There was an unexpected consequence from the completion of The Unlighted Road. Jimmy found Pat Hardy “sweet, coy, and rather sexy,” and began dating her.
“Chalk that one up to one of the big mistakes of my life,” he later claimed.
Chapter Nine
JAMES DEAN VS.
MARLON BRANDO
Rivals on Screen, Master & Slave After Midnight
JIMMY THREATENS TO STAB ANYONE WHO CALLS HIM “THE MICKEY MOUSE MARLON BRANDO”
Brando: “He Was Not a Contender”
James Dean’s link to the life and legend of Marlon Brando, his rival and inspiration, began long before the two Method actors had even met.
Nicholas Ray had directed Humphrey Bogart in the 1949 Knock on Any Door, casting John Derek in the part that both Ray and Bogie had wanted for Brando. Brando rejected any involvement in Knock on Any Door, but Ray was not put off by that refusal. “I want to direct Marlon in his screen debut,” he told Bogie and others in Hollywood.
Ray was not the first to envision Brando as Jim Stark, the alienated centerpiece of Rebel Without a Cause. William Orr, in charge of talent at Warner Brothers, had worked on the original script. In its first draft, Jim Stark is depicted as a psychopath who is driven to commit a senseless murder by horrendous memories from his childhood.
Later, Orr said, “In New York, I was told that the best actor for the role was one named ‘Marlin Brandin,’ or was it ‘Marlo Binden?’ When we looked him up, he was running an elevator at Macy’s. He said his correct name was Marlon Brando and that he was from Nebraska. He didn’t seem interested in the role at all, but I thought that was just an act.”
“Despite his hostility, I lured him to my office,” Orr said. “It took some persuasion, but I finally signed him for the role. We even made a screen test with him, but nothing came of it until Nicholas Ray came to Warners and got involved. He was really hot to direct Rebel.”
A few months later, during the closing weeks of the Broadway version of A Streetcar Named Desire, with the understanding that Brando would soon be searching for another gig, Ray arrived with a vastly revised script for Brando’s consideration. It was Rebel Without a Cause.
The script had derived from a non-fiction work, first published in 1944, by Dr. Robert M. Lindner. Ray was still struggling with the script, but thought that there was enough on paper to intrigue Brando with the role of the reckless, rebellious, and misunderstood Jim Stark. Ray was also aware that time was running out for Brando to realistically impersonate such a youthful character. With every month that passed, he was appearing less and less like a rebellious teen.
At a meeting with Ray, Brando became intrigued with the street gang aspects of the script, and agreed to study it. At around the same time, unknown to Irene Mayer Selznick, producer of the stage version of A Streetcar Named Desire, Brando had taken to riding every night with “The Eagles,” a tough and rowdy motorcycle gang based in Brooklyn. Perhaps he was rehearsing for his future role in The Wild One (1953).
Details about the logistics of how he hooked up at regular intervals with this tightly knit group of hoods were provided by Brando’s friend, Carlo Fiore. He claimed that he had introduced Brando to the gang leader, Tony Medina, who at first was skeptical about allowing Brando inside his clique. Medina changed his mind, however, after Brando bought him one of the flashiest and most expensive motorcycles in New York. As additional “tribute,” Brando also became a steady supplier of young girls for members of the gang.
As preparation for the milieu he wanted to depict on film, Ray was eager to learn all he could about gangs, and Brando asked and won approval from Medina to allow him to ride with The Eagles. Apparently, at no point was Medina informed that Ray was a film director. Later, in Hollywood, Ray would manage to hook himself up with a different gang, this one based in L.A.
One night at a location in New York State, the exact spot not known, Ray witnessed an extraordinary test of daring. During a game of “chicken,” competing members of The Eagles raced their motorcycles toward the edge of a cliff. Both of the young men managed to stop before they, with their bikes, plunged off the edge. Ray was so inspired by this that he later incorporated it into Rebel, using cars instead of motorcycles.
Ray later said that Brando, too, had wanted to play chicken that night, but that he had persuaded him not to. “It’s too risky,” Ray said. “If you do, there might be another actor replacing you as Stanley Kowalski on stage tomorrow night.”
