years ago, biographer Darwin Porter improbably alleged Dean was the submissive in a master-slave relationship with Marlon Brando that shaded uncomfortably into abuse.
In his recent study of Dean’s movie Giant, the late Don Graham envisioned Dean as a sociopathic but aggressively straight predator systematically using sex to entrap powerful older men. This summer, in nis new novel Widespread Panic, aging L. A. Confidential author James Ellroy still depicted Dean as a villain, a sex worker and pornographer, an amoral androgynous sex fiend. “I’m really kind and gentle,” Dean once wrote.
But no one reads books, not anymore. Few people have heard much about what’s in them. Outside of the LGBTQ+ community and academia James Dean's sex life is still news, half a century late. Dean believed in the power of image, and Hollywood and Madison Ave. have long sold a different James Dean to the public, the smoldering, straight stud ripped right from 1950s Warner Bros. publicity campaigns.
That James Dean, the one seen in sweeps-week TV biopics and glossy campaigns for brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Mont Blanc, has been reduced for seven decades to an image, a celluloid saint, silent and safe. To an extent it was understandable. Advertisers and producers had often faced major backlash if they used queer people to advertise to straight consumers, and James Dean remains one of America’s best-paid dead celebrities, still taking in as much as $8.5 million per year, according to Forbes’ recent annual rankings.
The irony is that the image of James Dean the cool rebel was a purposeful performance, the photographs passing for the man as incomplete as the shards of biography that mixed with his film roles and passed for his life. The real, complicated, insecure, nerdy, queer person behind the image, however, remains dangerously, shockingly modern, a twentieth-century man fighting to have a twenty-first century life. It’s past time we let him.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 1, 2021 2:52 PM |
"More than 65 years later, he remains omnipresent in pop culture."
No. Just....no.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | October 1, 2021 2:56 PM |
"To write about him now is to describe Gen Z seventy years early."
MARY!
by Anonymous | reply 5 | October 1, 2021 2:58 PM |
"To write about him now is to describe Gen Z seventy years early."
Just to elaborate, there's something that's at best ludicrous and at worst offensive about trying to equate an obviously gay/bi man who was struggling to succeed in the stiflingly homophobic culture of the 1950s, with the current recently-former-tween set and their silly pronoun games.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 1, 2021 3:04 PM |
[quote] biographer Darwin Porter
Um, no.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 1, 2021 3:07 PM |
When will “Fag” be in vogue?
I’m waiting.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 1, 2021 3:07 PM |
Fag Icon, baby.
Pervert Icon!
by Anonymous | reply 9 | October 1, 2021 3:08 PM |
[quote] James Dean, his best friend and onetime lover, had invited him to move in together in a large rented house.
[quote] As Bast told the story decades later, after a long, confusing courtship, full of starts and stops, denials and doubts, Dean wanted them to live together as partners and lovers, not just as friends.
This part is amazing.
James Dean, "hetero" icon to millions of straight American males around the country, was actually confident enough to invite another man to live with him in his house... as lovers!
It makes you wonder how many other closeted actors were doing the same thing at that time.
Many that we don't know, and probably will never know about.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 1, 2021 3:13 PM |
R4, He is. Everyone knows James Dean’s name just like Levi’s and Marilyn Monroe even if they’ve never seen or heard of his movies.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 1, 2021 3:15 PM |
*Elvis
by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 1, 2021 3:15 PM |
QUEER WAS AN INSULT IN JD's TIMES. Stop this navel gazing nonsense in 2021!!!! This is identity run amok. These people need to do something with their lives beyond identifying with a sexual orientation. This is no different than TRANS assholes going back in history and making people TRANS. Stop it.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 1, 2021 3:17 PM |
GTFO here with “queer.” It’s a slur and has no place on DL.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 1, 2021 3:18 PM |
I always think of "Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," which discreetly held back the ultimate revelation about why everybody knew why James Dean wasn't the father, but allowed those in the know to fill in the blank. I wonder if that play is still playable.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 1, 2021 3:19 PM |
I don't get it anymore. I thought we weren't supposed to say "Queers" about Gays anymore. One day it's fine to say it, the next day there's a thread to say it's not fine. That's why I stay with the word Gay. Because since a few years there are too many confusions within the LGBT
by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 1, 2021 3:19 PM |
James Dean and William Bast were a cute couple.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 1, 2021 3:21 PM |
With this recent photo shoot of Brandon Flynn I think he would make a great James Dean in a biopic to finally set the record straight, and he has the gravitas as an actor to pull it off.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 1, 2021 3:26 PM |
Gosh, I think I was the one holding it up. Thanks for the info. Okay, yeah. He’s a gay icon.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 1, 2021 3:32 PM |
Just fuck off with this narcissistic, misguided “queer” business.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | October 1, 2021 3:35 PM |
I was at the Rosie show when Elizabeth Taylor was on. Liz proceeded to tell graphic details about the accident that killed Dean. Liz said she either witnessed or saw pictures of James body after the crash. She said the accident was so bad that James completely 'bit through his lower lip and ripped it off'. Eww! This graphic part was cut from the broadcast, thank goodness. I always wondered if she really knew, or just made it all up cause she was a diva. Who knows? Rosie doesn't seem to be telling.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | October 1, 2021 3:40 PM |
Didn’t Liz didn’t also rush to the scene when Monty Clift had an accident?
by Anonymous | reply 23 | October 1, 2021 3:48 PM |
R23 Oh, perhaps it was Monty. Sorry, I get all those young, 50's homosexuals confused.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | October 1, 2021 3:52 PM |
William Bast appears to be quite fond of freshly baked cookies.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | October 1, 2021 4:34 PM |
Who’s stopping him?
by Anonymous | reply 26 | October 1, 2021 4:43 PM |
I don't think either of those photos are of Bill Bast.
This is what Bill Bast looked like:
by Anonymous | reply 27 | October 1, 2021 4:53 PM |
I wonder if he came out as bi way back then, if gay rights would have started a couple decades earlier?
by Anonymous | reply 29 | October 1, 2021 4:55 PM |
These people (mostly women) say queer because they want to believe he looooooved pussy too, and oh, wasn't his doomed romance with Pier Angeli so tragic? Like the man wasn't dreaming about being Mrs. Brando or Mrs. Clift the entire time! Liz Taylor called him a gay man and I feel like she of all people would know.
I like Dean, but as I've gotten older I've come to realize Monty was by far the better actor of the two and deserves to be revered as much as Dean is. I feel like if Monty had died in that 1956 wreck that ruined his face, he'd have been seen as a legend, too.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | October 1, 2021 4:57 PM |
His mom Died after a long battle with cancer . James was an only child and very close to his mother. His father was a cold man who sent Jimmy away to Indiana . The most heinous thing daddy did was put him on train alone for 3 day journey with mom’s casket . That’s so traumatic!!
by Anonymous | reply 31 | October 1, 2021 5:20 PM |
I would give you more WWs if I could, R6
by Anonymous | reply 32 | October 1, 2021 5:23 PM |
No one is keeping him from being a gay icon. I was born in 1978 and from my earliest recollections of hearing about him, it was almost always in a homoerotic context. Women don't talk about how swoony James Dean was. Men do. If women mention him, it's with the sort of patronizing crush they have for their gay friends.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | October 1, 2021 5:29 PM |
[quote] I've come to realize Monty was by far the better actor of the two
Agreed. In fact I think Clift was a far better actor than Brando too.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | October 1, 2021 5:46 PM |
Monty had a long career. Dean was a flash in the pan. Difficult to say what he might have been capable of.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | October 1, 2021 6:40 PM |
He was born in 1931. If he had lived I think he would have died of AIDS in the 1980s, if the tales of his promiscuity are to be believed.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | October 1, 2021 6:56 PM |
Dean was hammy, I don't see him getting better.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | October 1, 2021 6:59 PM |
Agree R36, both Dean and Clift would have gone the way of Rock Hudson.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | October 1, 2021 7:00 PM |
[quote]I always think of "Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," which discreetly held back the ultimate revelation about why everybody knew why James Dean wasn't the father, but allowed those in the know to fill in the blank. I wonder if that play is still playable.
Have you ever seen the play/movie, r6? The father of the child ends up being the young gay man, later portrayed by Karen Black.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | October 1, 2021 7:47 PM |
[quote]The most heinous thing daddy did was put him on train alone for 3 day journey with mom’s casket . That’s so traumatic!!
Mary.
