James Dean

by Darwin Porter

  Of course, Brackett was ready and willing to pay for the damages.

  During their drive together from Bradshaw’s back to Hollywood, Brackett lectured Jimmy like a stern father. “Do you really have to test my love by performing one outrageous stunt after another? You have my love, god damn it. So quit pulling this shit. The next thing I know, you’ll be smashing up my car.”

  When Bradshaw talked to Brackett the next day, the writer said, “Naturally, you’re invited over Sunday for brunch, but do you have to bring Jimmy with you?”

  “Please understand that I’m afraid NOT to bring him. I don’t trust him wandering around Los Angeles by himself on a Sunday afternoon. Who knows what trouble he’ll find?”

  “Okay, but I’ll have the fire department standing by.”

  Jimmy’s negative attitude about Bradshaw changed completely after he heard that the author was working on a Class A movie script entitled Tribute to a Bad Man, whose plot revolved around three betrayals catalyzed by the manipulations of a Hollywood producer. There was a small role in it that called for a sullen but exceedingly handsome young man. Bradshaw told Brackett. “I had your Jimmy in mind when I created this pivotal scene.”

  [After additional input from Charles Schnee, Bradshaw’s original title was later changed to The Bad and the Beautiful. A campy showcase forever after associated with the life and legend of Lana Turner, it was directed by Vincente Minnelli and released in 1952.

  That week, instead of adhering to their usual Sunday afternoon schedule, Brackett took Jimmy to Bradshaw’s home on a Monday night, because Brackett wanted to meet Lana Turner, who had agreed to show up there at around 8PM. He knew many stars in Hollywood, but had never met Lana, who was one of his all-time, most fixated-upon favorites.

  That Monday night at Bradshaw’s, Brackett and Jimmy were each eagerly awaiting Lana’s arrival, who didn’t appear until 9:30PM. She had been driven to Bradshaw’s house by an anonymous, shadowy-looking male escort who refused to join the gathering, opting instead to remain within her car, parked outside.

  She politely accepted “gushing tributes” from both Jimmy and Brackett, as if it were her due. At one point during their conversation, she expressed her dislike of the leading men emerging from Hollywood of the 1950s, notably Marlon Brando and Monty Clift. “Give me Clark Gable or Robert Taylor any time, especially that handsome devil Tyrone Power. Errol Flynn was a darling, and I just adored John Hodiak, not to mention Victor Mature!”

  Honey, don’t fail to mention your Tarzan, Lex Barker,” Bradshaw said. “Talk about sex appeal!”

  “There were problems with him I don’t care to discuss,” she said, stiffly, changing the subject.

  Lana had read the first draft of Bradshaw’s film script, and she was thrilled with her role of Georgia Lorrison. “I think it might be my greatest part to date. For the daring car scene alone, when I leave the home of my lover who has betrayed me, I’ll probably get an Oscar if I can pull it off. MGM kicked out poor Judy Garland, but I want to hold my own. Incidentally, I saw Judy two days ago. She’s a pathetic little thing. Fired from Annie Get Your Gun. I think it’s all downhill for her from now on, but not for me.”

  Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas in a scene from The Bad and the Beautiful that, based on censorship standards of its day, was “shockingly erotic.”

  The first draft of the script had Lana discovering that her lover, as played by Kirk, also had a male lover, to be played by James Dean.

  “Judy was good for my ego. She told me her greatest desire in life was to be Lana Turner. She said that compared to me, she was a polliwog, a tadpole on its way to becoming a frog.”

  At one point, Lana seemed to take notice of Jimmy, who was flattered by her attention. “Don’t tell me: You want to be an actor?” she asked. “Please, not another Brando clone.”

  “Hell, no!” he said. “I have my own style and technique. I can act rings around Brando and make an audience actually understand what I’m saying.”

  “Good for you, dear heart.” Within minutes after a final drink, Lana was ready to leave. “I’ve got a hot date waiting for me in the car. I would have invited him in, but I didn’t want you guys to go ape-shit over him and steal him from me for the night.”