Based on chronic problems with its script, Rebel Without a Cause simply did not get made in 1949, and it would not become the vehicle for Brando’s screen debut. But when the cameras rolled on the version of Rebel that was released, with fanfare, in 1955, it was James Dean who was cast in the star role. By then, Brando was indeed far too old for the part. Ray later admitted, however, that at least some elements that made it into the final script, as interpreted by Jimmy, had been inspired by what he perceived as Brando’s “personal character.”
Fiore later remembered attending a screening of Rebel Without a Cause with Brando in 1955. “Bud sat through the entire film with a stone face, not saying a word,” Fiore said. “After the show, we drove to a drive-in hamburger joint, where Bud ordered cheeseburgers with ‘the works.’ At this point he still hadn’t told me what he thought of Rebel. Finally, the suspense was killing me. Losing my cool, I asked him, ‘Well, what did you think of Dean? That kid is definitely living in your shadow.’”
“Marlon turned and looked at me like he didn’t even know who James Dean was,” Fiore recalled. “He didn’t say anything at first. Finally, he mumbled, ‘I plan to fuck Natalie Wood. She’s now the first on my list of possible conquests in Hollywood.’”
“You’ve already fucked Dean,” Fiore chided him. “Why not Sal Mineo? I hear he’s gay as a goose.”
“Yeah, that Mineo boy might get lucky too.”
“I hear that big tit Jayne Mansfield was originally tested for the role of Judy before it went to Wood. Have you had her yet? Or is she on your waiting list?”
Tough, hard to influence, and ferociously independent: Marlon Brando.
“Mansfield is too blonde for me,” Brando said. “Besides I can have the real Marilyn anytime I want her. Why go for mock turtle soup when you can have the real turtle in the stew pot?”
“Good point,” Fiore said.
Nothing else was ever said between them about either James Dean or Rebel Without a Cause.
***
In 1949, after an extended visit to Paris, Brando flew back to New York, where he ignored literally dozens of offers from Hollywood for starring roles in various films. [His agent, Jay Kanter, mailed the scripts to him, but learned, “He didn’t read any of them.”]
Marlon Brando in The Wild One, a film that made black leather, motorcycle drag, and hints of S&M hot, hip, and fashionable before anyone else figured it out.
Instead, he decided to make a public appearance at the Actors Studio. There, he was invited to say a few words. After his brilliant performances in both the stage and screen versions of A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he’d been nominated for an Oscar, Brando was idolized by most of the actors in Lee Strasberg’s acting classes.
By then, Jimmy had reconciled with Strasberg, having forgiven the acting coach for his harsh critique of his interpretation of The Matador.
Brando’s “few words” turned into a long, drawn-out speech about stage acting versus screen acting.
At the back of the room sat a young man slouched down in his seat, so much so that his ass was hardly touching the bottom of the chair. Throughout Brando’s speech, the young man stared at him “so intently I felt my skin burning,” Brando later told Bobby Lewis, one of the founders of Actors Studio, “I don’t think I’ve ever been looked at that way before,” Brando said, “and I’ve been evaluated by the best of them, male and female.”
From time to time, Brando would steal a glance at the young man, whom he found broodingly handsome, with a severe inten
sity combined with an appealing vulnerability. Brando immediately pegged the aspirant actor as a homosexual.
“He looked at me with such a childlike sincerity,” Brando later told Lewis, “that I knew it must be love. What else?”
After the session, and after the other students had filed out of the room, Jimmy remained glued to his seat, still slouching, and still staring at Brando. As Brando approached him, he rose to his feet and extended his hand.
“I’m your greatest fan,” he said to Brando. “Someday I want to become an actor just like you. Your style, everything.”
As he said that, Brando continued holding onto Jimmy’s hand, not returning it. “You can hold my hand all night long if you want to.”
“Indeed I shall,” Brando said. “Or should I have said, ‘Indeed, I will.’ I always confuse will and shall.”
“I’m confused about a lot of things,” Jimmy said. “Very confused. But not confused in my admiration for you.”
“Since you seem to know who I am, who might you be?” Brando asked.
“James Dean. But you can call me Jimmy. Born in Marion, Indiana on February 8, 1931. Died April 17, 1967.”
