James Dean

by Darwin Porter

  Years later, Hudson was asked if he’d met Jimmy during the making of Has Anybody Seen My Gal?. “Yeah, I ran into the kid. He had a very small role with slicked back, wavy hair, very neatly combed. That’s all I remember.”

  Actor Nick Adams had a different memory. Late one afternoon, Adams had arrived at Hudson’s home at five o’clock. He’d been hired as a staff member attending the bar—shirtless, of course—at a seven o’clock gay male cocktail party. He was ushered into the living room, where it was understood that he’d be setting up the bar.

  “To my surprise, both Rock and Jimmy were sitting on his thick carpet, jaybird naked. They were spreading some kind of foul-smelling lotion into their crotches. It seems that each guy had a bad case of the crabs.”

  ***

  Rogers Brackett and his sophisticated mother, Tess, were very close. She was fully aware of her son’s homosexuality, and never chastised him for it. During his Hollywood months with Jimmy, Brackett took him over to his mother’s home in Culver City at least once a week for dinner.

  One night, Brackett informed Jimmy that he was packing up and moving out of Hollywood. His employers had temporarily transferred him to Chicago for some short-term assignments, with the understanding that after that, he be permanently relocated to Manhattan.

  He promised to send for Jimmy in Chicago after he settled in. His announcement led to a bitter fight, with Jimmy accusing his patron, “You’ll never send for me. You’ll meet some other good-looking guy in a parking lot—and that will be that.”

  As a parting gift, Jimmy asked Brackett for $2,000 to tide him over until he could find more work in films. Brackett refused, claiming he need all his cash on hand to get reestablished—first in Chicago, then in New York.

  “I may be a producer for CBS, but the job doesn’t pay that much.”

  On his final day in Los Angeles, when Brackett had to report to CBS to close down his office, Tess arrived at his apartment to assist her son in packing up his possessions, since he would not be returning to the rented apartment.

  Later that afternoon, she heard Jimmy sobbing in the bathroom. The door was half open.

  She knocked on it, calling out to him, “What’s the matter? Can I help?”

  “I’m afraid!” he shouted at her. “Afraid of being left alone. All my life, I’ve been abandoned. And now this!”

  Chapter Four

  TWO REBELS, JIMMY & NICK ADAMS, BECOME

  HOLLYWOOD HUSTLERS,

  SNARING, AMONG OTHERS, MERV GRIFFIN

  Jimmy Poses for Photographers—Nude

  ON A RETURN VISIT TO INDIANA, JIMMY RESUMES HIS AFFAIR WITH THE PRIEST WHO MOLESTED HIM

  In New York, “The Little Prince” Tackles Tallulah Bankhead, TV Drama, Peggy Lee, and a Sexy Brunette (Dizzy Sheridan)

  After failing at a movie career in Hollywood during the 1950s, an Irish-American from California, Merv Griffin (1925-2007), evolved into TV’s most powerful and richest mogul, eventually winning 17 Emmy Awards for The Merv Griffin Show, a durable daytime staple that attracted 20 million viewers daily.

  Two views of Merv Griffin in Knoxville, Tennessee, promoting his 1953 movie, So This Is Love, co-starring Kathryn Grayson. In the lower photo, he signs autographs for his adoring fan club members.

  Behind the scenes, Griffin became known for his Midas touch, developing two of Hollywood’s most popular game shows, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

  He had first entered the entertainment scene as a boy singer with Freddy Martin’s band in the 40s.

  He had long been known in the industry as a closeted gay. He married only once—it was unsuccessful—but he did produce an exceptional son from his ill-fated union.

  Most of Jimmy’s fans never knew about his involvement with Griffin. The struggling actors met as neighbors in Los Angeles within the seedy Commodore Garden Apartments, when their respective careers were going nowhere. In the beginning, their trysts were sexual, for which Griffin, who had more money than Jimmy, paid his fellow actor fifty dollars per session.

  At the time, Jimmy was sharing his modest studio at the Commodore Garden with another struggling actor, Nick Adams. Nick had wanted to get intimate immediately, but Jimmy had held him off until his financial situation worsened. Hard up, he accepted Nick’s invitation to move in with him.

