A skilled chef, Brackett had prepared a lavish dinner for Jimmy as a gesture of welcome into his new living quarters. Jimmy had told his friends that he’d occupy a separate bedroom, but the small garden apartment had only one bedroom, and it contained a double bed.
Jimmy wanted his freedom, but even before he opted to move in, he had known what to expect. The question that had not been asked was how often he’d have to put out.
Brackett, who later worked for Grey Advertising in Manhattan, told Jimmy that he loathed the commercially oriented job he had. “I do it for a paycheck, and for no other reason. My true love is the ballet, the theater, concerts. I’m the cultural type.”
The dinner he’d prepared was spectacular and, as Brackett later admitted, the sex was sensational. “It was a two-way, reciprocal street.”
The next morning over breakfast, in reference to his new, glamorous address, Jimmy said, “I like living here. It makes me feel superior to be looking down on the city and its dreary residents. It’s like living on some magic carpet high in the sky.”
As part of their living arrangement, Brackett was quick to produce acting jobs for Jimmy. He got him a gig in Alias Jane Doe, the radio show, and another in Stars Over Hollywood for CBS Radio, a production that had been staged and promoted by Brackett’s employer, the advertising agency, Foote, Cone, and Belding. Stars Over Hollywood had been broadcast most Saturday mornings since 1941, featuring such second-tier stars as Ann Rutherford, who had played Vivien Leigh’s younger sister, Careen O’Hara, in Gone With the Wind (1939). Alan Hale, Sr., a beefy, hearty actor with a bushy mustache, was also a regular.
One afternoon, Jimmy was introduced to Basil Rathbone. He found the actor suave, imperious, and grandly self-satisfied, evoking some aspects of Clifton Webb. To Jimmy, Rathbone was the definitive screen version of Sherlock Holmes. That night over dinner, Jimmy confessed to Brackett. “Did you know that Rathbone is secretly gay? He made a pass at me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I told him to catch me later.”
Brackett began to expand Jimmy’s cultural horizons, introducing him to some of his favorite writers, including André Gide, Jean Cocteau, and Shakespeare. One night the two of them sat through a performance of Hamlet together.
Brackett had never seen Jimmy so mesmerized by a literary work. When it was over, Jimmy asserted, “I feel it is my destiny to play Hamlet on the stage.”
Wes D. Gehring, a professor of film history, wrote that themes associated with Hamlet were replicated in Jimmy’s screen persona in East of Eden, “playing the most uncertain of characters attempting to resolve situations that have fathers at their centers. In fact, one might also interpret the morose, brooding Hamlet as a possible catalyst for Dean’s decisions as they related to his interpretation of his angst-ridden character.”
On the social circuit, Brackett escorted Jimmy to many of Hollywood’s social venues and introduced him to his friends. Alec Wilder, the composer, later said, “Rogers took this Indiana farm boy, used to slopping the hogs, and introduced him to a world of culture and sophistication. Jimmy would always remain that farm boy in his heart, but with a more cutting edge as time went by.”
Some of Brackett’s friends were completely turned off by Jimmy. One of them was Leonard Spiegelgass, an aggressive homosexual who was a Hollywood player and the powerful story editor at Metro. “The boy was not housebroken. I’d installed this expensive new beige carpet, and he tracked in mud. He was a chain smoker, and he dropped ashes on my carpet. At one point, he jumped up and announced, ‘I’ve got to take a piss. Where’s the fucking john?’ He unzipped and had his dick half way out before he left the living room. I considered him toxic, but Rogers thought him the hottest thing since he’d once sucked off Lex Barker, Lana Turner’s Tarzan. I had planned to seduce the kid, but he was such a turn-off, I kicked him out into the rainy night.”
Ironically, Spiegelgass’s sister, Beulah Roth, befriended Jimmy. She’d been a speechwriter for Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson, and was married to the photographer, Sanford H. Roth, who later also became a close friend of Jimmy’s.
One Sunday afternoon during their time together in Hollywood, Brackett escorted Jimmy to the rented Malibu cottage of Miles White, who, for a period of twenty-five years, had been the top costume designer of Broadway musicals. He had designed the wardrobes for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first two Broadway hits, Oklahoma! and Carousel. He had also designed clinging and/or glittering on-stage garments for Carol Channing, Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, and Lena Horne.