“You know the date of your death?” Brando asked. “How remarkable.”
“I’ve always had this uncanny ability to predict deaths,” Jimmy said.
“Do you know when I’m going to die?” Brando asked.
“You’ll die on December 24, 2010,” Jimmy said. “A very old man.”
“Do you really plan to die so young?” Brando asked.
“I sure do,” Jimmy said, snickering. “My motto is: Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse.”
“If that’s your intention,” Brando said, “I’m sure you’ll accomplish that lofty goal.”
He stood looking into Jimmy’s eyes for a long minute, maybe two minutes, maybe a lot more. As he would later recall the moment to Lewis, Brando said he wasn’t certain of the time. Finally, he spoke to Jimmy. “I hope you understand what I’m about to do. I sometimes do this with men. I’m going to take you in my arms and give you a long, deep kiss. It may be the first time in your life you’ve ever been kissed, really kissed. My kiss will be just the beginning of a lot of other deep kisses that I’m going to give you in the months ahead.” As he moved toward the young actor, Brando got so close he could smell Jimmy’s breath. “All your dreams and fantasies about me are about to come true!”
***
In his autobiography, Brando concealed his romantically tortured involvement with Jimmy, suggesting that he met his young admirer—six years his junior—much later than he actually did. Lewis often saw Brando and Jimmy together during the winter of 1951.
At the time, Jimmy was being partially supported by Rogers Brackett, who wanted, despite Jimmy’s resistance, a monogamous relationship. Perhaps to punish him, Jimmy described in intimate detail his various affairs with both men, including Brando, and women.
Alec Wilder and Stanley Haggart were each privy to the sexual involvement of Brando and Jimmy, as were Tennessee Williams and his lover, Frank Merlo. Later, each of those men, with additional information supplied by Lewis, relayed more or less the same accounts of the long-suppressed relationship between Jimmy and Brando.
In his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me, Brando falsely claimed that he had been introduced to Jimmy by Elia Kazan on the set of East of Eden. According to the autobiography, Jimmy told Brando that he was “not only mimicking my acting but also what he believed was my lifestyle.” In that statement, Brando was accurate. Only the date and place of the introduction were wrong.
Brackett claimed that according to Jimmy’s own account, Brando took him back to his apartment and seduced him on the afternoon of their first meeting at Actors Studio. “I got to make love to Brando,” Jimmy claimed, “which is something I’ve been longing to do ever since I first heard about him.”
“He was completely in charge of our love-making,” Jimmy revealed to Brackett. “He told me what he wanted, and I went along for the ride.” Without Jimmy specifically saying so, it was obvious that Brando had sodomized his new young friend.
As in previous relationships, when Brando had walked the streets and attended clubs and cafes with Clifford Odets or Leonard Bernstein, he was soon “spotted everywhere with Jimmy Dean,” claimed the actress and acting coach, Stella Adler. “I had many long talks with the two of them.”
“They were definitely a couple,” Wilder said. “Of course, the words ‘sexual fidelity’ would be unknown in each of their vocabularies. Jimmy and I used to sit and talk for hours in my room at the Algonquin Hotel. He kept me abreast of the affair. I really believe that Jimmy fell in love with Brando that year. As for Brando, I don’t think he ever loved Jimmy. I met Brando only three times, and each time he was with Jimmy. In my opinion, Brando was in love with Brando.”
“Jimmy tried to dress exactly like Brando,” Wilder said. “With one notable exception. To keep warm in the winter, he wore a black bullfighter’s cape slung over his shoulders.”
Jimmy frequently visited Stanley Haggart, especially when he was broke. Haggart at the time was the leading art director in New York for television commercials, and Jimmy wanted him to use his influence to get work for him. Brackett, too, helped Jimmy find work. But he would often disappear for weeks at a time, not returning at night to Brackett’s apartment. “This would seriously piss off Rogers,” in the words of Wilder, his most intimate friend. “When Rogers cut him off from jobs, Jimmy would go over to Stanley’s.”