It's not like he had to hold the corpse on his lap.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | October 1, 2021 7:51 PM |
R30 Elizabeth Taylor also said this when questioned about his sexuality in 1997:
KEVIN SESSUMS: Part of the poetry of your AIDS service, to me, is an allusion to your performance in A Place in the Sun. It's as if all of us gay men, all of those living with AIDS, are Monty Clift and you're turning to us in close-up and saying, "Tell Mama. Tell Mama all about it."
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: Mmmmm … yes. "Tell Mama all … "
KEVIN SESSUMS: James Dean?
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: I loved Jimmy, too. We used to sit up and talk and talk.
KEVIN SESSUMS: There's been this postmortem debate about whether he was gay or not. What do you think?
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled.
KEVIN SESSUMS: Better be careful—sounds like water sports.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: Oh God! We had a … well … a … little twinkle for each other.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | October 1, 2021 8:50 PM |
R30 Different people who knew had different opinions on his sexuality. His close friend Martin Landau said he wasn’t gay. Geraldine Page also said he wasn’t gay and that they had an affair. Nicholas Ray said he was bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?"
by Anonymous | reply 42 | October 1, 2021 8:53 PM |
R30 Except Dean did have romantic and sexual relationships with women too. He had an active sexual relationship with starlet Lili Kardell in the last months of his life.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | October 1, 2021 8:55 PM |
He also had an affair with Geraldine Page during the production of The Immoralist.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | October 1, 2021 8:57 PM |
R44
Angelica discovered some notes about her mother’s relationship with Dean.
“She usually wrote with a brown [felt-tip] pen,” Angelica says. “But there is one page, all in red ink, that says, ‘People like to say that Jimmy was gay. Jimmy was not gay. At least not while I was around. I don’t think we slept once in those two weeks before Jimmy went off to Hollywood.’ ”
by Anonymous | reply 45 | October 1, 2021 8:58 PM |
When the conflict with Dean developed, Rose may not have realized the situation had both professional and personal implications for Page. Starting around the time of the first rehearsal and continuing into the play's New York run, she and Dean had been having an affair. The attraction was obvious. Beautiful and captivating, Dean projected a powerful sexual appeal, while, with her classic leading-lady looks, Page radiated her own allure.
As if to create mementos of the affair, Dean made freehand drawings for Page, which he did only for those people about whom he cared deeply. A talented amateur artist, Dean enjoyed drawing informal sketches on the backs of napkins and sheets of paper. Page cherished the drawings, putting them for safe keeping in a small, white envelope on which she wrote: "Please save these masterpieces for me by Mr. James Dean."
"According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months," Angelica Page said. "In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates."
by Anonymous | reply 46 | October 1, 2021 8:59 PM |
Another serious relationship Dean had was with a woman named Barbara Glenn. They were introduced to each other by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years. Her son recently gave an interview about the love letters Dean wrote to her.
by Anonymous | reply 47 | October 1, 2021 9:01 PM |
HIs vibe is bi. Just like Brando's was.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | October 1, 2021 9:01 PM |
“It’s no big deal,” Bill Bast recalled him saying, but years after he felt only anger.
*Years* after, Dean felt only anger? Because he only lived 2 or 3 more years.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | October 1, 2021 9:01 PM |
Anyway, women moved in and out of Dean's life in rapid succession; friends soon lost count of them. He would meet a girl at Walgreen's or Cromwell's Rockefeller Center drugstore in the morning, and by the evening she would be replaced by someone else.
Some lingered longer. He went out with Betsy Palmer, with whom he appeared on a television show, and spent a good deal of time with Arlene Sax.
"He could make a moment," Arlene said. "Just walking down the street with him was like an adventure."
Betsy thought Dean was basically disinterested in the sex act. But Arlene has different recollections: "He was an Aquarius and I'm an Aries," she said, "and the two of us really got it on together."
Once, Arlene remembers, they got carried away and were surprised in the middle of lovemaking by a friend who had gone out to buy groceries. When Dean was dating Arlene, she was still in high school---a junior. Around the same time, he was seeing a wealthy debutante, too.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | October 1, 2021 9:08 PM |
R30 R35 R37
I don’t think it’s fair to write off Dean’s acting especially if you haven’t watched his television work.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | October 1, 2021 9:13 PM |
I think everyone wants to claim now (or after he died) that they had a relationship with James Dean. In a weird way, it's like everyone in Hollywood claiming they were about to go to the Cielo Drive house the night Sharon Tate was murdered, but at the last minute they didn't go. I really don't believe Dean was screwing all these people. Bast and certain other people made a career out of having been acquainted with Dean.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | October 1, 2021 9:14 PM |
[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]
by Anonymous | reply 55 | October 1, 2021 9:14 PM |
There's a thread about Dean and Barbara Glenn.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | October 1, 2021 9:15 PM |
[quote] He was born in 1931. If he had lived I think he would have died of AIDS in the 1980s, if the tales of his promiscuity are to be believed.
Wow, I never thought about this.
I guess Rock Hudson is the Hollywood actor I think of who died from AIDS.
But I forgot about Anthony Perkins too. And Dack Rambo.
Yet I never considered that had James Dean and Montgomery Clift lived, they might have ended up in the same way.
Those closeted guys must have been having TONS of sex, given their status in Hollywood.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | October 1, 2021 9:19 PM |
I don’t really consider Dean closeted. He was pretty open about his sexuality, especially for that time. I just don’t get why so many people can’t accept the fact he swung both ways.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | October 1, 2021 9:21 PM |
[quote]I just don’t get why so many people can’t accept the fact he swung both ways.
Because DL has threads like "Do you believe in bisexuality?"
by Anonymous | reply 59 | October 1, 2021 9:22 PM |
Brando was just as promiscuous.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | October 1, 2021 9:23 PM |
R54 Same with John Gilmore. Bast has more credibility than Gilmore, but Bast was clearly in love with Dean. I can’t help but wonder if that impacted his recollections of Dean and their involvement.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | October 1, 2021 9:26 PM |
[quote] I just don’t get why so many people can’t accept the fact he swung both ways.
Obviously because of his legacy and how the media portrayed him.
It was always as the handsome, mysterious straight hero.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | October 1, 2021 9:26 PM |
R62 But now he’s portrayed as essentially gay (like in this article), when in reality he was involved with both men and women. Like R59 said, maybe it’s because most people don’t think men can be bisexual.
by Anonymous | reply 63 | October 1, 2021 9:29 PM |
It’s perfectly acceptable to rewrite biographies of people who can’t object:
Offsite Link
by Anonymous | reply 64 | October 1, 2021 9:47 PM |
I buy Marlon as bisexual, but not James.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | October 1, 2021 11:15 PM |
…still remembering all the things Jamie Dean had told me on the phone. "I don't know what the feeling of love is really like. I don't know if I have ever been in love, but if I have, it must have been with you because I never felt that feeling before you and I have never felt that feeling after you.”
Excerpt of Eartha Kitt’s autobiography I’m Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten
by Anonymous | reply 66 | October 1, 2021 11:21 PM |
I for one, don't understand the frau-like obsession to let a gay website know a dead man who had sex with men was actually also a TOTAL pussyhound. The person spamming this thread is posting separately about how much chemistry Farley Granger had with women......
by Anonymous | reply 67 | October 1, 2021 11:21 PM |
Nicholas Ray also said he watched Dean and a young Sal Mineo have sex on his living room floor.
by Anonymous | reply 68 | October 1, 2021 11:27 PM |
R67 This site is always talking about Dean’s love life, but pointing out he had romantic and sexual relationships with women too is suddenly a problem. Bisexuality exists no matter how much you deny it. And Farley Granger refused to label himself gay, but I acknowledge he was pretty much gay and was partners with a man for 40+ years.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | October 1, 2021 11:28 PM |
Betsy Palmer had a relationship with Dean'. When asked if she knew he was gay, she said "He wasn't gay with me."
by Anonymous | reply 70 | October 1, 2021 11:34 PM |
WTF R68??? That's got to be a bullshit story, right?
Unless you have a link.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | October 1, 2021 11:34 PM |
Rock Hudson's wife claimed he fucked her every night too!
by Anonymous | reply 72 | October 1, 2021 11:35 PM |
R71
Despite the love interest, the strongest personal relationship in the film is between Jimmy and Sal Mineo's Plato. Nick Ray was not adverse to using Jimmy's bisexuality to good purpose. The director knew that Sal was homosexual, and he encouraged him to explore that part of himself that would love Jimmy. At the same time, according to Ray, Jimmy fell in love with Sal. "He knew it and I knew it. I didn't stop it because it was helping the film. I heard him explaining things to Sal: 'You know how I am with Nat. Well, why don't you pretend I'm her and you're me. . . . Pretend you want to touch my hair, but you're shy.' Then Jimmy says, I’m not shy like you. I love you. I'll touch your hair.' I took one look at the kid's face ... he was transcendent, the feeling coming out of him. You saw the film was something to cry about, so I tiptoed away. The next scene Sal broke the sound barrier."