White later remembered Jimmy’s visits. Like Brackett, he referred to him as “Hamlet.”
Miles White, the leading costume designer on Broadway, was not impressed by Jimmy’s hustler approach. “He wanted me to help get him cast in either Oklahoma! or Carousel.”
“I was on the West Coast designing costumes for the Civic Opera House and also for the circus, Barnum & Bailey. During each of his visits, Hamlet sat in the corner, nursing a Bud and not saying a damn thing. I found him very hostile.”
One weekend, when Brackett had business in San Francisco, he didn’t invite Jimmy to go along. To White’s surprise, Jimmy showed up that Sunday alone. He was drunk.
“Rogers must have told him that movie versions of Carousel and Oklahoma! were in the works,” White said. “Jimmy was particularly interested in playing the (leading) role of Curly in Oklahoma!, with a dubbed voice, of course, for the singing parts. He also thought he’d be ideal in the role of the irresponsible carnival barker in Carousel. He wanted me to recommend him.”
“I listened to his pitch—suddenly he’d found a voice—but he didn’t impress me then or now. Other actors, notably Gordon MacCrae, were far better suited for the role, and Gordon could sing.”
At one point, when Jimmy thought he was not going over with me, he stood up in my living room and unzipped his jeans. I couldn’t believe it. He pulled out his dick. ‘If you get me just one of those roles, you get this.’ Then he shook his dick at me. I ordered him out of the house. I never told Rogers about that Sunday afternoon.”
***
One of the most important show biz moguls that Brackett introduced to Jimmy was Ralph Levy, a pioneer in early TV comedy shows.
Levy had tried to launch himself into show business way back in 1946, when he answered a “cattle call” audition for the role of a chorus boy in Annie Get Your Gun. From that early failure, he rose, over a period of only eight years, to a position as director of Mary Martin in a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical on Broadway.
Later, Levy migrated from the theater to the emerging medium of television, producing The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and the highly successful Jack Benny Show. In time, he’d produce The Bob Newhart Show, and direct such stars as Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Ed Wynn, and Edgar Bergen. He also directed A-list film stars, including Marlon Brando, Shirley Jones, David Niven, and Doris Day. Later, his career included key involvements in The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, and Hawaii-Five-O.
Jack Benny in (upper photo) a comedy schtick celebrating his “39th” birthday and (in lower photo) in drag.
When he could, Levy hired Jimmy as an extra on The Alan Young Show, an entertainment venue that had begun as a situation comedy on the radio, and eventually evolved, by 1951, into a major-league TV variety show, eventually winning some Emmy awards. Jimmy approached its MC, Alan Young, directly and asked if he could use his influence to snag a speaking role. Young told Jimmy, “I’ll get back to you, kid.” Of course, he never did.
Levy always had frequently stated that Jack Benny—who appeared frequently on his show—was a marvelous man—and that he was privy to many aspects of Benny’s secret life. As Levy’s friend, Brackett later said, “To put it bluntly, Levy pimped for Benny. Even though Benny schtick included a sort of gag gay comedy act, American TV viewers usually assumed he was straight. After all, he’d been married to Mary Livingston since 1927. Yet throughout his career in
show biz, Benny maintained a secret preference for delivering blow-jobs to good-looking guys.”
Brackett went on to assert, “Although he played a miser on TV, in private life, Benny was very generous, giving these guys a hundred-dollar bill, big money back then. As I found out later, Levy delivered Jimmy one afternoon to Benny’s dressing room for a quickie. I later forced Jimmy—if he wanted to go on living with me and paying his bills, to reveal the truth.”
In the TV comedies that Levy helped administer, he really couldn’t use an actor like Jimmy. However, he did make several phone calls to help him get jobs in the theater after Jimmy moved to New York City.
Death in the Afternoon
(JIMMY DREAMS OF BECOMING A MATADOR)
Jimmy had become hooked on the art and mystique of bullfighting during his childhood in Indiana. James DeWeerd, a local preacher who fell in love with the young boy, sparked his interest in the sport by showing him home movies he’d taken in Mexico of bullfighters in the ring.