  ***

  The following Sunday afternoon, according to their ritual, Brackett and Jimmy were back at Bradshaw’s home. This time, Bradshaw read a scene to them through which Jimmy might make his screen debut. “Can you imagine a guy like me making love on screen to Lana Turner?” Jimmy asked.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Bradshaw cautioned. He outlined the scene for them, and it was, indeed, a dazzling one. For the first time, and against the Production Code, he wanted to blatantly depict homosexuality on the screen.

  In his draft of the script, Georgia Lorrison, as played by Lana, arrives unexpectedly at the home of director Jonathon Shields (to be portrayed by Kirk Douglas). She confronts him in his foyer to demand an explanation and/or apology for his failure to escort her, as had been pre-arranged, to a premiere.

  During their confrontation, a shadowy, mostly undressed male figure suddenly appears at the top of the stairs, having just emerged, it’s made clear, from Shields’ bedroom. It’s a handsome young man clad only in a pair of boxer shorts. Without uttering a word, he stares enigmatically, perhaps with a sense of triumph, down at Lana.

  “If Jimmy is assigned the part,” Bradshaw predicted, “the girls will swoon and the gay men will go crazy.”

  Although Jimmy was vastly intrigued, Brackett suspected and feared that the scene would never pass the scrutiny of the censors.

  “You won’t have any spoken dialogue,” Bradshaw said. “But your defiant face will show it all. You’ll portray the man who stole the (male) lover of Lana Turner, one of the most desirable women on the planet.”

  Walter Pidgeon

  INTRODUCES JIMMY TO SEX WITH HIS LONGTIME COMPANION TOGETHER, THEY SEDUCE THE YOUNG ACTOR

  Before Bradshaw headed back to New York, the cast of Tribute to a Bad-man (aka, The Bad and the Beautiful) had been approved by producer John Houseman. Vincente Minnelli, Judy Garland’s former husband, had cast the major roles. In addition to Lana and Kirk Douglas, other leading actors included Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, and Gloria Grahame.

  Motivated in part by politics associated with the studio, Bradshaw hosted a cocktail party to which he invited the stars along with the film’s producer and director. Lana had an important engagement that night and didn’t show up, but the rest of the distinguished guests did.

  Brackett had informed Jimmy that Minnelli was gay and that he would probably come on to him. That was more or less what happened, although the director’s time was for the most part monopolized by his stars.

  During the party, Jimmy got to spend at least twenty minutes with Houseman, who was not gay, but seemed genuinely interested in the young man as an actor. “Let me know how I can reach you. There’s a picture coming up that might be ideal for you. And don’t think that is some bullshit line. I like women. I really know of a role in an upcoming movie that you might be ideal for, but you’ll have to pass a screen test.”

  Jimmy had been in Hollywood long enough not to be shocked at what transpired at parties there. But later, he was nonetheless surprised when Pidgeon engaged him in a long conversation on the oceanfront terrace.

  Pidgeon? Gay? Could it be? It certainly appeared that way to Jimmy. Pidgeon asked if Jimmy could come to the address he provided on the upcoming Friday night at around 9PM. “I want to talk to you about your career.”

  Jimmy decided to do something impulsive. Pidgeon, even though his career was in decline, was one of the most influential stars in Hollywood. As a kid, he’d seen those Pidgeon and Greer Garson movies, including Mrs. Miniver (1942).

  Before they parted, Jimmy kissed the veteran actor passionately on the lips. “That’s so you won’t forget me.”

  Greer Garson with Walter Pidgeon in the hugely influential Mrs. Mi
niver, one of the greatest tear-jerking propaganda films to emerge from the early days of World War II.

  “I’ll count the hours until we meet again.”

  ***

  Jimmy, as was his way, later confessed details of his sexual encounter with Walter Pidgeon to Brackett. Perhaps he had two reasons: One to make his sponsor/lover jealous, and perhaps also to prove that he could inaugurate contacts with major stars all on his own.

  Hedda Hopper once labeled Pidgeon as “the only guaranteed straight man in Hollywood, and I’m not using the expression in the comedic sense.”

  The Canadian actor’s homosexuality was whispered about by the elite of Hollywood and once came to the attention of that homophobe, Louis B. Mayer at MGM.