Sometime later, Sal told me that he and Jimmy never became lovers. "But we could have—just like that." I took what Sal said with a grain of salt.
From James Dean: Little Boy Lost
by Anonymous | reply 73 | October 1, 2021 11:47 PM |
James Dean Arrow Through Woman Sketch. Perhaps another Valentine's Day, 1954, offering from James Dean to Geraldine Page: a woman with an upside-down heart-shaped fanny, pierced by Cupid's arrow. Blue ink on white paper, 3" x 5", with slight staining to right of picture, otherwise in Very Fine condition. From the James Dean Museum archive.
by Anonymous | reply 74 | October 1, 2021 11:51 PM |
R11 No.
I may have been the last generation to know James Dean.
There’s no argument Marilyn Monroe is still popular and everyone knows her.
He’s here and there in a few songs like that Taylor Swift song but he doesn’t have that big name anymore.
But me growing up, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean were heavily associated with each other. As a kid I thought they were a couple.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | October 2, 2021 12:34 AM |
R75 Marilyn Monroe was a blonde bombshell who died under mysterious circumstances and had ties to the Kennedy’s, so it’s not surprising her popularity has lasted. It’s true Dean is not as big as he was in previous generations, but he had a good run for someone who didn’t have a huge body of work and died nearly 70 years ago. He was referenced in a number of songs by a several popular artists in the 2010’s, most recently in the song “Cool” by the Jonas Brothers. Steven Yeun and Lee Isaac Chung talked about being influenced by Dean and his work when they were making Minari (2020). He hasn’t completely faded.
by Anonymous | reply 76 | October 2, 2021 12:51 AM |
[quote]Rock Hudson's wife claimed he fucked her every night too!
Cary Grant's ugly third wife Betsy Drake claimed than too. She was his LSD dealer/enabler.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | October 2, 2021 1:05 AM |
Dean was queer. I don't mind the word in these contexts.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | October 2, 2021 1:21 AM |
[quote] ‘People like to say that Jimmy was gay. Jimmy was not gay. At least not while I was around.
James Dean was NOT a fag, and I was the dame who could prove it!!
by Anonymous | reply 81 | October 2, 2021 1:25 AM |
Madonna has referenced him in numerous songs too, her 1986 song Jimmy Jimmy was about James Dean
by Anonymous | reply 82 | October 2, 2021 1:32 AM |
R82 Not to mention “On the cover of a magazine!”
by Anonymous | reply 83 | October 2, 2021 1:34 AM |
R83 yeah James Dean is one of her favorite actors and idols growing up, she identified with him because they both lost their mom at a young age from cancer, both grew up in the Midwest, both liked to a chick people in their town with their rebellious antics , both are bisexual users etc.
by Anonymous | reply 84 | October 2, 2021 1:38 AM |
I meant both liked to SHOCK people
by Anonymous | reply 85 | October 2, 2021 1:39 AM |
I stopped reading at “KJ Apa.”
by Anonymous | reply 86 | October 2, 2021 1:42 AM |
R76 yeah he’s referenced in songs but those kids don’t know what he looks like or who he is.
Like I said, growing up in the 90’s it was James, Marilyn, and Elvis. Their merchandise and references on TV were everywhere. I’ve never seen any of Dean’s movies but I know the “Rebel without a Cause” look and movie cause it was always all over the place as a kid.
Not so much anymore I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen any James Dean memorabilia.
And a little off topic but Betty Boop too. Betty Boop was everywhere but younger generations aren’t into her.
by Anonymous | reply 87 | October 2, 2021 1:56 AM |
R77 Most people have a hard time believing Liz, especially considering there are ZERO pictures of them together. How do you have a “relationship” with someone yet there were no pictures of the two of you together?
by Anonymous | reply 88 | October 2, 2021 2:01 AM |
Elizabeth was there, 88. She was also drunk.
by Anonymous | reply 89 | October 2, 2021 2:06 AM |
Thank you so much for that story, R73.
It was amazing!
Those kinds of tales are the stuff of fantasies, and they're even better when true.
by Anonymous | reply 90 | October 2, 2021 2:08 AM |
Look, Dean was an enigma, with only three films to his credit. There were at least two dozen failed/very marginal actors and actresses who claimed (after his death) he and they were the "love of each other's lives). It simply isn't true, it's just no one can totally refute these claims, much like the 60-75 Hollywood actors, and actresses, and LA musicians who claimed to have been invited to Sharon Tate's house, the night of August 9th, 1969.
So obviously, the mythology surrounding Dean's sexual proclivities, should be taken with an extra large grain of salt.
That being said, I wonder if Marty Landau ever had Jimmy's cock in his mouth?
by Anonymous | reply 91 | October 2, 2021 2:16 AM |
R87 I think Dean’s popularity peaked in the early 2010’s, because I remember seeing his face on Forever 21 shirts and other Dean memorabilia back then. I was also attending high school during this time, and the theme for our spirit week was different decades. The seniors got the 1950’s. I remember a girl asking our teacher if she could print a photo of James Dean in a heart shape when we were decorating our hallway in the 50’s style. The early 2010’s was also the height of Tumblr’s popularity, and Dean’s image was everywhere just like Marilyn Monroe’s. Many celebrities were also paying homage to him in photo shoots, like Justin Bieber and Taylor Kitsch. In 2015 Robert Pattinson and Dane DeHaan starred in a movie about Dean (and Dennis Stock’s photography of him) that no remembers. Artists such as Adam Lambert, Beyonce, Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, A$AP Rocky, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, and others I’m forgetting referenced him in songs.
by Anonymous | reply 92 | October 2, 2021 2:23 AM |
[quote]How do you have a “relationship” with someone yet there were no pictures of the two of you together?
R88, are you a virgin?
by Anonymous | reply 93 | October 2, 2021 2:31 AM |
R92 Rihanna referenced both Dean and Monroe in her 2012 song Love Without Tragedy / Mother Mary
by Anonymous | reply 94 | October 2, 2021 2:36 AM |
[quote] GTFO here with “queer.” It’s a slur and has no place on DL.
Oh, do get over yourself.
Better yet, see a psychiatrist.
by Anonymous | reply 95 | October 2, 2021 2:41 AM |
R93 Are you a retard?
by Anonymous | reply 96 | October 2, 2021 3:08 AM |
Oh, for corns sake, James Dean was a whore. Let's be honest. He sounds like an opportunist who went for hole or pole if it benefited him. No shaming here, just calling it for what it is. Seems like everyone just dances around it.
He was a whore!
by Anonymous | reply 97 | October 2, 2021 3:09 AM |
The prose
by Anonymous | reply 98 | October 2, 2021 3:19 AM |
The prose OP posted is so purple it died of an embolism. Has that author never known 20-somethings theater kids? What’s the big fucking mystery?
by Anonymous | reply 99 | October 2, 2021 3:21 AM |
R92 Oh please. James Dean did not just suddenly peak after 60 years.🙄 He will always be legendary with each new generation that discovers him.
by Anonymous | reply 100 | October 2, 2021 3:24 AM |
He was 24? He looks really rough. Twenty year olds nowadays like ratface Chalamet, and kids on netflix dont look anywhere as old as he looked back then.
by Anonymous | reply 102 | October 2, 2021 4:18 AM |
[quote]Oh, do get over yourself. Better yet, see a psychiatrist.
[quote]—Stop living in the 20th century
[quote]Dean was queer. I don't mind the word in these contexts.
Whatever you say, faggots.
by Anonymous | reply 103 | October 2, 2021 4:19 AM |
R70 Betsy Palmer (aka Mrs. Voorhees from Friday the 13th) and James Dean in the 1953 television special Death Is My Neighbor:
by Anonymous | reply 104 | October 2, 2021 4:23 AM |
R4 There would be no Leonardo DiCaprio without James Dean.
