| Original Message |
Anonymous (no login)
Posted Oct 12, 2005 7:57 AM
Well, when you look at the facts from the book, you can make your own conclusion but it is surely suspicious:
An early mentor in his hometown of Fairmount, Indiana, was the Rev. James DeWeerd, minister of the local Wesleyan Methodist church. When he knew Dean, DeWeerd was in his 30s and unmarried, liked poetry and classical music, and was partial to the company of boys.
One of his few documented homosexual relationships was with Rogers Brackett, the sophisticated, 35-year-old radio director of a prestigious advertising agency, whom Dean met in the summer of 1951 while working as a parking attendant at CBS.
Most biographies of Dean, including a recent TV biopic, acknowledge the sexual component of this relationship, but also claim that Dean had sex with Brackett purely out of expediency
Dean moved with Brackett to New York, where most radio programs were produced. There Dean began getting television work and eventually theater parts, including a pivotal role as a gay Arab houseboy in Andre Gide's The Immoralist
While in New York, Dean began dating a singer-dancer named Elizabeth "Dizzy" Sheridan, who seems to have been his only serious girlfriend; he even asked her to marry him. Dean confided in Sheridan about the relationship with Brackett and also said that he planned to end it. "He did not want to be gay,"
Another of Dean's documented gay relationships was with Jack Simmons, a young actor who, by all accounts, was devoted to him. Because the attachment was kept quietly in the background - Dean virtually lived with Simmons while filming Rebel Without a Cause but had his own apartment - studio officials did not seem to mind.
Although Dean can hardly be called straight, it remains unclear if he identified as gay or bisexual, or if he was questioning. Since he was only 24, his sexual identity may, in fact, have been still in formation. |
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