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Only days before East of Eden made James Dean a superstar in early 1955, Dean settled a lawsuit seeking repayment of financial support filed by his former lover Rogers Brackett, according to previously secret legal documents reported for the first time by author Jason Colavito in Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean (November 2024; Rowman & Littlefield).
In this new "bombshell" (DailyMail) book, Colavito draws on 400 pages of Dean's recently unearthed personal, legal, and financial records along with other rare and unpublished archival sources to paint the first comprehensive and fully documented portrait of the Rebel without a Cause star as a queer man.
"James Dean is known worldwide as an icon of coolness and a model for young masculinity. That the most famous man in the world, whose style and substance influenced almost every man alive today to some degree, accomplished so much as a queer man in the most homophobic era in American history is a story worth celebrating," Colavito said.
In the 1950s, accusations of homosexuality could destroy a career, and James Dean was already facing rumors in New York and Los Angeles about his relationships with men when he arrived in Hollywood in 1954 to shoot his breakout performance in East of Eden. A public gay scandal could have ended his hopes of movie stardom before they began. Brackett, a wealthy radio producer and advertising executive, entered a relationship with Dean in 1951, when Brackett was 35 and Dean 20. The relationship lasted until the end of 1952.
"This story has never been told before, and all parties involved worked hard to make sure no one ever found out," Colavito said. "And for seventy years, no one did. The only reason we know about it today is that Dean's agent secretly kept copies of his papers hidden away for decades."
