Liz says James Dean was molested

From a Kevin Sessums interview%0D\ %0D\ And James Dean? "I loved Jimmy. I''m going to tell you something, but it''s off the record until I die. OK? When Jimmy was 11 and his mother passed away, he began to be molested by his minister. I think that haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did. We talked about it a lot. During Giant we''d stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me."%0D\ %0D

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-23/elizabeth-taylor-interview-about-her-aids-advocacy-plus-stars-remember/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsL4



• She didn''t say whether James Dean and Montgomery were gay?

• Did she need to?

• I don''t understand why that needed to wait until after her death. It''s not as if Dean was still around to sue her.

• I wonder if she spilled a lot of the dish that Roddy McDowell locked away for a century.

• Andrew Sullivan of course had to say something mean.

• I expect Darwin Porter will write a book about this (and about Taylor).

  Moviola

• Old news. It was already covered in the Dean bio "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Paul Alexander.

  http://www.amazon.com/Boulevard-Broken-Dreams-Times-Legend/dp/0452278406/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301060746&sr=1-6

• Thank you, #7.\ \ I could have sworn that I read it in one of his bios. Elizabeth obviously wasn''t the only person he told.

  Mia

• Oh for goodness sake DL, she probably confided this confession by James before the book was released.

• I thought the same thing as r5--leave it to Sullivan to not only say something mean, but something that aggrandizes himself at the same time. Because remarking on what you consider someone else''s ignorance is always just a pat on your own back for being so much better than them.%0D\ %0D\ It''s interesting that he doesn''t say when he met her. Because if it was early on, she very well might have held some beliefs that weren''t as advanced as they would become after longer involvement with AIDS activisim. Not that he''d concern himself with things like someone else changing over time.%0D\ %0D\ God, what a noxious cunt he is.

• Poor james Dean. His mother died and his minister takes advantage of the situation. SICK.

• Sullivan should be ashamed of himself. Even Larry Kramer had something nice to say, for fuck''s sake!

  Arthur Laurents

• Elizabeth already outed Dean, years ago, in a ''Gay Men I Have Known'' remark she made in an AMFAR speech. It''s on video.

• i want to know how Dean fucked with in H''wood.

• [quote]he began to be molested by his minister.%0D\ %0D\ Isn''t there some way we can change this story to a Catholic priest and blame all the DL Catholics for Dean''s molestation?

• What did the true love of Jimmy''s life, Liz Sheridan have to say?

  They were engaged after all

• "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" was so over the top that I wasnt sure a word of it was true.

• Seems Elizabeth was a compassionate listener which is both a skill and a gift. \ \ I don''t know a lot about Taylor except she connected with MJ, JD, and Monty Clift at a level that was transforming. I''m sure there are more, these just popped into my awareness as I was reading through this thread.\ \ I was never a big fan of ET though I profoundly respect her ability to connect with people; her audience, her friends, and her husbands. Taylor''s compassion will live on for eternity.\ \ RIP ET.

• "Old news. It was already covered in the Dean bio "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Paul Alexander."%0D %0D Of course you know that book was a piece of shit, don't you? Really, it was just a trashy sleaze job. I tried to read it but it was so bad, so much of it obviously made up, that I gave up on it early. %0D %0D As for Liz Taylor...well, why should anybody believe anything SHE said? She was looney and fucked up on drugs or alcohol a lot of the time. %0D %0D Here's what is known. James Dean DID have a close relationship with a minister when he was growing up. The minister was regarded as one of his early mentors. The minister was unmarried and middle-aged, which for some people labels him as gay. But no real evidence exists that would confirm it was a man/boy homosexual relationship. It supposedly took place in a small town, but there was no gossip about the supposedly gay minister and if the guy WAS into boys then James Dean surely couldn't have been the only one. And not one person ever came forward to say yes, he was a sexual predator and I was one of his victims. The gay minister is unsubstantiated, as a lot of things said about James Dean are.%0D %0D For the record, James Dean was bi. And from what people who actually knew him have said about it, he wasn't particularly into sex with either men or women. He wasn't much into anything except acting and racing. He was a "dabbler", people said. %0D %0D

• According to the book "Hollywood Babylon-it''s back",\ James had a relationship with a 12-year-old boy and the studios would blackmail him if he gets out of control.

• Liz Sheridan was NOT the love of my caro Jeemee''s life, that hag was NOT. I was.

  The Bitter Tears of Signorina Pier Angeli

• R19, you''ve described one of the symptoms of a victim of sexual abuse. They go to the extremes: they''re either very promiscuous or uninterested in sex.

• That quote from Larry Kramer is pretty amazing...he''s not one to say nice things, well, almost ever.

• R19, I think I%E2%80%99ll take ET words about James Dean a little bit more seriously than yours.