From Wikipedia:
DiCaprio has cited James Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
by Anonymous | reply 105 | October 2, 2021 4:32 AM |
He seems like a sex addict who was bi. Also queer. Also has that James Franco "I smell, lol" look.
by Anonymous | reply 106 | October 2, 2021 8:50 AM |
R105 To even compare the two of them is silly. Two totally different people. James Dean had way more guts than LD has ever had. Even in the 1950’s, James was barely even trying to stay closeted whereas LD is still bearding at almost 50.
by Anonymous | reply 107 | October 2, 2021 8:52 AM |
He was quite mousy. If Timmy is a ratboy, James could have been mouseboy.
by Anonymous | reply 108 | October 2, 2021 9:11 AM |
Nice try, R103. I'm secure enough in who I am not to be bothered by others' use of terms intended to be disparaging.
by Anonymous | reply 109 | October 2, 2021 2:58 PM |
Good for you, R109. Everyone should just get over their hang-ups about slurs. Like the N-word, right?
by Anonymous | reply 110 | October 2, 2021 8:55 PM |
R102 I know it’s crazy how young people in their 20’s look today. Everyone looks 12. Those teen movies finally make sense cause they actually have people in their 20’s who look it vs the 90’s when everyone looked old as hell. Like the cast of “Scream” everyone looks like their mid 30’s lol.
by Anonymous | reply 111 | October 2, 2021 9:26 PM |
Was James Dean a top or a bottom?
by Anonymous | reply 112 | October 3, 2021 12:49 AM |
James Dean was gay-leaning at best and definitely preferred men. Most bisexuals are not 50/50. Plus Dean was associated with the other gays of Hollywood. Most of his friends were women and other bi/gay men, he lived with older men while in LA and NY and his mannerisms and body language were far from traditionally masculine. His theatre and TV work, he was a bit fruity. Hollywood had him butch things up a bit. He had a massive obsession with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, stalked them and saw himself as some kind of reincarnation of them. Supposedly he was very close to his minister in his hometown when he was a boy which may have been a sexual one. He obviously wasn't going to be openly gay and of course the studio arranged beards for him. He had "girlfriends" but the extent of how sexual these relationships were are up to debate. By the way, Monty Clift, Farley Granger and Sal Mineo who were also claimed to be "bisexual".
by Anonymous | reply 113 | October 3, 2021 2:54 AM |
R113 Dean didn’t even attend the premiere of his first film, East of Eden, the only film of his that was released during his lifetime. He didn’t care what other people thought of him and didn’t do what the studios wanted him to do. I don’t see him as the type to have fake relationships for the sake of his image. He was also allegedly groomed and molested the minister you’re referring to, so it doesn’t feel right to label that as a relationship. His straight friends like Lew Bracker and Martin Landau denied he was gay, and he did have romantic and sexual relationships with women too.
by Anonymous | reply 114 | October 3, 2021 3:19 AM |
by the minister**
by Anonymous | reply 115 | October 3, 2021 3:20 AM |
Farley claimed a relationship with Shelley Winters (lol) but never anything beyond that, and Monty was almost certainly out as gay to close friends. He said he "wanted to love women, but could only get pleasure from sex with men". Sal did call himself bisexual, but come on.
by Anonymous | reply 116 | October 3, 2021 3:21 AM |
R116 The difference is Dean did actually have sex with women unlike the other guys you mentioned. Playmate Alice Denham wrote about her sexual relationship with Dean in her memoir. She also denied he was gay.
by Anonymous | reply 117 | October 3, 2021 3:26 AM |
[quote]Dean didn't even attend premiere of his first film, East of Eden, the only film of his that was released during his lifetime. He didn’t care what other people thought of him and didn’t do what the studios wanted him to do.
He attended the premiere of A Star Is Born, that year, his date was Terry Moore. The date was arranged by the studio and I beleive he went at their insistance.
by Anonymous | reply 118 | October 3, 2021 3:29 AM |
R118 He never got in a fake relationship with her though.
by Anonymous | reply 119 | October 3, 2021 3:34 AM |
Montgomery Clift was in a relationship with Libby Holman. I don't know what they did, I wasn't there. She liked younger gay men. He was in a play with her years before. The point is it was a relationship and they supposedly shared a bed at her estate. Even gay men and women sometimes have straight relationships, it's not always predictable. Clift never claimed to be bisexual as far as I know, I don't think he claimed to be anything.
by Anonymous | reply 120 | October 3, 2021 3:38 AM |
I’m gay but claim to be bisexual or “mostly straight” because it’s funny to me. In the era of self-ID, you can claim to be whatever you want in terms of gender or sexual orientation, and people have to play along with it.
by Anonymous | reply 121 | October 3, 2021 3:46 AM |
Libby was basically a lesbian and supplied him with booze and pills - that was the extent of it.
by Anonymous | reply 122 | October 3, 2021 3:47 AM |
R117 Yeah sure because whores never lie to sell books.
by Anonymous | reply 123 | October 3, 2021 3:48 AM |
It’s kinda weird the LGBTQ community these days is more accepting of transgender and non-binary people than bisexuals.
by Anonymous | reply 124 | October 3, 2021 3:49 AM |
R123 I could say the same about John Gilmore, yet this site takes everything he wrote about Dean as gospel.
by Anonymous | reply 125 | October 3, 2021 3:51 AM |
Yep, James Dean *checks notes* still a whore!
by Anonymous | reply 126 | October 3, 2021 4:11 AM |
It's sometimes difficult to get a good read on the sexuality of people from the past. Gay people were under overwhelming pressure, both from society at large and from within themselves, to be straight. For example, people who knew Montgomery Clift said that he was full of guilt over being gay, and he could hardly have been unique. So it's hard to interpret the information about Dean--was he pushing himself to be a ladies man? Was he genuinely attracted to these women, albeit in a passing way? And would we still consider him "bisexual" if we learned that all along he preferred men?
by Anonymous | reply 127 | October 3, 2021 4:37 AM |
I think the name itself still resonates. People have heard the name, and something about it suggests a "rebel." But the person, the actor himself, is long gone from our culture, no longer lingering like Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley.
by Anonymous | reply 128 | October 3, 2021 4:50 AM |
R128 I actually think Elvis is the one who has faded, his image and music hasn’t aged particularly well.
by Anonymous | reply 129 | October 3, 2021 4:55 AM |
[quote]So it's hard to interpret the information about Dean--was he pushing himself to be a ladies man? Was he genuinely attracted to these women, albeit in a passing way? And would we still consider him "bisexual" if we learned that all along he preferred men?
If hepreferred" men he could still be bisexual. Many or most bisexuals prefer one sex over the other. So, yes. I would consider him bisexual, if that were the case. Minus the quotation marks.
by Anonymous | reply 130 | October 3, 2021 4:56 AM |
Unlike Elvis who had a musical legacy and unlike Marilyn who had this blonde bombshell iconography that has been emulated over and over. James Dean's looks and attitude were very firmly a product of the 1950s. I think his popularity today is from his sexuality, he's mentioned in most lists of gay and bisexual men and he's seen on a variety of gay-themed sites.
by Anonymous | reply 131 | October 3, 2021 4:58 AM |
R131 I would have to disagree. I think Dean is a modern and timeless icon. You could take him out of the 1950’s and he would fit in perfectly today. There’s a reason he’s a fashion icon.
by Anonymous | reply 132 | October 3, 2021 5:02 AM |
R132 Dean was also progressive when it came to race. He died in 1955 but was good friends with several Black entertainers like Bill Gunn, Sammy Davis Jr., and Eartha Kitt. Kitt wrote an article about Dean a few years after he died for Ebony magazine and said that he hated segregation and racial prejudice.
by Anonymous | reply 133 | October 3, 2021 5:09 AM |
Dean was a man who was born in the wrong time. A real rebel. They are always gone too soon.
by Anonymous | reply 134 | October 3, 2021 5:29 AM |
[quote]Clift never claimed to be bisexual as far as I know, I don't think he claimed to be anything.
Nobody claimed to be anything during Clift's lifetime, everybody was straight unless they flew across the room.
When the term "bisexual" became popular in the 1970s and 80s, all the queers (like Elton John, Martina Navratilova) stated they were bi because it was more socially acceptable. Montgomery Clift's family quickly took a grab at it - he wasn't a homosexual, he was really bisexual said his brother William Brooks Clift. I heard this on a TV program and laughed out loud.
by Anonymous | reply 135 | October 3, 2021 3:54 PM |
The author of this article had an agenda to sell and used James Dean as a prop. This article has nothing to do with James Dean.
by Anonymous | reply 136 | October 3, 2021 4:25 PM |
I have never gotten the James Dean "thing." To me he always looks too intense and smelly. The "troubled" thing does nothing for me either.
So there. I'm glad to have cleared THAT up.
by Anonymous | reply 137 | October 3, 2021 4:43 PM |
Then you must not be a fan of the older Judy Garland, R137?
by Anonymous | reply 138 | October 3, 2021 4:51 PM |
R135 Yes I'm sure from reading a couple of books or listening to gossip, you know much more about Montgomery Clift than his own brother.
by Anonymous | reply 139 | October 3, 2021 4:53 PM |
r106 is pretty spot on. He was bisexual, and a total manwhore. He obviously liked women and sexed up and romanced plenty of them, in a fairly manipulative manner. He seems to have told all of them the same spiel, they all recall it the same: "artistic soul mates" with Geraldine Page; "never had felt love like this" before meeting Eartha Kitt; the grand affair with Betsy Palmer; "we'll grow up and marry others, but still going to be having an affair until the day we die" to Barbara Glenn; getting it on with a teenage Arlene Sax.
