James Dean was blackmailed by a former male lover who threatened to out him on the eve of his big-screen break, according to a new book. In “Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean,” which…
James Dean was blackmailed by a former male lover who threatened to out him on the eve of his big-screen break, according to a new book.which drops Tuesday, author Jason Colavito claims the ill-fated Hollywood icon shelled out $800 to advertising executive Rogers Brackett only days before his first movie, “East of Eden,” premiered, averting a public scandal that would have cost him his career in the homophobic 1950s.
Not long after, Colavito says a “smitten” Brackett found a part for Dean on “Alias Jane Doe,” and Dean quickly grew attached to Brackett.“Although these feelings scared Dean, Brackett unlocked something Dean had kept so closely guarded that it had threatened to break him,” Colavito claims. After a tumultuous romance, the pair parted ways and Brackett moved to Chicago while Dean relocated to New York City.James Dean leaning against a wall on the set of director Nicholas Ray’s film, “Rebel Without a Cause,” 1955.Despite their distance, an impoverished Dean accepted financial support from Brackett, who — with “great reluctance” — forked over $1,000 to the actor, including $450 for hotel bills and more than $700 spent on gifts and loans.
In March 1955, just weeks before the premiere of Dean’s first movie, “East of Eden,” Brackett, now unemployed and looking to raise cash for an opera he was trying to producer with composer Alec Wilder, supposedly demanded Dean give him $1,200 in repayment for the financial support he provided the star during his early days in New York.
Unfortunately for Dean, the letter didn’t end the matter, and Brackett sent the future Oscar-nominee a legal demand for the funds and filed a suit in New York Municipal court for $1,100. According to the court documents, Brackett’s suit makes no mention of his and Dean’s affair, but only the expenses he said he was owed.
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