• [r21] marry me!

  thanks for the laugh

• "And not one person ever came forward to say yes, he was a sexual predator and I was one of his victims"%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ %0D\ So what? Most molestation victims never come forward. My cousin molested me and I never told anyone. Using your logic, that means he never molested anyone.%0D\ %0D\ "As for Liz Taylor...well, why should anybody believe anything SHE said? She was looney and fucked up on drugs or alcohol a lot of the time."%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ She actually knew Dean and you didn''t...I''ll take her word over yours. %0D\ %0D

• "She actually knew Dean and you didn''t...I''ll take her word over yours."%0D\ %0D\ She also knew Michael Jackson. And she said he was the "most un-weird" man she''d ever know and that all those horrible stories about him liking the penises of little boys were lies. %0D\ %0D\ So much for the credibility of Liz Taylor. %0D\ %0D

• She had reason to lie about Michael Jackson. %0D\ %0D\ %0D\ %0D\ She had no reason to lie about Dean.

• Is it true she''s going to be buried close to Jackson?

• [quote]So much for the credibility of Liz Taylor. %0D\ %0D\ How? I share suspicions about him, but in the end we can''t say anything for sure. Then again, you''re a bitter cunt and that type always believes gossip first. What other conspiracies of silence can you place a dead celebrity at the center of?

• How does anyone know she actually said that. It''s not like it could be verified. Dean was clearly troubled in some way and brought his pathos to his acting, so it wouldn''t be shocking, but this guy could just make up anything and there would be no way to prove it.

• [quote]How does anyone know she actually said that. It''s not like it could be verified. %0D\ %0D\ Exactly. He may have studied the David Ehrenstein technique of writing gay stories where everyone is much too dead to deny them.

• OK. It''s a little late but let''s get this straight anyway, hard as it will be to get used to it:\ \ "Said," OP. Liz "said."

  Weeping as I snipe

• What is the matter with you idiots? Most of us have know this for years.

• Have you seen pics of a young Jimmy Dean? If I were his classmate (his same age, not an older perv), I woulda been all over him!

  http://www.tvparty.com/bgifs14/deanheader.jpg

• Not funny, R35.

  Albert Fish

• It''s not meant to be funny, you dumb shit. it''s truthful, If he had had healthy gay romantic relationships, he would not have been so fucked up.\ \ That molester should have been hanged.\ \ \ Get a clue, dipwad.

• Oops, I read too fast. Carry on.%0D\ %0D\ Take your meds, R37.

  Albert/ R35

• [quote]She actually knew Dean and you didn''t...I''ll take her word over yours. \ \ \ Seriously.

• What a fucking busybody. That wasn''t her story to tell.

• One party is dead and the other is highly unlikely to make a public confession. Whose story is it to tell, R40?

• "He may have studied the David Ehrenstein technique of writing gay stories where everyone is much too dead to deny them."%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ %0D\ David E doesn''t do that...maybe you are confusing him with Darwin Porter.%0D

• What was her reason for lying about Michael Jackson? I wonder what her secret was for getting people to confide in her. I wish I had that gift. I love juicy secrets.

• Didn't the columnist say he had tapes of his interview with Elizabeth Taylor? I once read that Elizabeth Taylor liked gossip. One time she went up to Bette Davis at a party, and asked her if a rumor was true that Bette Davis was a lesbian. Bette Davis said, what?! are you kidding me?! No I'm not a lesbian! Also, on another thread in DL about Elizabeth Taylor, it is estimated her estate was worth close to 1 billion dollars. So what would Elizabeth Taylor gain by making stuff up like that? It wasn't like the woman was writing a book to make money. Also, I remember watching a documentary on Elizabeth Taylor%E2%80%99s life, and she was interviewed talking about various things in her life. When it came to James Dean, her comment was strange. She said he confided to her about things to her that you would confide to someone who is very close when they were on the set of Giant. She said they talked all night long until early the next morning. After Elizabeth made this statement in the documentary, she looked at the camera, grinned, and said, wouldn't you like to know. Something serious like a conversation like that, why would she say that in such a light way with a smile? I have read an autobiography by John Gilmore called, Hollywood Laid Bare. If you haven't read this book you should because it%E2%80%99s really interesting. This book is an autobiography of a guy who was struggling as an actor in the 50%E2%80%99s, but eventually gave up acting after a while because he couldn't make it. He said he started out in New York as a struggling actor, and he was a friend of James Dean at the time. He too was a struggling actor at the time. He said he had sex with James Dean once, but he and James mainly went out with women and were friends. John Gilmore eventually went to Hollywood to make it there. He connected with his friend James Dean. He said James Dean did not like to hang out with actors nor with the Hollywood crowd. The author said all these people that have claimed to have known James Dean years later, and claimed were friends of his were lying. The only one who was a close friend of James was Martin Landau. However, he said, all of the others, especially Dennis Hooper, was a phony because he claimed he hung out with James and knew him really well. Even Carol Baker in her autobiography stated Dennis Hooper was a phony because he claimed he was a close friend with James Dean, which she said was BS. I don't understand on this thread why people have expressed that the notion that a minister molested James Dean when he was a kid is absurd. Remember, when James Dean was a kid when this molestation supposedly occurred back in the late 30's? early 40's? people never said a peep about such things. Also, James Dean's father was mean to him so he couldn't confide anything to his father. If this occurred and there were other victims, they most likely would have buried their molestation like so many victims did back then. Also, James Dean grew up in Indiana, which I was told was really ultra conservative back then so maybe people wouldn't think of questioning a minister. BTW, I have heard of James Dean was molested before on a gossip website that is no longer around called, a-listgossip.com However, I have no idea where they got their information.