  But public or written exposure of Pidgeon’s gay life has been rare. A notable exception occurred when Hollywood’s “star fucker,” Scotty Bowers, published his memoirs, Full Service, in 2012. The book was reviewed twice in The New York Times and received the endorsement of such skeptics as Gore Vidal.

  Bowers serviced both male and female stars. He opens his book with a description of his seduction by Pidgeon at the home of his longtime lover, Jacques Potts, a milliner to the stars. Despite the status of Potts and Pidgeon as lovers, Pidgeon was married to Ruth Walker, whom he’d wed in 1931.

  The following Friday, after a rendezvous at their designated location, Pidgeon drove Jimmy up Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills to a spacious, elegantly furnished home. He told Jimmy that the house had been built by Harold Lloyd, the famous comic actor of the silent screen in the 1920s.

  Potts was at the door to greet “Pidge,” as he called him. He kissed his lover before turning to appraise their conquest. Then he smiled his approval. “Dear boy,” he said to Pidge. “You sure know how to pick ‘em. This kid is impressive, indeed.”

  Jimmy resented being treated like a “piece of meat,” as he’d later tell Brackett, but decided to go along with the act for the money.

  After being offered a drink, Jimmy was invited out onto the terrace that encircled a heart-shaped swimming pool. Since it was a hot night, Pidgeon suggested he might like to take a dip, informing Jimmy that he didn’t need to wear a swim suit since Pott’s servant wasn’t scheduled to arrive until morning.

  As Jimmy later confessed, “I sort of got off on the attention and compliments they gave me. When I emerged from the pool, both men had undressed, and they toweled me off.”

  In the bedroom, each was a skilled oral artist, taking their turns with me while they jerked off. At the climax of the evening, Pidge “topped Potts as I was invited to watch,” Jimmy said.

  It appears that Jimmy, during the next few weeks, made a total of three more visits to Lloyd’s former mansion. The sexual routine was the same except on one occasion, when Jimmy arrived with fellow actor/hustler Nick Adams, with whom he was living at the time, during a period when Brackett had relocated in Chicago.

  Although both Potts and “Pidge” found Jimmy the cuter of the two, much attention and praise was heaped on Adams’ exceptional endowment. Jimmy later claimed, “I watched both men work Nick over at the same time, and it was some workout. Nick and I each left with a hundred-dollar bill in of our pockets.”

  ***

  Regrettably for both Bradshaw and Jimmy, Vincente Minnelli rejected Bradshaw’s first screenplay and even changed the title to The Bad and the Beautiful. Charles Schnee was called in to drastically revise it, and in 1952, the film noir would win five Oscars out of six nominations.

  In the rewrite, Jimmy’s possible role was rewritten and the gender of the interloper emerging from Douglas’ bedroom was changed from male to female. Minnelli cast the emerging starlet, the sultry brunette, Elaine Stewart, into the role.

  Even though he never appeared in a film scene with Lana, Jimmy’s fascination with the blonde goddess continued.

  Years later, when he was in the process of searching for a place to live in West Hollywood, his prospective landlord, David Gould, showed Jimmy the master bedroom of a fully furnished house for rent.

  The previous tenant of 1541 Sunset Plaza Drive, had been Lana Turner. “She slept in this very bed—and never alone,” Gould claimed to Jimmy.

  “I’ll sign the lease,” Jimmy said. “I’ll be sleeping in Lana’s bed myself. And never alone!”

  ***

  Jimmy would later dismiss and eventually, abandon “all of Brackett’s social whirl of gossipy queens and cocktail party chatter. It was pure hogwash. There were two favorite topics, depending on one’s sexual preference. ‘How big is his cock?’ or ‘What size are her tits?’ I grew bored by many of Rogers’ friends. I was treated like a court jester, ready to perform at any minute, preferably with my pants down. I’m not just some dick to suck or rosebud to plug. I’ve got talent. I want to make it on my merits as an actor—not as some good-looking Hollywood stud hustling his ass.”

  Years later, on the set of Rebel Without a Cause, he would reflect with director Nicholas Ray about this period of his life. “Behind Roger’s back, these jerks would invite me to dinner on their luxurious oceanfront terraces. After a few drinks, their greedy little hands would be closing in on my dick. I knew that if I kept this up, the year would be 1975, and I would be some aging ex-pretty boy waiting tables or pumping gas. In Hollywood, they drain you to the last drop and then you’re discarded as yesterday’s toy.”