Most of these women overlapping in the same short time period, along with several others famous and not so much (Pier Angeli, Liz Sheridan, Liz Taylor, Alice Denham, etc). That's not covering his openly romantic relationships with men. He had a constant line, and it worked.
by Anonymous | reply 140 | October 3, 2021 5:31 PM |
[quote]That's not covering his openly romantic relationships with men.
What men did Dean have openly romanitic relationships with, anyway?
by Anonymous | reply 141 | October 3, 2021 5:35 PM |
...or closeted, for that matter? Other than the few that have been mentioned. It seems the women are more well known. Or did he just have anonymous one-nighters (and how woud we know)?
by Anonymous | reply 142 | October 3, 2021 5:36 PM |
Oh [R39], Judy was a great artist who had a fifty-year career (and a very messy private life). There is no comparison. James Dean made three movies.
by Anonymous | reply 143 | October 3, 2021 5:47 PM |
R142 Jack Simmons is one of Dean’s suspected male lovers. He was in the running to play Plato in Rebel Without a Cause. Simmons was obsessed with Dean and tackily dressed up as him post-car accident on Halloween. According to William Bast and Vampira, Dean placated him by letting him follow him around and giving him jobs to do, but he refused to have sex with Simmons.
by Anonymous | reply 144 | October 3, 2021 6:13 PM |
R139, you think people's relatives can't be clueless? Aaron Schock's dad insisted that Aaron was straight
by Anonymous | reply 145 | October 3, 2021 6:16 PM |
Oh, you see James Dean skipped right over "gay' and is now "queer"!
This is VERY important to Gen Z gays that the word "gay" NEVER be used EVER. It serves he Trans Agenda somehow I imagine if there is actually not a single man who identifies as gay.
by Anonymous | reply 146 | October 3, 2021 6:17 PM |
R142 Another suspected male lover is Nick Adams, mostly because of Boze Hadleigh’s interview with Sal Mineo in 1972:
BH: James Dean and Nick Adams were roommates, as I'm sure you know. Were they also lovers?
SM: I didn't hear it from Jimmy, who was sort of awesome to me when we did Rebel. But Nick told me they had a big affair- I don't know if it was while they were living together or not. But there's always the roomie thing in Hollywood- Brando and Wally Cox, Brando and Tony Curtis, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott- and there are always rumors about them, even if they aren't true. I think Hollywood secretly wants to think it's true.
by Anonymous | reply 147 | October 3, 2021 6:23 PM |
R143 Dean may have only starred in 3 films but he also did a substantial amount of television work.
by Anonymous | reply 148 | October 3, 2021 6:24 PM |
R143 = teaching us about Judy Garland, and can't understand what a joke is
by Anonymous | reply 149 | October 3, 2021 6:28 PM |
R145 No I'm saying what makes anyone who didn't even know Monty Clift *more* of an authority than his brother? I also saw his brother say that, in that doc, and I questioned it. But really, what do I know? Mayb Brooks knew some things no one else knows.
by Anonymous | reply 150 | October 3, 2021 6:30 PM |
The picture posted by R14 is photographer Dennis Stock, not Bill Bast. The picture posted by R18 is actor Perry Lopez, not Bill Bast.
by Anonymous | reply 151 | October 3, 2021 6:34 PM |
Not to take this interesting thread in another direction... but Dean was a product of his era. And for bohemian folk in the 50s (perhaps in any decade?) sexual fluidity was something claimed, posed, hidden-in-plain-view... often a cultural signpost of one's artistic merit and alternative, "free" thinking. Free love. Bisexuality. In the 50s of course the aesthetic was "beatnik".... Brando, Dean and others in this thread were "beat adjacent"...
... and the holy symbolism of Beat sexual fluidity was the (supposedly documented) bisexual bond between Jack Keouac and Dean Cassidy. Both women-chasers... etc.
by Anonymous | reply 152 | October 3, 2021 6:44 PM |
This is an actual photo of James Dean and William Bast together at Beverly Wills’ birthday party. You can also see Debbie Reynolds in the photo.
by Anonymous | reply 153 | October 3, 2021 6:44 PM |
Isn't it possible that James Dean was just straight, but rumored to have gay affairs because that added to his appeal, made him seem edgier and more sexual?
by Anonymous | reply 154 | October 3, 2021 6:46 PM |
Young actors have a lot of sexual opportunities, and Dean was getting attention on Broadway and TV, and becoming a movie star - all by age 24. So he was going to have a lot of people into him. He probably didn't even have to try. He was exciting, a little weird, talented, and good looking. At that age, in that profession, people of both sexes are drawn to someone like him, and being on the verge of major stardom, even more so.
by Anonymous | reply 155 | October 3, 2021 6:48 PM |
Moody fucked up drug/drink abusing actor Christopher Jones claimed to be a James Dean look a like, even made his short career with it in the 1960s. Does he look like Dean to you?
by Anonymous | reply 156 | October 3, 2021 6:50 PM |
What’s so special about Generation Z? Just look around in any blue-collar neighbourhood. Apart from their gadgets and pop culture, they’re no no different than kids from any other generation. And they’re not more “queer” either. I’m not talking about the exalted lucky few who attend Ivy League colleges. They’re not (and never have been) representative for their generation at large.
by Anonymous | reply 157 | October 3, 2021 6:52 PM |
[quote]Isn't it possible that James Dean was just straight, but rumored to have gay affairs because that added to his appeal, made him seem edgier and more sexual?
If there were a lot of gay rumors...where there was smoke there was probably fire. Compare him to Frank Sinatra - Sinatra was straight, there's an obvious difference in the gossip. Sinatra was seen as swinging and sexual - but straight.
by Anonymous | reply 158 | October 3, 2021 6:53 PM |
He was a whiny actor with an anus mouth
by Anonymous | reply 159 | October 3, 2021 6:56 PM |
[Being asked about his sexual orientation] No, I am not a homosexual. But, I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.
by Anonymous | reply 160 | October 3, 2021 8:57 PM |
Does anyone seriously believe he is a fashion icon? A skinny mousy short white guy wearing a white undershirt with red jacket is “iconic”? More likely he only stands out and has relevance because of his early death and gay rumors.
by Anonymous | reply 161 | October 3, 2021 9:14 PM |
[quote] Isn't it possible that James Dean was just straight, but rumored to have gay affairs because that added to his appeal, made him seem edgier and more sexual?
His sexuality was exposed decades prior to homosexuality being seen as acceptable or "cool". Homosexuality (and bisexuality by association) was considered a mental illness until 1973. So, I don't think those rumors were used to up his appeal plus given so many people in the industry confirmed Dean was at least bi (some saying he was gay) means there was truth to it. His appeal was he was good-looking, rebellious and died young in a tragic way and his image became mass produced and Hollywood spent decades trying to find the new Dean. He inspired teenage death songs and influenced the style of Elvis and rockabilly, greaser and punk subculture. His bisexuality seems more accepted by gay and bi people than straight people who can't reconcile this actor who represented American masculinity (I guess many never bothered to watch his films to see his flaming mannerism and speech) could have enjoyed the cock.
by Anonymous | reply 162 | October 3, 2021 9:30 PM |
[quote] What men did Dean have openly romantic relationships with, anyway?
None because it was basically illegal. You could get fired, you could get ostracized, you could get jailed, you could get institutionalized with forced treatment or sterilization and you could even be killed for being gay back then. People in the industry would know who was gay or bi but kept quiet to protect the careers of others. Even the press didn't try to out people. PR existed even back then and studios paid money to keep the press quiet.