• After the molestation charges I remembering Taylor saying something to the effect that people don''t understand Michael, that he is different from other people with different needs. That really bothered me. I am not so sure how really close they were in the real world. Vanity Fair did a great article on him during the trial and touched on his relationship with Taylor and how it affected his financial problems at the time. They said that he would call wanting to talk or see her and she wouldn''t talk to him or see him unless he brought her some expensive jewelry. Which he would do. At the time he was being accused of not paying bills from stores.

• There''s a clip on youtube of a GLADD awards dinner in the year 2000. Elizabeth was being honored and, in her acceptance speech, she definitely refers to Dean as a gay man. No equivocation!%0D\ %0D\ Many reliable sources have confirmed that Elizabeth did indeed have many very lengthy private conversations with Dean when they were on location for "Giant" in Marfa, Texas.

• Wow R45, that is really sick! I don''t get it because she was a mother, what the hell?!!

• R45. Apparently, Liz wasn''t perfect. That''s a pretty slimy thing to do.

• R19 & 44: Fairmount was the small town. That's my hometown maybe I can clear up some things. Here's some inside information about what Fairmount was like when this was happening. There are still a lot people in Fairmount who remember Jimmy and remember that minister. I didn't know either man, but I know/knew hundreds who knew both. Jimmy has a funny kind of position in Fairmount history. One the hand, he is our one claim to fame, the one we can talk about, anyway. On the other hand, he was what he was. He was at that minister's house too much, that was not healthy and that minister was one weird person, regardless. Fairmount is very patriotic. A lot of young men went away and did not come back, or came back broken, starting with the Civil War. Everyone knows all know the families of those who did not come back. Jimmy got a draft exemption when his classmates were going to the Korean war. He was an athlete, he had no injuries, and he had no obvious mental problems, so Fairmount people did the math. They are not clueless -- they can put the minister, Jimmy, and the draft exemption together. Besides, Jimmy, at least in his Hollywood days, was pretty open about it: "I kissed the recruiting officer." There was at least one other respected man, a World War II vet, a man who was never going to leave Fairmount and thus given consideration and understanding, who entertained high school boys so that people noticed. He was a friend of mine. He talked to me about having Jimmy as a guest, without mentioning anything untoward -- he knew I was straight. This vet's objects of desire were no secret in this small town of 2000, believe me. But people still respected this vet and loved him. You have to live with these people, you all knew this vet from early childhood on and went to school with him. He taught you how to tie your shoelaces, sort of thing. You know his brothers and sisters, your parents knew their parents, grandparents, etc. It was more or less a closed society. This was the atmosphere: "Mind your own business, and these are still our people." Also, some things are so obvious that they don't merit talking about especially if the topic is rather unpleasant anyway. No matter what is going on, you are going to be living with all these people for the rest of your lives, so be civil. Also, when I was growing up there in the 50's, it was the end of the era when you were not necessarily gay if you were not the pursuer and if you did not give blow jobs or bottom. So the high school boys were experimenting or just very horny. There is this too. Fairmount knew that Jimmy was having a tough life. He lost the adults who were important to him. The minister probably played into that, innocently or not. Maybe he was good for Jimmy and maybe we shouldn't dwell on what we suspect was going on. Maybe stepping in would hurt Jimmy even more. That would have been the idea. I think the attitude about adults molesting young boys versus young girls has changed a lot since that time also. As to why Elizabeth Taylor remained silent. It seems obvious. She was open in her support of gay issues. Talking about Jimmy and the minister opens up all that crap about gays are gay because they had a fucked-up childhood, which she had to know was crap, and she didn't want to play into it. Also, while I don't think that minister can possibly be alive, I googled him and I didn't find anything at all, but still, libel is libel. When I was 17, 1964, I took a trip from Fairmount to NYC by myself. A man around 30 tried to pick me up in Times Square. He bought me a drink, and we talked about where I was from and Jimmy. He had something to do with theater. He invited me up to his apartment for a blowjob and said that he would show me his collection of pictures of Jimmy and Brando, and others he did not name fucking men. I passed. Besides, Jimmy being gay or bi was not Fairmount's biggest secret. That community had another, really, really ugly secret that made keeping quite about Jimmy seem like child's play, but that's way off subject.