Budd Boetticher next to a poster displaying his passion, bullfighting. He gave Jimmy a “magic talisman,” the blood-soaked matador’s cape once owned by...
Jimmy’s future director, Nicholas Ray, later tried to explain the young actor’s fascination with bullfighting: “There was the ritual, the matador’s inescapable endurance test, the challenge of proving himself, and there was the physical grace of the bullfight itself, almost like a ballet. All of this intrigued Jimmy to the point that it almost became an obsession.”
When Brackett became aware of Jimmy’s interest in bullfighting, he invited him for at least three weekend visits to Mexicali.
En route to points south of the (U.S.) border, Brackett complained about Jimmy’s driving loudly protesting that he was going too fast. A speed demon, Jimmy ignored his lover’s pleas to slow down.
the celebrated American matador, Sidney Franklin, depicted in 1937 with Ernest Hemingway. Franklin is demonstrating a bullfighter’s maneuver with a cape that’s very similar to the one Jimmy received as a gift and talisman of good luck from Budd Boetticher.
In Mexicali, both Brackett and Jimmy became swept up in festive moods, attending the bullfights and drinking too much tequila.
By chance, Brackett ran into an old friend, Budd Boetticher, a film director known mainly for his low-budget westerns, many of them starring Randolph Scott, the former lover of Cary Grant. A bullfight aficionado, he had worked as the technical director of the wildly popular bullfighting film, Blood and Sand (1941), starring Tyrone Power as a matador.
Boetticher was in Mexicali working for John Wayne Productions, shooting The Bullfighter and the Lady, which featured such B-rated actors as Robert Stack and Gilbert Roland, a fading Latin lover of yesterday.
Boetticher was said to be gay, and he was mesmerized by Jimmy, arousing Brackett’s jealousy. Jimmy and the director managed to sneak away for some time together. Boetticher invited him to his hotel suite where he gave Jimmy a most precious gift, the blood-soaked cape of Sidney Franklin. As a matador, Franklin had the unique distinction of being born a Jew in Brooklyn. Ernest Hemingway helped fan Franklin’s legend through praise for his “intelligent valor,” facing death in the afternoon.
From within his hotel suite, Boetticher asked Jimmy to try on a flamboyantly pink “suit of light” designed in the tight-fitting style worn by matadors. Jimmy could hardly pull himself into the very tight garments.
Boetticher assured Jimmy that although no bullfighter could compete with the size of the genitals of the bulls they appeared with, matadors wore their pants that way as “proof of their manhood.” Hemingway had advised bullfighters who were not particularly well-endowed to stuff their crotches.
It was later assumed—but never verified by Brackett—that the director performed fellatio on Jimmy after he undressed in his hotel suite.
After one of their trips to Mexicali, en route back to Los Angeles, Brackett and Jimmy engaged in a lovers’ quarrel. At one point near Laguna, Jimmy braked the car and jumped out, racing toward the beach. As Brackett recalled, “I was furious at him, so I drove off, even though I knew he’d left his wallet in the back seat. Two days later, he managed to make it back to Hollywood looking worse for wear. I didn’t ask what he’d been up to. We survived our first big quarrel and resumed our life together.”
During their next trip to Mexicali, Jimmy and Brackett were accompanied by actor David Wayne and his wife, the former Jane Gordon.
According to Wayne, “All that Jimmy talked about was bullfighting, even though Rogers told me he wanted to be an actor. I finally got him talking about acting when I told him that I was one of fifty applicants who had been granted membership in the newly formed Actors Studio in Manhattan. He told me he’d go to New York one day to try to get into the Actors Studio himself.
Death of a Toreador (1864), by Edouard Manet, interpreted by some (including Jimmy) as a celebration of the heroism of sudden, unexpected death.
Wayne also said that Jimmy seemed to forgot about bullfighting when he learned that he would soon be appearing in a movie, As Young As You Feel (1951) with Marilyn Monroe.
[In a short time, Wayne would go on to star with Monroe in three more films, more than any other actor. They included We’re Not Married (1952); O’Henry’s Full House (1952); and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).]
