Happy birthday, James Dean! Everyone still agrees that James Dean is a certified sex symbol, even as other aspects of the actor's life remain open to interpretation. The Hollywood heartthrob died in a tragic car accident when he was just 24 years old, having appeared in only three films. But James Dean left us with some of the most unforgettable performances caught on film, as well as plenty of material to continue speculating about his sexuality. Even his close friend, Elizabeth Taylor, once said matter-of-fact that all her best friends had been gay, including Montgomery Cliff, Rock Hudson and the one and only Jimmy Dean. HomoHistory has put together a rather comprehensive list of all of James Dean's rumored gay lovers over the years -- mounting evidence that points to the fact that James Dean might have been our very first gay teen idol.
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Rogers Brackett
By Daily Mail Reporter. Thirty-four rare photos of actor and car-racing enthusiast James Dean are set to go up for auction later this month. The images, taken by journalist Gus Vignolle in , show a year-old Dean racing in a Porche Speedster in Palm Springs — his first time competing in the vehicle. Buyers of the images, the negatives of which had been missing for over 50 years, will also win their entire reproduction rights.
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Sign In. Hide Spoilers. I've always considered myself a huge fan of James Dean, so I had to see this movie. I guess I have pretty much ignored the rumors of him being gay, not because I'm homophobic but just because I didn't care that much. But this movie made me realize that that was a huge part of his life that affected everything he did and that he had to hide. James Dean had to pretend to be somebody else, and that is really sad.
L ooking back over half a century to the meteoric career of James Dean , the one thing that now seems obvious is that the boy was as queer as a coot. It wouldn't matter a scrap if he hadn't also been groomed to perform vulnerable young male innocence, tormented by inchoate yearnings for heroism, freedom, and true love with the right girl. The studio made sure that he acted it out in real life by supplying him with starlets to be seen with in public. After he wrote himself off, 50 years ago this September, in his new Porsche Spyder at the age of 24 on a highway near Salinas, there was no reality left to intrude on the myth.