  RolandTumbrell

• R49, are you a Hollywood insider? I have noticed your name before in other threads on DL. I%E2%80%99ve watched the video on YouTube that someone on this thread mentioned that Elizabeth Taylor said James Dean was gay at the 2000 Gladd awards. Sure enough she said it so the poster on this thread was right.\ \ \ BTW, I have read that Carole Lombard was from Indiana was well, but I don%E2%80%99t know what part of Indiana.

• [quote]They said that he would call wanting to talk or see her and she wouldn''t talk to him or see him unless he brought her some expensive jewelry. %0D\ %0D\ When she was making a film, every day on the set would begin with Liz being presented an expensive gift. Various cast and crew members would be selected to present the gift.

• R50:\ \ No, I know nothing else about Hollywood unless it has something to do with Jimmy, and all that I got second hand. He was just enough older than I for me to encounter in Fairmount or to remember an encounter, anyway. \ \ If you want to make the trip, there are plenty of people still around who remember him, but the ground is well worked, and as I tried to say, people who know stuff would kind of rather let it lie.\ \ My brother, sister, and parents knew him. Anyone older than I knew him. Hell, in Fairmount everyone knew everyone. Still do. One reason I left. \ \ An old person in Fairmount once explained how Jimmy and I were cousins, but I couldn''t follow it at the time, so don''t remember it, and it is not important to me.\ \ Wiki lists Carole Lombard as being from Ft. Wayne. So was Bill Blass which always surprised me, although I don''t know why. Everyone has to be from somewhere, right?

  RolandTumbrell

• In Donald Spoto's James Dean biography, he touches on the subject of the minister James De Weerd. I'm not a fan of Spoto's but I think he knows what he's talking about here:%0D %0D "And so (it was perhaps evitable) that after De Weerd's death at age 56 in 1972 some imaginative journalists decided that an unmarried country parson just had to have been a sex offender, and for years stories circulated about De Weerd and Dean. Their relationship was carnal, ran the stories. Jimmy was so hungry for the loving affirmation of an older man that he succumbed to the irresistable charms of the seductive minister. Hence, the story concludes, James Dean was introduced to the gay life in early adolescence. %0D %0D The account provide tangy spice for the otherwise unexceptional history of Jame Dean's high school years; the problem, however, is that there is not a single shred of evidence for such a relationship. De Weerd was indeed, by all accounts, an eccentric, even flamboyant character, and his preference for the exclusive company of teenage boys suggest perhaps some kind of veiled erotic component in his attitude towards them. But there is nothing in his character to suggest abusive conduct; in fact his life in Fairmount proceeded without a hint of scandal. Moreover, it would have been difficult for him to risk anything like homosexual activities with teenagers and not be exposed in so intimate community as Fairmount, a place not known as a hotbed of sexual libertinism. Most significant of all, not one young person, then or later, ever accused De Weerd of inappropriate conduct. The truth of the matter was that De Weerd was for a brief time another temporary father figure to James Dean, and in this regard he ahd a brief, benevolent influence." %0D %0D %0D

• I think Kevin Sessums is full of shit. I don''t think Taylor said anything to him about James Dean telling her he was molested. I think Sessums made the whole thing up, and the fact that he says she told him "it''s off the record until I die" is proof of that. Of course he''s going to come out with this after she''s dead; if he''d come out with it while she was alive she probably would have called him a liar!

• E! the entertainment gossip show, has a video on their website of Elizabeth accepting the GLAAD Vanguard award in 2000, and in her speech she mentions all her close gay friends, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson and James Dean. Funnily enough, she didn''t mention Roddy MacDowell and he was dead by then wasn''t he?%0D\ %0D\ I was surprised she mentioned Dean as gay. But he must ahve been. No doubt about it. I think he felt pressured to accomodate the het image as a heartthrob to women, but Elizabeth said "gay" not Bi. And she knew the difference in the terminolgy.

• Oh, please tell us Fairmount''s deep, dark secret!

  Nosey

• "That community had another, really, really ugly secret that made keeping quite about Jimmy seem like child''s play, but that''s way off subject."%0D\ %0D\ Do tell! %0D\ %0D\ And I still want to know what became of Taylor''s jewels, because she had people giving her shitloads of REAL jewels from the sixties to 2011. Do the jewels to to her heirs, or charity? Were most of them sold to maintain her lifestyle? If they''re all sold at once, will that affect worldwide gem prices?

• [quote] Wiki lists Carole Lombard as being from Ft. Wayne. So was Bill Blass which always surprised me, although I don''t know why.\ \ Slightly off-topic, but two other surprising Hoosier natives are Cole Porter (Peru) and Halston (Evansville).

• R53:\ \ Spoto is mistaken to this extent. There was at least one other adult male who had relationships with several high school boys and everyone who didn''t look the other way knew about it. He was a chicken hawk all his life.\ \ Fairmount wasn''t, and probably isn''t, a hotbed of sexual libertinism. That doesn''t mean that there weren''t gay and lesbian people there who had sex although of course they were in the closet. How could that not be the case? People are people. \ \ Certainly all the men knew about male homosexuality. Lesbianism was probably beneath the radar pretty much, although looking back I can see better.\ \ He is right that we will never know for sure, but Jimmy seemed to be confused enough about sexuality -- has everyone heard about the masochism? -- that being molested early would fit the symptoms.\ \ He also was self-destructive which fits with early abuse, but who knows? Does it matter at this point?

