Rebel Without a Cause star James Dean may have only starred in three films, two of which were released posthumously, and yet his cultural impact — especially to the queer community — has lasted generations and shows no sign of slowing down.
Dean only had a short career before his untimely death at the age of 24, but his life quickly became fodder for Hollywood rumors, the most prevailing being that the star was secretly queer.
There have been countless articles, biographies, and tell-all books that have dived into not just Dean’s status as a gay icon, but speculating about his real-life LGBTQ+ identity.
In the 70 years since his death, rumors have persisted that Dean was not just queer, but that he had ongoing sexual relationships with men throughout his life, including with some very famous gay men.
Out actor Brandon Flynn is even set to star in an upcoming biopic based on Dean’s alleged relationship with his former college roommate. But was the infamous movie star really queer, and who did he allegedly have relationships with?
Who was James Dean?
Dean only starred in three major feature-length films during his short-lived career in Hollywood: East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant, with East of Eden being the only one released while the young star was still alive.
During his brief stint as Hollywood’s "it guy," Warner Brothers studio promoted Dean as a hot, eligible bachelor alongside actors Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, both closeted gay stars. While he had frequent and intense relationships with women, rumors that he was bisexual or gay started almost immediately.
“Much ink would be spilled over the years trying to pin down his sexuality—straight, bisexual, gay, asexual all found their advocates—but he resisted labels, not least because the labels were tied up in bigger questions of masculinity and manhood,” Esquire wrote in an article titled It’s Time We Let James Dean Be the Queer Icon He Is. “In those days, ‘homosexual’ was synonymous with a campy, effeminate stereotype he couldn’t identify with.“
Generations of gay men also saw themselves in the subtle nods to a queer love story in Rebel Without a Cause, but during his lifetime, Dean never openly talked about having sexual or romantic relationships with men.
Ultimately, Dean died on September 30, 1955, near Cholame, California, in an auto accident while traveling to a racing competition.
Queer relationship with his college roommate
The Flynn-starring biopic will be based on the 2006 memoir, Surviving James Dean, written by William Best, who claims he and James were lovers while the two men studied at UCLA’s theater program. Best says that Dean was 19 when they met in college and that the two became friends and roommates before eventually starting a sexual relationship.
Best alleges that the pair had to keep their fling secret as Dean’s career started taking off and he had relationships with female stars. Best was hopeful that he and Dean would be able to live together again, but five years after they first met, Dean passed away.
Flynn, an openly gay actor himself, told Variety that he thinks Dean’s sexuality hasn’t been tackled in a film before because of homophobia. “The short answer is I just think the whole world is just so fucking homophobic,” Flynn said. “He really became the ideal masculine icon. Like hardcore, James Dean is what a real man is. But he was also emotional. I think that shakes people, especially people’s fragile heterosexuality. I think it’s important that we reveal these stories because Jimmy wasn’t the only one.”
Relationship with a male TV producer
In the biography, Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean, author James Colavito claims that Dean had a secret relationship with an older, closeted radio director and TV producer named Rogers Brackett. In the book, which was released in November 2024, Colavito alleges that Brackett blackmailed Dean, who was forced to pay him off to keep their relationship a secret because he was terrified of being outed as gay and starting a public scandal.
According to the biography, Dean paid Brackett $800 in the lead-up to the premiere of East of Eden, as part of an agreement that stayed a closely guarded secret until the release of the book.
"Implicit in the correspondence and conversations between Brackett's team and Dean's is the threat that the suit might become public, which both Brackett and Dean knew would destroy Dean's career," Colavito told the Daily Mail.
Marlon Brando rumors
Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire
Marlon Brando, who has been open about his own bisexuality since the ‘70s and has talked about his relationship with Richard Pryor, is also rumored to have had an intense relationship with Dean.
This rumor has been around for decades, but in the 2016 book James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes, a friend of Dean’s named Stanley Taggart claims that Brando and Dean didn’t just sleep together, but had a leather and sado-masochistic sex life where Brando was the dominant master and Dean was a submissive.
"I got the impression that Jimmy was engaged in a cat-and-mouse affair with Brando, with Brando being the cat, of course," Haggart claimed. "Brando seemed to be toying with Jimmy for his own amusement. I think Brando was sadistically using Jimmy, who followed him around like a lovesick puppy with his tongue wagging."
Rock Hudson rumors
Rock Hudson
Universal Pictures/Public Domain
Rock Hudson, who famously kept his sexuality a secret during the height of his fame and died of AIDS-related complications in 1985, is another one of Dean’s rumored lovers.
Much like his relationship with Brando, this rumor has persisted for years, but in the HBO documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, Hudson's biographer Mark Griffin claimed that Hudson made passes at Dean while the two men worked on Giant together.
"Dean considered it hypocritical that Rock was maintaining this hetero facade in public while privately hitting on Dean," Griffin said, per Business Insider. "Some might consider that a case of the pot calling the kettle black. If you're talking about shrouded sexuality, they weren't all that different.”
What did James Dean say about his sexuality?
Dean never publicly came out or admitted that he had ever had sexual or romantic relationships with other men, and the only evidence we have is hearsay from people who knew him, but the one time he did deny being gay, he left things open for interpretation.
“I’m not a homosexual,” he told a reporter who asked if he was gay, “but I’m not going through life with one hand tied behind my back.”