In Mexicali, sitting above the bullfighting arena between Wayne and Brackett, Jimmy was mesmerized by his view of the matador, Carlos Arruza, performing brilliantly in the ring.
Jimmy later purchased a copy of his favorite painting, Manet’s Dead Bullfighter, [a.k.a. The Dead Toréador, painted around 1864] referring to it as “The Dance of Death.”
Throughout the rest of his life, Jimmy carried around Sidney Franklin’s blood-soaked cape wherever he went. It became something of a security blanket for him. In a series of apartments, he tacked the cape onto a wall, often as the room’s only decoration.
Sometimes, he even wore it, draping it casually over his left shoulder. In New York, in one of his more daring escapades, he treated oncoming cars as if they were the bull in a ring. Once or twice, he was lectured by a police officer, although never arrested, despite its obvious dangers as a pastime.
The Truth About That Nude Picture Showing Jimmy, With a Full Erection, in a Tree
During Jimmy’s time with Brackett, he posed for one of the most controversial sets of nude photos in the history of Hollywood movie stars. One day, he stripped and posed naked after climbing a tree, at one point exhibiting himself with a full-blown erection. For years, Brackett carried a copy of the blurry snapshot in his wallet, showing it to his friends. Some of them reported that eventually, after it was lost, he wept.
Many biographers have disputed that it was Jimmy depicted in these candid shots, published long before the technology of “doctoring” photographs (through computer programs such as Adobe’s PhotoShop) became widely available.
Among Jimmy’s biographers, the full frontal, fully erect nude of Jimmy was first published in Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a biography written by Paul Alexander, a former reporter for Time who had also written two books on Sylvia Plath.
Another chronicler of Jimmy’s life, John Gilmore, claimed that the young man depicted in the tree was not Jimmy. “The image isn’t even close,” he was quoted as saying.
X-rated Jimmy
Perhaps he should look again. The image not only resembles Jimmy, it’s a dead-on likeness.
Brackett, who was perhaps the most experienced judge of Jimmy’s genitals, insisted that the nudes were real, “not only the erection, but the testicles. I spent quite a few months nesting there, so I think I’m qualified to identify them.”
John Willis of Theatre World also provided authentication. Founded by David Blum in 1945, the magazine, published annually, was widely regarded as the pictorial and statistical “book of record” for virtually everything associated with the American Theater.
Willis took over the editorship of Theatre World after Blum.
He claimed that the nude photos of Jimmy had been snapped by Earle Forbes, the magazine’s staff photographer. “There was a very exhibitionistic quality in Jimmy,” Willis said. For a while, Forbes was one of the world’s premiere photographer of male nudes. Some of his work was eventually published in a book entitled Reed Messengill’s Uncovered—Rare Vintage Male Nudes.
Willis also claimed that both Forbes and Blum not only owned a collection of Jimmy’s nudes, but also nudes of other young performers, many of them posed before their subjects became famous. Among those cited by Rose included actors Rock Hudson and Warren Beatty, along with singers David Bowie, Elvis Presley, David Cassidy, and Jim Morrison.
The Bad and the Beautiful
JIMMY DREAMS OF A SCREEN DEBUT DRESSED ONLY IN HIS UNDERWEAR ...AND OF STEALING KIRK DOUGLAS FROM LANA TURNER
Brackett had many friends in Hollywood, but in many ways, the gay writer, George Bradshaw was his closest companion.
When both Bradshaw and Brackett were on the West Coast together, it became something of a tradition to spend Sunday afternoons with each other, sharing observations and catching up on the latest gossip.
From the beginning, Jimmy was rude, erratic, and rebellious around Bradshaw. Once, when Brackett was in a huddle with Bradshaw in the kitchen, both men heard Jimmy call out: “FIRE!”
Bradshaw rushed into the living room to discover a Queen Anne armchair on fire. Brackett was right behind him with a pitcher of water, which he used to douse the flames. Bradshaw thought he’d set the fire on purpose, despite Jimmy’s apologies and assertions that he’d accidentally set fire to the chair with his cigarette.
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