New James Dean biopic to explore Hollywood legend’s reported gay romance
Actor James Dean poses for a Warner Bros publicity shot for his film ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ in 1955 in Los Angeles, California. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
A James Dean biopic, written and directed by gay film producer Guy Guido, will explore the Hollywood legend’s rumoured gay romance.
Guido acquired the rights to 2006 memoir Surviving James Dean, by the late William Bast, and casting has already begun.
In the memoir, Bast, who died in 2015, recalled meeting Dean at a theatre programme at the University of California Los Angeles when both were in their teens. They became roommates, then lovers, he claimed. They kept the romance secret to protect the star’s burgeoning career, but the author held on to hope that the two could live together some day.
The enigmatic Dean died in a car crash five years after meeting Bast, on 30 September 1955, at the age of 24. Some of his celebrated films, including Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, were released posthumously.
The announcement of the new film was timed with the 69th anniversary of Dean’s death and its synopsis promises a focus on their evolving relationship. Bast came to terms with being gay in the 50s and died at the age of 84.
Guido said: “I have been a fan and historian of James Dean since I was 18 years old, so I knew about his ‘friend’ Willie, even when information about their relationship was straight-washed by the Hollywood machine. As a filmmaker, I love telling the story of a celebrity’s life in their coming-of-age period. As a gay man, I was particularly drawn to Bast’s unique story.
“I am obsessed with getting the look right when it comes to casting and directing a film about a famous person. I want people to feel as if they are watching the real James Dean on the screen.”
In 2007, a former Hollywood starlet revealed that actress Elizabeth Taylor made a bet with closeted gay actor Rock Hudson about which one of them could seduce their Giant co-star Dean first.
In 2016, Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince’s gossipy James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes claimed that Hollywood legend Marlon Brando had a sadistic gay relationship with Dean.
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