Dean lived with older men like Rogers Brackett and he had a relationship with Jack Simmons. He seemed more brave than Clift or Hudson since he was bold and arrogant like Brando, so he probably would have became public with his sexuality come the 60s and 70s. He seemed easily bored and losing interest with being a movie star, probably would have moved to writing and directing anyway. And he likely would not have been as big an icon as he is had he not died young. His career would have been more like Dennis Hopper (who was an extra in Rebel Without A Cause). I could see Dean in David Lynch or Tarantinto movies.
by Anonymous | reply 163 | October 3, 2021 9:42 PM |
R161 Just because you don’t believe Dean is a fashion icon doesn’t mean he isn’t one.
by Anonymous | reply 164 | October 3, 2021 10:16 PM |
R151 Was Perry Lopez bi/gay? I checked his Wikipedia and it said he was married once to Claire Kelly, their marriage lasted a year. He never had children.
by Anonymous | reply 165 | October 3, 2021 10:21 PM |
R162 I don’t get bi/gay vibes from him in East of Eden or Giant. Rebel Without a Cause yes because of his chemistry with Sal Mineo.
by Anonymous | reply 166 | October 3, 2021 10:29 PM |
James Dean paved the way for the likes of River Phoenix and Timothee Chalamet. He was the original artsy soft white boi sensation.
by Anonymous | reply 167 | October 3, 2021 10:33 PM |
Who was James Dean’s stylist and how many times did he go to the Met Gala?
by Anonymous | reply 168 | October 3, 2021 10:40 PM |
R164 24 years old with double eyebags, just yikes.
by Anonymous | reply 169 | October 4, 2021 5:47 AM |
R169 He looked older than his age because he was an insomniac and didn’t lead the healthiest lifestyle. He probably suffered from depression. But when he was cleaned up like in East of Eden I thought he looked beautiful.
by Anonymous | reply 170 | October 4, 2021 2:47 PM |
[quote]Does anyone seriously believe he is a fashion icon?
Vogue does.
[quote]24 years old with double eyebags, just yikes.
What's your criticism? What should he have done about the eyebags? He had insomnia. In the early 50s they didn't have Ambien. Or injections at stylish plastic surgeons' offices.
by Anonymous | reply 171 | October 4, 2021 2:48 PM |
Actually his unique charm was that rumbled, lived in face.... of a young man. His messed up hair, etc. Like he'd just woke up. Or he'd just been fucked particularly hard.
by Anonymous | reply 172 | October 4, 2021 6:09 PM |
Lol I agree, R172.
Another gay person with the same mindset is Luke Evans.
You know, the gay community is so superficial and judgmental, that it's refreshing to see guys like James Dean and Luke Evans who embrace their natural look. They don't give a fuck about what you mincing queens think.
[quote] Luke Evans On The Man He Is Today
When your face looks like it's been flawlessly hewn out of the finest hunk of rock in Wales, it's only a matter of time until Hollywood comes beckoning. Growing up in the small Welsh town of Aberbargoed and later starring in a number of West End productions, the 2010s saw Luke Evans answer the transatlantic call and take up the roles of action man (Fast & Furious 6 and 7), fantasy hero (The Hobbit trilogy) and no less than two gods (Apollo and Zeus, in Clash of the Titans and Immortals).
Now, aged 37, he stars as one half of a smoking hot and seemingly perfect couple in The Girl on the Train, the film adaptation of the thriller novel everyone on your train has probably read. When we meet Luke, he is upbeat, open and with an easy manner that makes conversation, well, easy. We spoke to him about accruing wrinkles, men crying and drinking all the Aperol Spritz.
How often do you exercise and why do you do it?
I exercise 4-5 times a week. I do it to primarily keep fit and increase the endorphins in my body, which make me happy and gives me a sense of wellbeing. Also, I want to look in the mirror and not see a pile of fat hanging around my waist! But it’s an ongoing struggle – it’s maintenance for the rest of my life if I want to stay in a certain shape. The problem comes when you’re working and you can’t go to the gym.
How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?
About 25 minutes: Shower. Not a shave – I clipper my stubble, I don’t like shaving to the skin. Wash, exfoliate, moisturise. Put some product in my hair. Deodorant. Some body cream for my arms – I have very dry skin so I have to do that. Change, and out the door. I use quite a few different products: Kiehl’s is great; La Prairie, which is a very expensive but is good; and Crème de la Mer. It doesn’t really have any effect, as you can see, but it makes me feel good!
What trait do you admire most in people?
Contentment. It’s an amazing quality that I see mostly in older people who’ve lived a bit longer and realised that life isn’t about striving for the next best thing. It’s a hard one as an actor, to be content, because we’re often looking for the next job. The ball rolls very fast in film, so sometimes you need to take stock, realise your achievements, be content with where you are right now and enjoy the moment. That’s a nice quality that I always think is attractive in other people.
What quality do you hate in others?
I hate arrogance, I think it’s just the ugliest, most grotesque energy on anybody. And people who are arrogant don’t even realise that they are, which is even worse. I could tell you some stories…
If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
Just one thing? This is so awful because whenever I say it people will look at it: My wrinkles. I think at 37 I have quite a lot of them. As an actor you have to look at yourself so often on the big screen or on footage, and everything I see is magnified a million times. But it’s something I have to accept, it’s life – and I’m working, so somebody must like it. I wouldn’t consider plastic surgery, I don’t think I’ve seen it on any man and it look good.
Are you the kind of man who thinks a lot about the kind of man you are?
Yes. How people perceive you is up to you, you’re in control of the man that you are. I don’t take myself too seriously – I don’t think about it on a daily basis, but I definitely think about it regularly. When you’re in the public eye, also, it’s good to just keep a hold on the man that you are and how you want yourself to be perceived and how you want to see yourself.
by Anonymous | reply 173 | October 4, 2021 7:19 PM |
James Dean had insomnia, he was stressed from his turbulent family life and possible mental illness, he smoked a lot and he grew up on a farm thus was outside in the sun doing manual labor since he was a kid. Working class kids grow up much faster. We're just so used to seeing these rich, pampered NY and LA kids becoming actors in Hollywood nowadays that we expect to see every actor to have flawless skin, zero-fat sculpted bodies and to look super young. James Dean looked like what he was which was a rough, working class dude that made it in Hollywood.
by Anonymous | reply 174 | October 4, 2021 9:29 PM |
"People in the industry would know who was gay or bi but kept quiet to protect the careers of others. Even the press didn't try to out people. PR existed even back then and studios paid money to keep the press quiet."
Yep - and this is still the case today.
by Anonymous | reply 175 | October 5, 2021 12:23 AM |
Dean didn't look like some old, withered shoe. Dids you people ever see East Of Eden?
by Anonymous | reply 176 | October 5, 2021 1:47 AM |
All these dozens of people writing and talking about sex with James Dean. Do we have NO juicy details - his cock, ass, hygiene, fetishes? Nothing? Everyone is too classy to give details? But not classy enough to say nothing at all?
by Anonymous | reply 177 | October 5, 2021 3:27 AM |
R177 You do know there are several (disputed) nude photos of Dean, right? Making some money before his first big break...
by Anonymous | reply 178 | October 5, 2021 3:30 AM |
He was bisexual and associated with gay and bi men. He seemed to be flirting with Paul Newman and Richard Davalos in screen tests. His obsession with Brando seemed to veer more into a stalker in love than just a fan of his work. I don't know if he would have settled down with a girl. He may have ended up like fellow bisexual Sal Mineo get more gay with time. Dean wasn't that protective of his image and thrived off of being anti-establishment. Probably would have been a vocal supporter of Civil Rights along with Newman and Brando.
by Anonymous | reply 179 | October 23, 2021 8:18 PM |
Maybe he was secretly FTM.
by Anonymous | reply 180 | October 23, 2021 8:20 PM |
Even though Richard Davalos was more conventionally handsome. Dean stood out in East of Eden with his charisma and unkempt beauty. Despite being short and having a big head, he had a lot of boyish charm, sexual energy and bedroom eyes.
by Anonymous | reply 181 | October 23, 2021 8:31 PM |
Well, Davalos was also short, then, he was the same height as Dean in the movie. Probably had a big head too.
by Anonymous | reply 182 | October 24, 2021 2:13 AM |
r178
This is another nude though it may be fake.
by Anonymous | reply 183 | October 24, 2021 2:30 AM |
R177
Excerpt from John Gilmore’s Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean
We talked for a few minutes more. There was a strange sort of vibrating in the air, a kind of intimacy that was electric and exciting. He put his finger on my lower lip and started to giggle. Then he turned his head around and was sitting facing me. He put his hand behind my neck and pulled my face toward his, putting his lips on mine. It was the first time I had ever really been kissed by another guy. He said, "Come up on the bed before I break my neck." I moved alongside of him and he kissed me again. Our teeth touched, stuck together in a strange way. I closed my upper row of teeth down onto his lower row, so that I could almost bite his bottom teeth by closing my mouth. I felt his tongue against the edge of my upper teeth, and then I opened his lips and he put his tongue in my mouth, pushing it against my tongue. I put my hands up at the side of his face and we stayed like that for a few seconds until we backed up onto the bed. He kissed me on the neck, and bit—though not really hard—into the skin between my neck and collarbone, and then he was laying on top of me.