  RolandTumbrell

• [quote]Funnily enough, she didn''t mention Roddy MacDowell and he was dead by then wasn''t he?\ \ She was probably grouping them in terms of hotness and screen legend.

• R56: OK, I will, but I'm not sure you will want to hear about it. Once you do, it's hard to forget. The link is not safe for work and not for the faint of heart. I am very serious. If you are easily disturbed, skip the picture. It will stay with you. You do not need to see it to get the point. Fairmount men did this on August 7, 1930 in Marion, Indiana, the nearby county seat following the murder of a Fairmount resident. The black men were the suspects and were in the county jail. I had a cousin in the lynch mob that night. Everybody in Fairmount had to have known the people who did this. The incident was the occasion for the Bronx school teacher and Communist Party member Abel Meeropol to write the lyrics to "Strange Fruit" which Billie Holiday recorded. The Meeropols later adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. That's Fairmount's original sin. Again. Not safe for work. Never again. Never again for blacks, gays, Palestinians, and union activists, Never again for people of color and lesbians. Never again for anyone.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ThomasShippAbramSmith.jpg

  RolandTumbrell

• [quote]Poor james Dean. His mother died and his minister takes advantage of the situation. SICK.\ \ My thoughts exactly. What a ghoulish fucking predator. The sociopathy of Christians cannot be underestimated. Check this out:\ \ [quote]Isn''t there some way we can change this story to a Catholic priest and blame all the DL Catholics for Dean''s molestation?\ \ James Dean wasn''t Catholic, but the sick fuck at R15 wants to use the news of Dean''s molestation to paint the Catholic Church as the victim in the story when in this case, it''s not even involved. SICK.

• [quote]James Dean wasn''t Catholic, but the sick fuck at R15 wants to use the news of Dean''s molestation to paint the Catholic Church as the victim in the story when in this case, it''s not even involved. SICK.%0D\ %0D\ Oh, you poor maladjusted creature, blissfully unaware of the daily Catholic-bashing that takes place at DL with every mention of religion. I suppose that I should have ended with a [italic]*rolls eyes*[/italic] to provide you with a clue that nobody else needed. Duh!%0D\ %0D

• .

• Liz''s secrets didn''t die with her. Her best friends were Barbra Streisand and Shirley MacLaine, and they had lunch/dinner together quite regularly. Music producer David Foster has said that Liz was at Barbra''s house all the time, and vice-versa. Liz would answer the door at Barbra''s house and people would nearly drop dead of a heart attack. \ \ These legendary broads dished about everyone. They knew ALL the best stories. Stories that would shake Hollywood to its core. Now that the Golden Age of Hollywood has died with Liz, I just hope either Shirley or Barbra writes a book and tells it all.

• True or not, it wasn''t Liz Taylor''s place to make that information public knowledge. What the fuck was she thinking?? I had no idea she was such a bitch.

• [quote]They said that he would call wanting to talk or see her and she wouldn''t talk to him or see him unless he brought her some expensive jewelry. Which he would do. At the time he was being accused of not paying bills from stores.%0D\ %0D\ WTF?! I had no idea Liz did this! She definitely loses status with me.

• R65, Barbara Streisand is a complete bitch and she won''t say a word. She said she is going to write her autobiography to clarify that garbage that has been written about her in unauthorized biographies. Right! like she is going to tell the truth about her life and reveal dirt what Liz told her? No, I don%E2%80%99t think so.\ \ \ Shirley MacLaine wrote her autobiography twice already, and other things but I don''t think she''ll write anymore. Also, she%E2%80%99ll never reveal what Liz might have told her as well. \ \ \ It%E2%80%99s a super idea R65 but I think these two women won''t say a word about all of the old Hollywood gossip Elizabeth Taylor told them. What a loss because I agree with you that it would be really fantastic if they did reveal a lot of dirt. Also, it might clarify many things about Hollywood%E2%80%99s Golden Era.

• How did James Cameron ever escape that lynch mob?

• R69:\ \ The mob had a rope around his neck when a woman cried out: "Let that boy go, he had nothing to do with it."

  RolandTumbrell

• Wow! R70, I just looked at the picture and it was really shocking. I have seen lynching pictures before, but that is pretty heavy. \ \ Is there any extended family of James Dean''s that look like him? Also, do any of his relatives get the residuals from his estate? \ \ Also, was the relationship between Pier Angeli, And James Dean real or was that made up by the studios? Have you heard anything about that? I once read the real reason why she didn''t marry him was because he couldn''t have sex with a female, and she was deeply devastated because she was in love with him. Also, I once read that Pier Angeli and James Dean had this weird obsession about death. Someone said they were a little like Goth before Goth was even remotely around.

