Was he or wasn't he? I thk we'd all like to BELIEVE that Jam Dean was gay – or at least bisexual – and that if we were around at the time we'd have a shot wh him. Acrdg to HomoHistory: There are nflictg reports about Dean’s sexualy; there are a few who try to ny that
Contents:
A LIST OF JAM DEAN’S (ALLEGED) GAY LOVERS
His last movie, Giant, h theaters sixty-five years ago this culture has endlsly reimaged Jam Dean om the moment he died—he is straight, bisexual, and gay; sensive and aggrsive; misunrstood and manipulative; victim and predator; the bt of and the worst. Ple Kael, then a risg film cric, plaed 1955 that watchg him was like stumblg onto the vulgar eroticism of homosexual cisg grounds—“grossly explic, ” too dulgent of boys and their “toerotic” fixatns. Too often, his negative experienc epted , aggrsive, or dangero behavr, what Bast spected was Dean’s way of takg revenge on a society that wronged Hollywood mors started as soon as Dean ma the papers, whispers that he was bisexual or gay.
GAY HISTORY: 7 LTLE-KNOWN FACTS ABOUT JAM DEAN
His stud, Warner Bros., promoted him alongsi Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, two closeted gay men, as their most eligible bachelor. Much k would be spilled over the years tryg to p down his sexualy—straight, bisexual, gay, asexual all found their advot—but he risted labels, not least bee the labels were tied up bigger qutns of masculy and manhood. In those days, “homosexual” was synonymo wh a mpy, effemate stereotype he uldn’t intify wh.
“I’m not a homosexual, ” he told a reporter who asked if he was gay, “but I’m not gog through life wh one hand tied behd my back. In the heart of the homophobic ’50s, he and director Nicholas Ray quietly weaved a queer love story to his most famo film, Rebel whout a Cse, a movie filled wh qutns about what masculy meant the postwar world. ” Roger Ebert only acknowledged s homoeroticism prt 2005, and mimally at that.
Somerset Mgham read and unrstood, as did future gay activist Jack Frscher. “Jam Dean was mascule; he was blond; he was hot; he was California; he was Amerin; he was gay, ” Fristcher relled of his teenage fatuatn. ”“I’m not a homosexual, ” he told a reporter who asked if he was gay, “but I’m not gog through life wh one hand tied behd my back.