GAY ICONS 2: JAMES DEAN’S HANDS WERE FREE

[PeterRS]

Is he perhaps the youngest of all gay icons? Even today we don't really know if the moody, rebellious actor with whom so many disaffected, misunderstood, sexually confused teenagers around the world of the 1950s identified so closely was really gay. He could have been bisexual, or even - horror of horrors! - straight. Yet James Dean is now regarded as one of the great gay icons of all time. In his first two films, "East of Eden" and "Rebel Without A Cause", the angst-ridden, complex, outcast misfits he played sprang out from the screen and gripped audiences in a way no other young actor had achieved.

During his short career, Dean's name was linked to a number of actresses, notably Pier Angeli who would write lovingly of her "affair" with "Jimmie" before she committed suicide at the age of 39. For a while they dated in California. Yet when he was on a visit to New York after completing “East of Eden”, she surprised him by announcing her engagement to the singer Vic Damone. At the time, few had reason not to believe her story. Yet William Bast who had been Dean’s roommate in Los Angeles and New York for five years and was Dean’s first biographer, believes the relationship with Angeli was a mere PR stunt. Doubts only began to appear some decades later when it was realized how strictly the Hollywood studio system controlled the public images of their stars. If it could keep the openly gay life of matinee idol Rock Hudson secret for decades, partly through sham affairs and partly by insisting he was working too hard, it's surely easy to believe it would have little difficulty shaping a wholesome image for its rebellious younger star.

Was he gay? Bast, who later came out of the closet, claims that he and Dean experimented sexually. In an article in Britain’s The Guardian he reminded readers that homosexuality then was so far off the suburban radar that someone like Dean could give off all kinds of gay visual clues without anyone realizing.  When you look at the scenes in "Rebel Without A Cause" where he and the younger mid-teen, cherubic-faced Sal Mineo (who was 15 at the time) are together, many in the gay community now consider these could definitely be two gay young lovers, the more so as Mineo eventually came out as bisexual (in those days as good as saying he was homosexual). In their book Live Fast, Die Young; The Wild Ride Of Making Rebel Without A Cause, film critics Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel note that an earlier version of the movie’s script even featured a scene in which Jim (Dean) and Plato (Mineo) shared a kiss. It was cut only because the Hollywood self-censors of that time would never have approved the scene.

Mineo was nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscars for “Rebel Without A Cause” and later “Exodus”. He was murdered outside his home at age 37, almost certainly a burglary gone wrong and nothing to do with his sexuality.

Elia Kazan, the director of "East of Eden", noted in his autobiography that Dean could not possibly have had successful relationships with girls. After spending several months in close proximity to Dean, surely he would be more likely to know than some of the early hagiographers who were paid to tow the studio line? Nicholas Ray, the director of “Rebel Without A Cause” is also on record as saying Dean was almost certainly gay. 

A dozen or so years ago the latest of a whole series of books that has placed ever more lurid so-called facts into the public domain was published. Elizabeth Taylor, his “Giant” co-star, stated to the press that Dean had told her he had been sexually abused by a priest after the death of his mother. In James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes the author alleges lurid sexual relationships with a host of well-known names, including Elizabeth Taylor and even the closet gay director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover! Inevitably, Dean's sexual escapades have been embellished as the years have passed and the growing worldwide gay community yearns for more gay icons. Who better than the fiery rebel James Dean whose good looks smoulder so passionately on the screen? Obviously much of what has been written is probably drivel; but as they say, can there be smoke without fire?

Dean only starred in three feature films. On the basis of these alone, he deserves his place in the pantheon of great movie stars. Yet it was his untimely death at the age of just 24 that has resulted in his memory living on as more of a cult hero and icon. Five weeks before "East of Eden" opened and just after "Giant" had wrapped, he was driving his Porsche 550 Spyder in California when it skidded into another car. He was dead within seconds.

That untimely death certainly added to his legendary status, especially amongst millions of grieving teenagers - of whom a good proportion were no doubt themselves gay and, these being the 1950s, still in the closet. Of his sexuality, Dean himself went as far as to say, "No, I am not a homosexual," adding almost conspiratorially, "But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back." In the early 1950s and with studio executives breathing down his neck, that was I suspect as much as he could possibly say. 

Some have suggested that like many hot-blooded young men he enjoyed experimenting with sex. Not so the feminist author Germaine Greer who wrote in 2005, "Looking back over half a century . . . the one thing that now seems obvious is that the boy was as queer as a coot." Whatever the truth, Gay Times' Readers' Awards had no hesitation citing him as "the male gay icon of all time."

[PeterRS]

Merely to amplify one point in the above article. Sal Mineo finally came out as gay and was in a six year relationship with Courtney Burr III at the time of his death. He was obviously a deeply confused young man - as so many were then. Tennessee Williams, in one of whose plays he had appeared at the age of 12 and who remained a good friend, wrote of him after his death –

"He cared deeply about so many things: acting, art, photography, life, spirituality. Because so many had extracted sex from him either in the form of abuse or desire, sexual favors and flirtation was a currency he understood and offered most freely.

“Sal was not a degenerate. Sal was a gentleman, greatly misunderstood, desired, used. When he was murdered—underground and in the dark—rumors and speculation arose about his dark life and sordid associates. This is how we pervert homosexuality; this is how we allow ourselves to believe that queers invite their destinies, their deaths. A so-called merciful God exacted His judgment on Sal in the dark garage in West Hollywood, and on we go."