• R71: I don't have any first hand information about anything other than Fairmount after Jimmy was gone. I know nothing more, almost certainly less, than you about his Hollywood days. Now that you mention Pier Angeli, I recognize the name from fan books, but I couldn't have told you the name on my own. I was friendly with a man who knew Jimmy from acting work who came to Fairmount a couple times in the late '50s to help with Fairmount's attempts to build a tourist industry around Jimmy. The papers described him as a former roommate of Jimmy's who would never talk about Jimmy. I have my own take on that, make of it what you will. He is almost certainly gone, and in any case, I will respect his privacy and leave him nameless. As to Jimmy's family, I knew Marcus and Hortense, his uncle and aunt as well as being his adopted parents. Do you know the haunting Phil Ochs song, "Jim Dean of Indiana"? I knew them and the red pickup. Wonderful people, salt of the earth, and under-appreciated in the Dean saga. For that matter, Phil Ochs is under-appreciated. The last time I was in Fairmount I saw Hortense, but of course that was many years ago. Their son and Jimmy's cousin, also Marcus, was/is a couple of years older than I, and we were friendly. The link shows the Winslow home where Jimmy grew up. The local children would ice skate on a pond that is to the left of the drive in the top picture. Extended family and a resemblance? The only blood relatives I knew were Hortense, a woman who was 30(?) years older than Jimmy and the younger Marcus. I never thought about it. I don't remember anything worth mentioning. When we were young my non-Fairmount wife said I looked a bit like Jimmy, but I think she was currying favor (smile), but she insisted upon it. The last I heard, and I am sure this is still going on or I would have heard, Marcus and his wife ran an antique, curio, postcard type place out of a wonderful two story house in Fairmount. The house was at one time my grandmother's house and when I was last in it, the Winslow's had done a great job restoring it. Beautiful woodwork that they must have spent a lot of time on. So there is unsolicited plug for the Winslow business. If you are ever in Fairmount, it is worth a stop. Residuals? I have no idea.

  http://findingthefamous.blogspot.com/2010/12/winslow-farm-fairmount-indiana.html

  RolandTumbrell

• Isn''t the popularity of James Dean dying down? I have heard of a James Dean museum, I think it was in his hometown, which they had to shut down because no one was coming to visit anymore. Have you heard of his museum closing? and his popularity decreasing? I think it%E2%80%99s sad. I was shocked when I have heard of this information because for years he has always been a huge American icon. \ \ BTW, I have seen many pictures of James Dean on line when he was in high school, and of course when he was older. Wow! he was incredibly handsome! If you look a little like him as your wife says you do, your lucky!

• R68, the only hope we have of getting some good dirt is Liza and Carrie Fisher. They''ll tell. Maybe Debbie Reynolds, but she is a few fries short and has an ax to grind. %0D\ %0D\ I wonder if Larry King will say anything. You gotta believe he has some stories. Problem is he''s so accustomed to reflexively self censoring, he won''t say anything interesting.

• R73: The museum is open perhaps? I don't know. See link, middle of the page. We will never know the full story about Jimmy, which is a big part of the fascination. He projected this still-waters-run-deep sort of thing and did it very well because he had a lot of deep things to connect to. Then on top of that he had this middle-west wholesomeness of the young man adrift in the world trying to do the right thing. The timing worked out well for him because he had the perfect emotional makeup and history for method acting. He got to New York exactly at the start of TV when that medium needed actors, he got into the center of Actor's Studio right when it was taking off, he had a genius as a teacher, and he was perfectly cast for his method acting. He got these movie roles where he played a mixed-up young person trying to do the right thing despite deep problems, and, guess what -- that's what he was. For a short time anyway, he was able to use his torments as material in acting. It's an old problem -- does a troubled artist get help and risk loosing something that helps his art? However you label him sexually, it wasn't healthy for him. He obviously had all sorts of problems playing the cards he was dealt, and he got a raw deal right from the start with the abandonment issue with the birth parents.

  http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060129/news_lz1n29pubeye.html

  RolandTumbrell

• It has been claimed that the "James Dean Mystique" was dreamed up and promoted by Jack Warner & Friends.%0D\ %0D\ At the time of Deans death, neither Rebel Without A Cause nor Giant had been released (both Warner films).%0D\ %0D\ Warner had a lot riding on both pictures. Both were big hits, particularly Giant which, at the time, turned out to be Warner Bros. biggest grosser ever.

• R76:\ \ Warner Brothers manufactured the mystique.\ \ I think there might be something to that. I remember a time when there was no special interest in Jimmy in the states and but the story in the media was that he was this big deal overseas. \ \ It''s like: "Our band is really big in Europe!"\ \ Of course there had to be something there to work with, talent and some good material.\ \ In the same vein, years ago there was this idea going around that there was no folk-music revival. It was just that Alan Lomax needed a job and the Communist Party needed songs to sing at rallies, so folk songs got promoted.\ \ It became kind of a sick joke on the left and a real, if silly, bit of red-baiting on the right. \ \ Same idea. The promotion of James Dean or folk music wouldn''t have taken off except that there was value in the material and it struck a chord.