  One night, Nick and Jimmy met Griffin under unusual circumstances. Griffin had stumbled across Errol Flynn, who had passed out in the courtyard of Commodore Gardens. No longer the swashbuckling matinée idol he’d been in the 30s and ‘40s, this once perfect specimen of manhood had become dissipated after a reckless life of debauched adventures. Motivated by financial troubles, he’d checked into the Commodore. Recognizing him at once, Griffin attempted to carry him back to his apartment. At that moment, after a night of hustling along Santa Monica Boulevard, Nick and Jimmy approached.

  After helping the hustlers tuck the fading star into bed, Griffin observed the two young men more closely, finding one of them particularly handsome and appealing. He extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Merv Griffin.”

  Nick Adams met James Dean in 1950, when they appeared together in a Pepsi-Cola commercial for TV. He is seen above as Johnny Yuma in his hit TV series, The Rebel.

  “This here is James Dean, and I’m Nick Adams,” the taller of the two said. “We’ve seen you around.”

  “Sorry we didn’t say ‘hi’ before,” Jimmy said. He looked at the body passed out on the bed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was Errol Flynn—or what’s left of him.”

  Jimmy and Nick seemed impatient to leave, but Griffin invited them for a drink at sundown in the courtyard the next day.

  Although they arrived late, both actors showed up for that drink the next day with Griffin. He was amazed at their candor. All of them shared their various dramas in trying to find acting gigs in L.A.

  “Let’s be truthful with the man,” Jimmy said. “We want to be actors. But right now, we might list our profession as hustlers.”

  “I see,” Griffin said. “Are you referring to pool hall hustling, or do you mean love for sale?”

  “More like dick for sale,” Jimmy said.

  Years later, on his way to becoming a famous Hollywood player, Griffin described his encounters with the young actor to several of his gay friends, notably Roddy McDowall, who also knew Jimmy.

  Griffith summed him up: “A slouching stance, youthful rebellion in faded jeans, a cigarette in the corner of a kissable mouth, alienation, even outright hostile at times, and the most angelic face I‘ve ever seen on a young man.”

  This Dean guy is going to be a big star,” Griffin predicted. “I have this feeling about him. But he’s got a lot of weird habits. He’ll smoke a cigarette so far down that it’ll burn his lips. Yes, actually burn them with intent. He gets off on being burnt. He confessed that to me as a hustler, and for a fee, he’ll let a john crush a lit cigarette onto his butt. But he won’t allow his chest or back to be burnt in case he has to strip off his shirt for the camera—that is, if he ever gets a role.”

  “The first time I was with him, even before I had sex with him, he pulled down his jeans and showed me cigarette burns on his beautiful ass. Strange boy. But I adore the kid.”

  That night, Griffin was invited into Nick and Jimmy’s apartment. Jimmy wore a white Mexican shirt and new jeans, the gift of an admirer who had taken him to a clothing store. As Griffin recalled, “The whole studio smelled like the inside of a dirty laundry bag. Yet there was a sexual tension in the air.”

  To Griffin’s surprise, he spotted a hangman’s noose hanging from a hook on the ceiling “That’s waiting for me if I decide to commit suicide,” Jimmy told him.

  Griffin didn’t know if he were joking or if he really meant it.

  As Jimmy put on a pot of coffee, Nick stripped down for a shower. Dangling his penis in front of Griffin, he said, “Now you know why I’m called ‘Mighty Meat’ along the Strip.”

  After he’d showered, Nick emerged with a towel around h
is waist. “Being a struggling actor is like having to eat a shit sandwich every day,” he said. “It’s kiss ass…” Then he paused: “Sometimes literally. You wait for the next job, not knowing if you’re going to get it or not. Trying for a gig and having to compete with a hundred other starving actors. Congratulating your best friend when he got the job instead of you.” He glanced furtively at Jimmy and continued. “Waiting outside that producer’s door. Even worse sometimes, getting invited inside and having to submit to a blow job from some disgusting piece of flesh. And then losing the job to the guy he planned to cast all along. Trying to get a gig is half the job of being an actor. Take it from me.”