“Jimmy never had any money in those days,” Haggart said. “Sometimes I would lend him fifty dollars with no expectation of ever seeing the money again. Believe it or not, fifty dollars could actually buy something in those days. Even when Jimmy had less than two dollars in his pocket, Brando wouldn’t lend him a cent. Jimmy said he felt that Brando deliberately wanted him lean and mean on the streets, looking for a handout.”
Haggart said that Jimmy never phoned in advance before dropping by his apartment in the East Fifties. “He just arrived on the doorsteps. He always wanted me to make tapioca pudding for him. It was sort of a comfort food for him. He never came to see me unless he was depressed or broke. His manners were horrible. He’d put muddy feet up on my new sofa and would flick ashes on my Oriental carpet, never bothering to use an ashtray. He talked frequently about Brando and how frustrated he was in the relationship. I got the impression that Jimmy was engaged in a cat-and-mouse affair with Brando, with Brando being the cat, of course. 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.”
“I sensed a terrible loneliness in Jimmy,” Brackett said. “Whatever he wanted or needed, I felt I could not really provide, even though he shared my bed on many a winter’s night. It was obvious to me that he preferred Brando’s arms to mine. Even though he must have known that Jimmy was hopelessly in love with him that winter, Brando insisted on rubbing Jimmy’s nose into his other affairs. Sometimes Brando would invite Jimmy over to watch as he fucked some pickup from the street. Jimmy told me that he’d spent many a night at Brando’s watching like a voyeur as he made love to someone else. Jimmy claimed that Brando often invited him for ‘sloppy seconds.’ It wasn’t a very happy relationship for Jimmy, and I was as jealous as a bitch in heat, because at least momentarily I’d fallen—and fallen big—for Jimmy. When Brando was out on one of his many dates, Jimmy would often stalk him, even following him home. On many a night Jimmy would stand beneath Brando’s apartment house, looking up at his bedroom window as the lights went out, wanting to be in that bedroom himself. One very cold morning, Brando came downstairs in his pajamas and invited Jimmy, shivering in the cold, to come upstairs with him. But, I fear, those acts of kindness were the exception—not the rule.”
Haggart cited occasional acts of generosity on the part of Brando. “When he found Jimmy half starved, Brando would sometimes invite him to a
steak dinner in the Village. But these were very rare occasions. When Jimmy had no money at all, he told me that he would consent to blow-jobs in a men’s toilet in Central Park to earn a few bucks. When he got money, he lived on chocolate milkshakes for energy. He claimed he could survive on a daily intake of milkshakes, although he complained of a runny stool because of the lack of solids in his diet. I fed him when he came to me, trying to give him some red meat and a garden salad, followed invariably by my tapioca pudding.”
“Jimmy often spoke to me about his dreams of future stardom in Hollywood,” Wilder said. “He vowed that he was going to keep imitating Brando in his acting style. Then, when he actually got to Hollywood, he wanted to star in all of the movies Brando turned down. ‘I’m a natural for Brando’s rejects,’ he told me. Even though I urged him to forge his own style as an actor, he never listened.”
One night at about two o’clock in the morning, Jimmy arrived at my apartment,” Brackett said. “I hadn’t seen him in days. He begged me to take him to an all-night diner where he could eat chili and beans like he used to when a boy in Indiana. Reluctantly I got dressed and went to the diner, even though I detest chili. He told me he was giving up his dream of a career as an actor. He said that Brando had told him that he could never make it as an actor and that he had no talent. Jimmy was sobbing between the beans. He claimed that his relationship had deteriorated and that Brando didn’t want to see him again.”
Ironically, at the time, Jimmy was hoping to land the role of Nels in the TV series, I Remember Mama. The same role, in the stage play, of course, had brought acclaim to Brando.
Back from the diner, Brackett felt that Jimmy was coming unglued. “He went to get his bongo drums. He always kept most of his possessions in my apartment. Back in the living room, he wanted to play the drums for an hour or two. At one point he pulled off all his clothing. I was shocked to see that he had burns on his chest. Jimmy told me that they were from cigarette burns by Brando. I was practically ready to call the police on this brutal son-of-a-bitch until Jimmy told me that he’d asked Brando to do that to him. For the first time in my life, I came to realize what a masochist Jimmy was—or was becoming.”
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