  RolandTumbrell

• Taylor and Jackson probably shared the child-star experience. Taylor may not have been physically abused the way Jackson was (at least by his father and IMO his brothers) but her back injury occurred on "National Velvet" when she was twelve -- and her family had her continue to work. That was probably a profound psychological incident that connected the motion picture employment her parents had secured with bad physical injury.

• "I was surprised she mentioned Dean as gay. But he must ahve been. No doubt about it. I think he felt pressured to accomodate the het image as a heartthrob to women, but Elizabeth said "gay" not Bi. And she knew the difference in the terminolgy."%0D\ %0D\ Elizabeth Taylor barely knew James Dean, so she was not an authority on his sexuality. It''s odd that she would lump James Dean in with Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, both of who were gay as they come. Maybe she heard the gay rumors about Dean and assumed that''s what he was. But the fact is that he was bi; he had sex with men and women. He didn''t prefer one over the other; it was just no big deal to him. %0D\ %0D\ "Isn''t the popularity of James Dean dying down?"%0D\ %0D\ No. He''s still revered. You''re still hearing actors being refered to as "the next James Dean", even though there will never be any "next James Dean." He and Marilyn Monroe are probably the two most iconic movie stars of all time. %0D\ %0D

• One thing I remember from reading about him is that he liked to keep his friends separated from each other. Almost like he played a different character with each of them, and didn%E2%80%99t like them to know about each other. Maybe he acted one way around her and another around others.

• [quote]He and Marilyn Monroe are probably the two most iconic movie stars of all time. %0D\ %0D\ Actually, they''re standing behind Humphrey Bogart.

  Betty Joan Perske

• Elizabeth Taylor barely knew James Dean, so she was not an authority on his sexuality. It''s odd that she would lump James Dean in with Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, both of who were gay as they come. Maybe she heard the gay rumors about Dean and assumed that''s what he was. But the fact is that he was bi; he had sex with men and women. He didn''t prefer one over the other; it was just no big deal to him. \ \ R79 Elizabeth Taylor said she talked with him for hours and until the next morning on the set of Giant. She also said that he told her very personal things about his life. If they talked all night long until the next morning, I''m sure he mentioned his sexual preference,the molestation, the casting couch, and other things.

• Elizabeth sucked dick like a champ. Put all the gays to shame.

  Ghost of Roddy McDowell''s teensy weensy weenie

• [quote] However, he said, all of the others, especially Dennis Hooper, was a phony because he claimed he hung out with James and knew him really well. Even Carol Baker in her autobiography stated Dennis Hooper was a phony because he claimed he was a close friend with James Dean, which she said was BS. %0D\ %0D\ Whatever happened to Dennis Hooper?

• [quote]It''s odd that she would lump James Dean in with Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, both of who were gay as they come. Maybe she heard the gay rumors about Dean and assumed that''s what he was. But the fact is that he was bi; he had sex with men and women.\ \ Why is it odd? All three of them had sex with women.

• R84\ \ He got clean, he continued acting, and he died.

• R85 I don''t know if that is a joke or not ,but all three were supposedly totally gay.

• Article with interesting descriptions about Taylor''s mother.

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1370903/Elizabeth-Taylors-brutal-mother-Sara-forced-cue.html

• "Elizabeth Taylor said she talked with him for hours and until the next morning on the set of Giant. She also said that he told her very personal things about his life. If they talked all night long until the next morning, I'm sure he mentioned his sexual preference,the molestation, the casting couch, and other things."%0D %0D You don't know what they talked about, so you can't be "sure" about anything they said. I highly doubt that he would tell the premier screen goddess of that time that he was molested as a child, unless he was trying to curry sympathy from her, maybe to get into her pants. Dean worked the vunerable little lost boy angle very well; he once told a friend that if he wanted to get a girl into bed he'd just put his head in her lap, like a puppy. He said it worked every time. %0D %0D I think the so-called "friendship" between Elizabeth Taylor has been greatly exaggerated. They probably had talks but I don't think they were anywhere near close friends. Dean's relationship with Pier Angeli was exaggerated out of all proportion, too. She liked to claim that they were Romeo and Juliet style lovers, but they just had a three month affair, and both of them moved on very quickly after it ended. %0D %0D As for Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift...well, there are gay men who have the occasionaly romp with a woman. But they were both gay, no question about that; they preferred men. In Dean's case, he had no preference. And from what his friends had to say about him the later claims that he was an insatiable sex fiend are greatly exaggerated too. %0D