  As the evening progressed, Griffin was amazed that Nick was “tooting his own horn,” sometimes at the expense of Jimmy. There was definite competition between the two actors. It was as if Nick sensed that Jimmy had far better looks and more talent than he did.

  A future biographer, Albert Goldman, summed up Nick Adams: “He was forever selling himself, a property which, to hear him tell it, was nothing less than sensational. In fact, he had very little going for him in terms of looks, talent, or professional experience. He was just another poor kid from the sticks who had grown up dreaming of the silver screen.”

  Right in front of Jimmy, Nick claimed that his friend would cater to kinkier offers from johns along Santa Monica Boulevard than he would. “I turn down a lot of sick queens, but Jimmy here will go for anything. One night, this weirdo wanted to eat my shit. I told him to ‘fuck off,’ but Jimmy went off with the creep in his car.”

  “Why not?” Jimmy asked with a devilish bad boy look. “I hadn’t taken a crap all day.”

  Years later, Griffin confessed to McDowall and to other gay friends, “Before I finished with them, I had to borrow five-hundred dollars to pay the freight, but it was worth every penny. Nick had the bigger endowment, but Jimmy was better at love-making. It was the best sex I’ve ever had, even if I did have to pay for it.”

  ***

  Later, to Griffin’s surprise, he ran into Jimmy on the 20th Century Fox lot, where he was working as an uncredited extra.

  Jimmy bonded with Griffin like a long-lost buddy, reminiscing about their encounters at the Commodore Garden Apartments. At five o’clock that afternoon, both of them headed for a drink at the tavern across the street. After his second vodka, Jimmy confessed to Griffin that he’d abandoned hustling and that he planned a move to New York in pursuit of TV and stage work.

  No mention was made of Nick Adams.

  Since work as an extra paid so little, and because acting gigs were so infrequent, Jimmy confessed that he’d devised a new way to make money: “I pose for nude photographs, sometimes with an erection. I’ve had a lot of copies made, and I sell them for twenty-five dollars each. It beats hustling, and no one even touches me, except perhaps the photographer. Not bad, huh?”

  “Sounds like a great way for an out-of-work actor to make some extra cash, unless those nudes come back to haunt you after you make it big as a movie star.”

  “Like I give a god damn about that,” Jimmy said. “I’ve set up a session with this photographer in Los Angeles. I’ve got a posing session at nine tonight. Wanna come with me?”

  “I’d love to,” Griffith said. “There’s more that a bit of the voyeur in me.”

  “The pictures this session are for a private collector.”

  Later that evening, outside the photographer’s studio, Jimmy removed his denim shirt and blue jeans. He wore no underwear. He handed his apparel to Griffin for safekeeping. “I like to arrive at the doorstep ‘dressed’ for action.” Then he chuckled at his own comment.

  At the door, the shocked photographer hustled the two men inside. “I’ve got two Eisenhower Republican old maids living upstairs. They might see you and have a heart attack. I don’t want those old biddies to know what goes on in here.”

  During the shoot, Griffin assisted the photographer, fetching a glass of water or holding the spotlight. But mostly he stared with fascination at the subject.

  As a nude model, Jimmy had no inhibitions. At one point, he grabbed a prop from a previous shoot, a black lace mantilla abandoned by a female model’s posing. He plucked a red rose from a vase, grasping its stem with his teeth.

  “This may be too girlish a pose for your client.” The photographer warned, but he snapped the picture anyway.

  At the end of the session, Jimmy put back on his clothes, and then rejected the photographer’s invitation for a three-way with Griffin.

  Back on the street again, Griffin asked, “What’s next?”

  “I want to go back to your place and fuck you,” Jimmy said.

  “A man after my own heart.”

  The pictures that Jimmy posed for that night are now in private hands, and considered a valued collector’s item.

  Competing for the Singing Cowboy Role in Oklahoma!

  JIMMY BEATS PAUL NEWMAN, BUT THEN THEY BOTH LOSE TO GORDON MACCRAE

  Until its final casting was defined and publicized, Jimmy clung to the hope of starring as Curly McLain in the film version of Oklahoma! (1955). When he heard that Fred Zinnemann had been named as its director, he got in touch with him and requested an audition.