  “Now that I’m a star, I’ve got these jerks—many of them out of work today—by the balls.”

  Brackett was hip and well-informed about which stars were gay “or used to be gay.”

  Jimmy was shocked to learn that such macho icons as Gary Cooper and John Wayne, during their early days, were known to lie on the casting couch.

  He and Brackett became regulars at The Club, a watering hole which attracted gay men late at night to its darkened precincts on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Jimmy invited his university friend from his days at UCLA, James Bellah, to Brackett’s apartment. Bellah later recalled, “This ad agency guy flew into the living room on gossamer wings. When he went to the kitchen to get us some ice, I turned to Jimmy and said, ‘What the hell? This guy is queer as a three-dollar bill.’”

  “So what?” Jimmy responded, defiantly.

  One night, Jimmy asked Brackett to go with him to see Marlon Brando perform in the filmed (1951) version of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. It would mark the eighth time that Jimmy had seen the movie.

  According to Brackett, “Although he would never admit it, Jimmy was mesmerized by the screen acting of Marlon Brando, who would loom so large in his future. The two actors were very much alike, although Jimmy would almost slug you if you ever compared him to Brando. I think he was also strongly attracted sexually to Brando. It was like a schoolgirl crush that grew more serious until he actually stalked Brando at night.”

  Marlon Brando, as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, mesmerized James Dean.

  Elia Kazan, who directed both actors, said, “Marlon as Apollo is driving the Sun Chariot. But he’s looking back to see an even brighter ball of fire on the distant horizon.”

  “Unlike the lies I’ve transmitted to many an interviewer, in which I stated that I hooked up with him because I believed in his talent, from the beginning, when I first met him in that parking lot, I wanted to get in the kid’s pants. He was just my type, real cocky.”

  “I didn’t admire all that Method acting crap and that Brando posturing, but Jimmy certainly did. One night I found him imitating Brando in front of the mirror.”

  “A lot of people have referred to our affair as a father-son relationship, that is, if I’d fathered Jimmy when I was only fifteen. If it were father and son, then it was pure incest from the beginning.”

  As William Bast later claimed, “Jimmy was eager to learn. He sapped the minds of Brackett’s friends as a bloodsucker saps the strength of an unsuspecting man.”

  To his straight friends, Jimmy dismissed his arrangement with Bracket
t “as a meal ticket.”

  It was around this time that Jimmy became worried that he’d be drafted into the Army, fighting in a war for South Korea. Harry S Truman had upped the draft quotas in the summer of 1950.

  Jimmy had been contacted by his Selective Service Board in Grant County, Indiana. He showed Bracket their letter that night, wondering if he should inform the board that he was a conscientious objector.

  Brackett had another idea. A few days later, he took him to a gay psychiatrist (Dean J. Taylor of Canada) whom he’d met at a party.

  After a long session with Jimmy, at which Brackett sat in, Taylor, for a fee, agreed to write a letter to the Selective Service Board of Indiana on behalf of Jimmy. In his claim, he stated that “James Dean is a hopeless psychotic, DO NOT GIVE THIS YOUNG MAN A FIREARM.”

  Bracket had left the room an hour before the end of Jimmy’s interview with Taylor. Jimmy later informed Brackett “I had to prove to the good doctor that I was indeed a homosexual.”

  “And how did you do that?” Brackett asked.

  “That’s for you to imagine.”

  Later, thanks mostly to Taylor’s intervention, Jimmy was classified 4-F.

  It has been suggested that Jimmy did not need to resort to evasive tactics to avoid being drafted into the Army. After an eye examination, because of his severe nearsightedness, he was pronounced “all but blind.” That defect alone seemed enough to have justified his designation as 4-F.

  ***

  Scotty Bowers either tricked with or supplied handsome members of his former Marine Crops to a bevy of Hollywood stars, including Charles Laughton (who ate shit sandwiches), Tyrone Power (a fellow Marine), Errol Flynn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, Randolph Scott, Cole Porter (who was known to have blown twenty Marines in one night), Rock Hudson, and Noël Coward.