• It is not so unusual that Dean would be molested by a minister- I know too many guys who have been molested as kids by older men.%0D %0D Taylor has said many times that both Dean and Cliff were gay. And she has done so with great care and respect in the context of serious discussion of homophobia. %0D %0D God bless her, she just could not be a hypocrit. She herself was raked over the coals for her marriages etc. She really was only being honest about her sex life while all others were lying. She understood as soon as she understood sex and saw Hollywood up close the hypocrisies of the world and would not give a second of credibility to any of them- or apologize.%0D %0D Yeah she partied and she recovered- many great souls I know have loved to party and get high and be pigs- and later told on themselves with humor. She is of this type- given all her beauty and fame and all those who fawned over her, she refused to take herself seriously excpet when talking of other people's pain. I don't think Elizabeth Taylor, in quiet and private moments, was tormented by her life or herself. I think she was at peace with the world because she understood it, the good and the bad. %0D %0D Dean died much too young- and Cliff was a tormented and active substance abuser when her died- neither made it to the place in adulthood that Taylor did- or Elton John or any number of people who learn from life and survive and recover- to live in peace.

  charlie

• Googling for the AMFAR speech video that Liz did, I stumbled upon this video by Roger Moore fighting back against Westboro Baptist Church''s picketing...I got a laugh from it; enjoy.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_fAYl4Th4&feature=player_embedded

• Oops...my bad. Roger Moore=Michael Moore.

  R21

• [quote]Whatever happened to Dennis Hooper? [R84] He got clean, he continued acting, and he died.%0D\ %0D\ WOW! Just like Dennis Hopper!%0D\ %0D

• [quote]Roger Moore = Michael Moore%0D\ %0D\ Eeeek! Roger Moore was a gorgeous hunk. How could you confuse those two? OTOH, I love Michael Moore for his attacks on the Pubbie mentality.

• I was led to believe that Pier Angeli killed herself over James Dean.

• Taylor worked with Dean for months. Don''t be a fool, Talor knew Dean very well. Gay and straight men, both loved talking to Liz.

• It''s common for otherwise reasonable people to go into complete denial when someone they like is accused of a sex crime. Probably Taylor''s ego wouldn''t allow her to admit that she''d been essentially aiding and abetting a sexual predator.

• "Taylor worked with Dean for months. Don''t be a fool, Talor knew Dean very well. Gay and straight men, both loved talking to Liz."%0D\ %0D\ Don''t be an ass. Unless Kevin Sessums (who is this queen, anyway?) can produce a tape of Liz saying James Dean told her he was molested "but it''s off the record until I die" then it''s nothing but heresay.

• Elizabeth talks to Shirley MacClaine more now that Elizabeth is on the other side.%0D\ %0D\ NOBODY (unless they had a special contract) receives television residuals on any film work done before 1960.%0D\ %0D\ SAG President Ronald Reagan got that through back in the late 50''s in exchange for better health benefits and other concessions.%0D\ %0D\ I am not sure this applies to video/dvd sales "(any method of transmission now known or yet to be devised)", but my guess it does.

  Carroll Baby Doll Baker Garfein Burton

• And stars like Dean, Monroe, Bogart, and their estates make lots of money from merchandising - a movie poster advertising a movie is serving its intended purpose.%0D\ %0D\ A movie poster or other image (even if it was created to promote a specific film or event) that is sold or published in and of itself constitutes an unfair use of said image, and the subject is entitled to payment.%0D\ %0D\ A Rebel Without a Cause poster in front of the theatre showing a revival of the movie....advertising....a Rebel Without a Cause poster purchased at a shop or online hanging in your bedroom....you pay James Dean.

  L B Mayer''s sock drawer

• [quote]What did the true love of Jimmy''s life, Liz Sheridan have to say?%0D\ %0D\ That''s who I thought this thread was about. I checked news sites because I thought Sheridan died. Taylor didn''t cross my mind for a second until I started to read the thread.%0D\ %0D

• "nothing but heresay." Burn them at the stake!%0D

  Damned Heretics!

• bump

• I personally doubt it but there is a rumor about Dean's fatal car accident. Read the link i give you below. ''According to someone my acquaintance had talked to who was involved either in the medical team that had attended the tragic accident, or the examination of the bodies of Dean and Wutherich, there was evidence that the mechanic, friend and fellow traveller had been having oral sex with Dean just prior to the crash; both men had been participating in a gay sex act which is otherwise known as road head. There has been much made of the low-slung Spider, the dimming light, and the peculiarities of the landscape at the point where the cars hit, but nothing could be more distracting than getting a blow-job while at the wheel of a very fast vehicle.''

  http://www.mother-ship.com/blog/james-deans-gay-secret-3318/

• What about Pier Angeli? Well? What was up with her and Dean?

• R104, how very 'Crash'

• Well R105, according to some close acquaintances of Dean, Pier Angeli was not the 'great' love of James. John Gilmore, one of Dean's biographers and friends supports that Dean's romance with Pier was overpublicized and he doubts that James adored her. She was just one of the many romances James had and it didn't last long. Dean was the new star of the cinema and the press wanted to take advantage of him, so it was convenient for both Dean and the press to make his relationship with Angeli appear as ''special''. James was constantly in search of something and by the way he once had sex also with Gilmore.