  “I’ve got to be frank with you,” he told Jimmy. “I’m considering Paul Newman for the role, even though he can’t sing. I can always dub a soundtrack afterwards.”

  “I can’t sing a whole lot, but I sure as hell can act the role of Curly better than any other god damn actor in Hollywood,” Jimmy said.

  He was very persuasive and enticed Zinnemann into testing him out. The director had seen pictures of Jimmy and thought that from a physical standpoint, he’d be ideal for the role.

  When Jimmy arrived at the director’s snobby hotel, he was almost ejected from the lobby. The staff behind the desk later claimed, “He showed up looking like a cowboy wino.”

  He wasn’t allowed to pass through the lobby, but was directed to the rear service entrance, where he rode the freight elevator up to Zinnemann’s suite.

  Zinnemann was impressed with Jimmy’s rendition of the “Poor Jud is Dead” number alongside the veteran actor Rod Steiger, who had also been cast.

  Later, Griffin called Jimmy about getting together for a drink. [Unknown to Jimmy, Griffith had also been lobbying for the role of Curly, even though Zinnemann was insisting on a Paul Newman type.]

  Griffin, a talented singer in his own right, concealed from Jimmy how much he had wanted the role. When he had met with Zinnemann, the director had rejected Griffin for the role, but suggested that he could arrange for him to be in a movie called The Alligator People instead. “Would you allow makeup to transform you into an alligator?”

  Griffin had rejected the offer and headed for the door.

  The role Jimmy wanted but wasn’t destined to get. Center figures: Gordon MacRae as Curly, Shirley Jones as his bride.

  Over a drink with Griffin, Jimmy boasted that Zinnemann had told him that his tryout was one of the best auditions the director had ever witnessed.

  “And your singing?” Griffin asked. “You can sing?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but if I can pull off the role of Curly, I might become a singing star in other musicals.”

  Eventually, Zinnemann opted against Jimmy, instead offering the role to Frank Sinatra, who rejected it. The director finally settled on Gordon MacCrae, an actor and an accomplished singer.

  As a result, the public never had to sit through Jimmy belting out a rendition of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”

  ***

  As early autumn fell across Los Angeles in October of 1951, Jimmy prepared to leave the city. He told William Bast, “My dreams of becoming a movie star have been bashed.” He revealed that he was going to Chicago to join Rogers Brackett, who had been temporarily stationed there by his ad agency. “After that, I’m heading for stardom on Broadway, but I don’t have a lot of money.”

  Bast learned that although Brackett had arranged and paid for his tr
ain ticket to New York, with a stopover in Chicago, he had given him only a hundred dollars in spending money. “He likes to keep me on a tight leash. I certainly don’t have one cent left from my work as a movie extra.”

  Bast met with Jimmy for a farewell bowl of chili at Barney’s Beanery. His former roommate found Jimmy in a depressed mood. “You can knock your fucking brains out in Tinseltown. If you’re lucky, you’ll occasionally get $44 a day working as an extra in some shit movie. There’s got to be more of a future for me than that.”

  “With Brackett, you’ll be singing for your supper again,” Bast warned.

  “A gig’s a gig,” Jimmy responded.

  “I’m not performing for Rogers anymore,” Jimmy claimed, although Bast did not find that statement convincing. “If I can’t make it in show business on talent alone, then I don’t want to be in it at all.”

  Bast had been made aware of the inner conflicts Jimmy had faced about selling his body. In a memoir, he speculated, “Surely, being kept had to produce some kind of internal conflict in this Quaker-bred Indiana farm boy.”

  Bast recalled a shocking scene he’d secretly witnessed which seemed to demonstrate Jimmy’s inner conflicts about renting his charms to any passerby on the street.

  He had awakened one night at around 2AM, when he still shared the penthouse with Jimmy. Quite by chance, he looked out the window down onto the street scene below. There, he spotted Jimmy sitting on a bus bench, lit by a street lamp. To Bast, Jimmy was obviously cruising, waiting for a john to pull up in his car and offer him money in return for sexual favors.

  Bast stayed glued to the window. Within a few minutes, a Cadillac stopped. The male driver called out to Jimmy, who rose from the bench and headed toward the car. Bast expected him to get in and ride away.