Was James Dean Gay, and the Film “Life”
This past Saturday Night I happened to watch the movie, “Life,” on NetFlix by accident. You know how that works. The people they hire to write the blurbs for NetFlix don’t even seem to know the most basics about the movie. In any event, the film focused on a small part of James Dean’s life where he met and interacted with the famous photographer, Dennis Stock.
It was a great movie, with a great cast, and I’d recommend it to anyone. However, there was one thing that made me wonder. Was James Dean Gay after all? The relationship between Dean and Stock seemed to be just one step shy of a brief love story. And even if I misread it, and even if I might have been looking for more than there really was, if it had been a gay love story it would have worked.
And I’m not the only one who wondered about this. I found this article online after I did a simple search about James Dean and the movie.
Robert Pattinson’s new movie about the relationship between ’50s film icon James Dean and celebrity photographer Dennis Stock would be remiss if it didn’t explore Dean’s homosexuality. But so far no word on whether that topic will be included.
You can read the rest here. As the article states, Dean never admitted being homosexual (and I use that term because the word gay was not around back then). But there appears to be plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. And that’s not such a huge surprise, especially given the number of high profile gay people still in the closet today in Hollywood.
Side note: If you haven’t seen the documentary about Tab Hunter, and how closeted he was in the 1950s, you should check that out, too, on NetFlix. Hunter is still alive today and he’s still a class act.
More On James Dean Being Gay
Here’s an article from a web site called Homo History. I found it through a simple search, I know nothing about it, and I’m only linking to them and I’m not drawing any conclusions of my own. But the article does say this…
There are conflicting reports about Dean’s sexuality; there are a few who try to deny that he had any sexual affairs with men, there are those who say that he was bisexual and some who say that he was exclusively gay (those include “Rebel without a Cause” director Nicholas Ray and screenwriter Gavin Lambert.)
You can read the rest here. It gives a few accounts of alleged James Dean gay stories. Unfortunately, we’ll never really know the whole truth. And I know there are those who say it shouldn’t matter. The worst comment I hear all the time is that it shouldn’t always be about sex. Well, it should matter. There shouldn’t be any shame at all in being openly gay, not even for James Dean. But more than that, being gay is NOT about sex.
New Orleans Swamp Tour With Studs
Here’s something you don’t get a chance to do every day of the week.
In the final episode of Out in GayCities season four, Max Emerson and Kyle Krieger go on a guided tour of the Honey Island Swamp and learn about the ecology, wildlife, history and culture of New Orleans’ backyard. Watch as the duo kayak through the backwaters of New Orleans and enjoy the refreshingly cool waters–and get waylaid by some unexpected encounters.
You can read more and check out the video here.