"Can you be fucked?" he asked.
"Jesus!" I said. "I don't think so."
He said, "I want to try to fuck you. We can try it if you want to." He wanted me to put my arms around him—which I felt funny doing—and to hold him. He wanted me to kiss him while he moved his lower body against me, and to keep kissing him. He wanted to suck my nipples. We tried to experience something more, some physical sort of thing. Again he bit me, and this time it felt sharp. He was holding himself and he said, I said I guess we could try. "I don't know how successful it will be...."
"We have to use something," he said. "You know what I mean—what've you got?"
Some skin lotion was all I had. I replaced his hand with my hand. I tried to go down on him but his cock was big and made me gag and choke. We tried to fuck but it didn't work exactly as we wanted it to. I lay on my side, sort of, and he lay against my back, one leg on mine that lay behind me. With the stuff, the body lotion, it was possible for him to enter into me a little ways, and as long as he didn't push hard into me it was okay.
I didn't know what we could do. It was like it wasn't going to work. Whatever the hell sparked such a situation between us was just going to be all bound up by the impossibility of the mechanics.
We stopped after a few minutes. He said he wanted to go into me farther, but I didn't think I could take it like that. He asked me to use the cream and to put it on his cock and rub it back and forth, fast but light, he said until I could feel the heat of the friction.
So what I was doing, jacking him off with the lotion. I kept pouring it on and working up and down and then he just sort of began to jerk and the stuff came up out of him—jumping kind of.
But we kept trying. This part of the friendship stayed in the background over the next few weeks, jumpy and spotty; we'd connect like electric wires and it made sparks.
by Anonymous | reply 184 | October 24, 2021 4:49 AM |
R177
Excerpt from Alice Denham’s Sleeping with Bad Boys: A Juicy Tell-All of Literary New York in the the 1950s and 1960s
Before long we tumbled into each other’s arms easily, without haste, tasting and feeling. Jimmy had smooth baby-smelling rosy white skin with very little hair except for the blondish-brown pad around his privates. He was lightly muscled, his high school sports muscles turning into longer slimmer dance muscles because he studied ballet. Jimmy smelled like vanilla.
“You’re so huge for a small girl,” he said. Jimmy was a tit man and he lived to nuzzle. As a tit lady, my ravenous paid loved it back. We fingered and tugged. Then went to the core of the plot, the confrontation that twisted with escalating tension to the gory grinding climax. Me first, he was skilled. Satisfied, we folded together briefly.
I never thought of sleeping with a man as starting an affair. I was testing, testing. Checking out his priapic prowess, his real “feel” toward me and sex and women. Jimmy Dean was tender and affectionate. We were lusty; we fit. His dimensions were neither disappointing nor thrilling. They were average, perhaps the only thing about him that was.
We cuddled up together like the kids we were and slept till noon.
by Anonymous | reply 185 | October 24, 2021 4:50 AM |
R183
Excerpt from Alice Denham’s Sleeping with Bad Boys: A Juicy Tell-All of Literary New York in the the 1950s and 1960s
One writer, Paul Alexander, reprinted a nude shot of a young man, supposedly James Dean, in a tree stroking his erection. The instant I saw it I knew it wasn’t Jimmy. Jimmy’s penis was not that long. His was a perfectly acceptable medium length. Jimmy didn’t have a dark thatch of pubic hair but rather a soft light brown muff. He had more chest and shoulders, a more masculine body. That photo, oddly enough, is the only one without a photographer’s credit.
by Anonymous | reply 186 | October 24, 2021 4:50 AM |
by Anonymous | reply 187 | October 24, 2021 5:32 AM |
James Dean has been dead for 66 years and Lois Smith is still alive at 90 and recently won her first Tony.
by Anonymous | reply 188 | October 24, 2021 5:42 AM |
Joanne Woodward is still alive too. The poor thing probably has no memory of this screen test.
by Anonymous | reply 189 | October 24, 2021 5:45 AM |
I loved his sausage.
by Anonymous | reply 190 | October 24, 2021 5:54 AM |
I can't unsee his anus mouth now that somebody brought it up in a previous thread.
by Anonymous | reply 191 | October 24, 2021 5:58 AM |
Jimmy and Sal had incredible sex.
by Anonymous | reply 192 | October 24, 2021 6:57 AM |
I've read several books about Dean and this is the best, in fact it's probably the only good one. It's an anthology of writings about him, by people who knew him, reporters and authors who interviewed him, things like that. The Real James Dean. It's not sensationalistic, for one thing.
by Anonymous | reply 193 | October 24, 2021 7:54 AM |
R13 Elizabeth Taylor said Dean was in love with Pier Angeli in this interview.
by Anonymous | reply 194 | October 27, 2021 9:05 AM |
^^ Accidentally replied to the wrong comment
R30 Elizabeth Taylor said Dean was in love with Pier Angeli in this interview.
by Anonymous | reply 195 | October 27, 2021 9:06 AM |
Liz Taylor did not know Jimmy Dean that well. They had a good relationship on set though and she gave him a cat. But Jimmy did not usually hang out with other Hollywood actors, he actually felt ostracized by most of Hollywood and was disillusioned by all the superficiality and politics. He probably would have went back to NYC which he preferred as he could be himself there.
by Anonymous | reply 196 | October 27, 2021 12:39 PM |
[quote]Liz Taylor did not know Jimmy Dean that well. They had a good relationship on set though and she gave him a cat.
There's a book about the making of Giant, and it seems accurate. I think Caroll Baker says in the book that ar first Liz and Rock hung out and were exclusive, but that Jimmy got interested in getting close to Liz, and he and Liz started hanging out, having very late night converstaions, night after night. These were young people who were 23 and 24 years old, on a desolate location in Texas. They were young enough not to need much sleep. Liz said Jimmy confided in her about his parson, who he had sex with as a teenager. That seems pretty close. He died not long after that.
by Anonymous | reply 198 | October 29, 2021 7:10 PM |
R198 Elizabeth Taylor said Dean was molested by his minister after his mother died.
by Anonymous | reply 199 | October 29, 2021 8:20 PM |
Why are some people on this site so obsessed with the idea of James Dean being molested and hyping up his relationship with Pier? It's like they are insinuating his same-sex desires are a perversion that arose from being molested and he was truly meant to be heterosexual.
by Anonymous | reply 200 | October 29, 2021 10:07 PM |
R200 Why is this site so resistant to the idea that Dean was molested? Elizabeth Taylor told Kevin Sessums that he was and that he could only publish her secret about Dean when she died, which is what he did. Taylor also said Dean was in love with Pier Angeli and that he hadn’t made up his mind about his sexuality.
by Anonymous | reply 201 | October 30, 2021 1:18 AM |
R201 A lot of people are molested. Okay. But it seems some people are insinuating his molestation caused his attraction to males. It's more likely James Dean was gay or bisexual and showed his affections as a small boy and a predator took advantage of that. Looking at pics of young JD and videos of his early performances, he seemed flamboyant and a bit effeminate. He worked on a farm and lived in a small town, so he likely had no outlet for his desires. Hence older men took advantage of that. And when he entered Hollywood, he had to butch himself up a bit. Also, gay men can have a wide variety of interests like racing cars. Contrary to popular belief, children do have a sense of sexuality as in they can recognize what they are drawn to, scent, body type, vocal sound, etc. So most gay and bi people know they are attracted the same sex as small children.
by Anonymous | reply 202 | October 30, 2021 1:26 AM |
R202 I just don’t get why gay people can’t let Dean be bisexual.
by Anonymous | reply 203 | October 30, 2021 1:36 AM |
[quote] Taylor also said Dean was in love with Pier Angeli and that he hadn’t made up his mind about his sexuality.
James Dean was 24 when he died. Most people know their sexuality by the time they are in their teen years. Even more so if you're a male because you have a penis that what will blatantly tell you what you are aroused by. At the age of 24, it's usually denial about your sexual orientation rather than any confusion. Men are very rigid in what we find attractive, far less fluidity compared to women. Dean continued have sex with men and was spotted at gay parties, so it's likely he was bisexual. And unlike the other bisexual Brando who preferred women. I think JD preferred male lovers and would have ended up in a long-term gay relationship once he matured and could settle down. He reminds of George Michael who dated and had sex with women when young but realized he vastly preferred men, started to identify as gay and never looked back.
[R203] Stop being homophobic. Bisexuals prefer one sex over the other. It's not half-and-half. A lot of gay men and straight men are probably actually bisexual but they lean heavily on way or the other.
by Anonymous | reply 204 | October 30, 2021 1:38 AM |
R204 The fact remains Dean had romantic and sexual relationships with women too and therefore wasn’t strictly gay like you insist he was.
by Anonymous | reply 205 | October 30, 2021 1:46 AM |
R205 You can't read. Because I never said he was strictly gay. I said he preferred men therefore he was a gay-leaning bisexual. Sexuality is a spectrum and rarely are people 50-50 bisexual. Just like how straight people and gay people who are attracted to certain body types and other features of the sex they are attracted to. Bisexuals also have preferences too and naturally they prefer one sex over the other because men and women have different features. Why is that hard to understand?
by Anonymous | reply 206 | October 30, 2021 1:49 AM |
A marriage certificate with Pier Angeli’s name was found amongst Dean’s personal effects after he died and Elizabeth Taylor said he was in love with Angeli, but according to DL he didn’t care for her at all.
by Anonymous | reply 207 | October 30, 2021 1:53 AM |
24 was super young. Bowie was still sleeping with men at this age and Freddy Mercury, women. Who knows where JD's tastes may have settled and who cares but I don't think anyone can claim to know
by Anonymous | reply 208 | October 30, 2021 1:54 AM |
Well, if the JD fangirls want him to be bisexual and madly in love with every women to fuel their romantic fantasies. Then fine. I think most of DL is just realistic about the fact he was a slutty bi guy who loved cock, fucked for roles, had many sugar daddies and the studios where going crazy over having to reign him in. If he was "too young" to know his sexuality then how was he not "too young" to know if he was truly in love with these women? I think sexual attraction is way more obvious to a young person than separating their infatuation from real love.
by Anonymous | reply 209 | October 30, 2021 2:01 AM |
Dean was fuck buddies with Lili Kardell (the woman on the right) in the last months of his life.
by Anonymous | reply 210 | October 30, 2021 2:11 AM |
I could see James Dean working with Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey, John Waters, Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch as he got older. Maybe he and Sal Mineo would have continued to collaborate. I don't think he would have had a Newman and Brando career. He seemed more bohemian and interested in the avant-garde.
by Anonymous | reply 211 | October 30, 2021 2:15 AM |
I read a book Newman was interviewed for and he said he believed Dean would have surpassed him and Brando and that he would have gone into the classics.
by Anonymous | reply 212 | October 30, 2021 2:20 AM |
Why is an alleged interview by Liz Taylor (who by the way, also called Jimmy "gay" at a GLAAD ceremony) the highest canon authority on James Dean's sexual orientation rather than the people who worked and knew James Dean on longer terms like Nick Ray, Sal Mineo, John Gilmore, Will Bast, Maila Nurmi, Gavin Lambert and James Sheldon? They all said he was either bisexual or gay. Also, why would Liz call him gay at a public ceremony if she felt he was bisexual and his relationship with Pier was real? And whether or not he was molested really has no bearing on his sexual orientation, if was straight, he would not have been having sex with men in his adult years. He was male hustler with sugar daddies, probably a sex addict.
by Anonymous | reply 213 | October 30, 2021 2:43 AM |
R213 I think Elizabeth Taylor called Dean gay in the GLAAD awards speech because he was long dead by then while Roddy McDowall was still alive at the time and it would’ve been awkward if she name dropped him. She needed another person to name in the speech besides Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson and Dean was at least bisexual and close to her so it probably made sense to her. I find her interview with Kevin Sessums more credible because she shared personal information about him (his child molestation) and elaborated more on his sexuality.
by Anonymous | reply 214 | October 30, 2021 2:55 AM |
R213 The alleged interview is real by the way.
by Anonymous | reply 215 | October 30, 2021 2:56 AM |
“All my life I’ve spent a lot of time with gay men - Montgomery Clift, Jimmy Dean, Rock Hudson"
So, did she forget Jimmy was actually bi and in love with Pier when she made this speech?
by Anonymous | reply 216 | October 30, 2021 2:58 AM |
It's Time We Let James Dean Be The OVERRATED Actor He Was
by Anonymous | reply 217 | October 30, 2021 2:59 AM |
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?"
by Anonymous | reply 218 | October 30, 2021 3:03 AM |
He died young and pretty. He wasn't as good as Clift, Brando or Mineo. I think he was better in East of Eden than Rebel Without A Cause because he looked too old for Rebel and Sal Mineo really stood out in that film.
by Anonymous | reply 219 | October 30, 2021 3:05 AM |
Dean was a talented actor with a lot of potential. I get the impression DL likes to hate on him because Montgomery Clift isn’t as iconic as Dean is and they feel he should be.
by Anonymous | reply 220 | October 30, 2021 3:10 AM |
James Dean looked up to Monty Clift, so he must have thought Monty was a superior actor. Brando and Clift became icons while they were young but of course faded as they grew older. Marilyn Monroe was iconic before she died too just like Elizabeth Taylor. James Dean had the privilege of dying young and pretty. He could have become an iconic actor while he was still alive but was not hugely famous until his death. Prior he was a typical teen idol featured in the 1950s equivalents of Teen Beat. Then his tragic death piqued interest in Rebel Without A Cause and Giant and made him a big star posthumously. Since he was part of the method acting school and had a unique look and coolness, he became a chapter in cinema history and Hollywood had been trying to recreate his image over and over.
by Anonymous | reply 221 | October 30, 2021 3:18 AM |
[quote]R198 Elizabeth Taylor said Dean was molested by his minister after his mother died.
R199 The Reverend James A. DeWeerd was Dean's mentor when he was a teenager, and he read a poem at Dean's funeral. Maybe he molested Dean as a child, I don't know. But as for correcting my post, he did know Dean when Dean was in high school, and later. I thought Elizabeth Taylor was referring to him but it could be someone else.
by Anonymous | reply 222 | October 30, 2021 3:23 AM |
It seemed they had a sexual relationship but it was when Dean was in his teenage years. Which would make it more along the lines of statutory rape than molestation. Maybe James Dean was just a horny teen was hopping on a willing older man's dick? People refuse to accept homosexuality or bisexuality is innate rather than the cause of molestation.
by Anonymous | reply 223 | October 30, 2021 3:30 AM |
Idgaf who or what Dean wanted to fuck but LIz was already a bit gaga here so who knows.
by Anonymous | reply 224 | October 30, 2021 3:32 AM |
Elizabeth Taylor told Larry King that Dean had a very unhappy childhood 5 years before the Kevin Sessums interview. There has to be some truth to it, it would be pretty weird for her to make up that he was sexually abused.
by Anonymous | reply 225 | October 30, 2021 3:49 AM |
R225 Then he remained on very good terms with his childhood abuser.
by Anonymous | reply 226 | October 30, 2021 3:51 AM |
Jimmy was very introspective. He was very shy. He used that shyness. People took it as him being recalcitrant, but it wasn't. He was a very sweet, deep, intelligent and funny young man. And he had suffered so much in his life--a horrendous childhood. You just wanted to put your arms around his wounds, and kiss all the harm away.
by Anonymous | reply 227 | October 30, 2021 3:52 AM |
[quote]DeWeerd became a mentor to the young James Dean (who would later describe him as his “hero” and try to emulate DeWeerd’s life). The Reverend, only 15 years older than Dean, was a worldly man whose extensive travels and knowledge fascinated the boy. Evelyn Washburn, a Fairmount historian wrote, “To really understand (Dean) as his hometown understands him, you must know about the man after whom he patterned his life… To know this cultured, tolerant man (DeWeerd) with his flair for living, his fire and humor, his dazzling intelligence, is to know Jimmy Dean.”
The Reverend became Dean’s closest friend in Fairmount, with whom he could share his deepest secrets and highest abstract thoughts. Marcus Winslow believes he was one of the very few people Jim was comfortable sharing his feelings about the loss of his mother. They would continue to correspond throughout Jim’s entire life. As a young boy, DeWeerd said Jim, “was usually happiest stretched out on my library floor reading Shakespeare or other books of his choosing…He loved good music playing in the background; Tchaikovsky was his favorite.”
by Anonymous | reply 228 | October 30, 2021 3:57 AM |
There's this French actor named Pierre Blaise who was the star of Louis Malle's 1974 film "Lacombe, Lucien". Blaise also died young at 23 years old in a vehicular accident. He was a country boy with no acting experience prior who was scouted by Malle to bring more naturalism to his film about a naive farm boy who gets in over his head joining the German police during WWII France. A lot of Blaise's squinting, aloof and reticent demeanor, expressions of anger, boredom, aggression, apathy, love and existential angst in his performance of Lucien remind me of James Dean.
by Anonymous | reply 229 | November 12, 2021 3:28 AM |