James Dean

by Darwin Porter

  “My Two Beautiful Lovers, Marilyn & Jimmy,

  WERE RIGHT—LEAVE THE STAGE WHEN YOU’RE LOOKING GOOD.”

  —Marlon Brando

  Marlon Brando remained a fixture in Jimmy’s life right up until the end. In one of the astonishing secrets of Hollywood, at least some of their rivalry and/or bonding—at least for a while—revolved around the women they were dating, Pier Angeli and Ursula Andress.

  FLASHBACK: In 1951, when Pier arrived seeking stardom in Hollywood, fresh and optimistic after her film successes in Italy, she retained traumatizing memories of Brando’s brutal “date rape” of her in 1950 on that grassy knoll overlooking the Roman Colosseum.

  In 1953, MBM executives were considering joining Brando and Pier together as a screen duo in two separate projects—first, Antony and Cleopatra, and later, Romeo and Juliet.

  [Neither film was made, although Brando would eventually appear, without Pier, in Julius Caesar (1953).]

  But while they were still being considered, Brando called Pier with the news. At first, based on her memories, she refused to speak to him until she learned that starring roles in at least one and possibly two screen projects were being dangled before them.

  Reluctantly, she agreed to meet with him as he pleaded with her “to forgive me for my past transgressions.” He blamed her for his assault on her, claiming that it was “because you looked so god damn beautiful.”

  Brando later described Pier as “a mixture of child, waif, and minx,” despite her ill-fated romance with Kirk Douglas.

  After that, Brando showed up at the Pierangeli house for dinner, and even asked Enrica’s permission to date her daughter. The mother agreed, providing that her twin sister, Marisa, accompany them.

  The next morning, Brando arrived at the Pierangeli household driving a large truck. Loaded with bales of hay, he had borrowed it from another film set. He’d come up with a gimmicky idea for a hayride and picnic beside an obscure lake he’d located on an old map of California.

  Along for the ride was Rita Moreno, whom he was dating, dancer/choreographer Jerome Robbins, and Phil Rhodes, Brando’s makeup man. Pier and Marisa joined in the picnic, riding in the back with the bales of hay.

  As it turned out, Brando never found the lake. He later learned that it had dried up. Instead, he located an idyllic spot in the country, and the show business crowd enjoyed their picnic there, except for the ants, which decided to join in the fun.

  Within the next few weeks, Brando became a fixture around the Pierangeli household until Enrica finally trusted him with the responsibility of escorting her precious Pier out on a date without a chaperone.

  Enrica was clearly charmed by Brando, who was constantly praising her home-cooked pasta. “He is the son I never had,” she said. “He’s so full of love and compassion.” Apparently, she never learned that he had raped Pier in Rome.

  With Pier seated beside him, Brando drove around Hollywood in the bullet-riddled car that had belonged to Bugsy Siegel. Brando was considering playing the gangster in a biopic based on his life.

  To the degree that Enrica approved of Brando, she passionately disapproved of Jimmy.

  On the set of Pier’s movie, The Sliver Chalice, its star, Virginia Mayo, said, “I had several talks with Pier between takes. She viewed it as a feather in her cap to be dating the two bad boys of Hollywood, Jimmy and Marlon. In spite of their dubious sexuality, those guys were in great demand from both men and women. When they weren’t fooling around with Ursula Andress or Pier, they were probably making it with each other.”

  Actor Sam Gillman, who lived in Brando’s home for several months, later revealed a shocking incident that took place in the “love triangle” flourishing among Brando, Jimmy, and Pier.

  “I was never quite sure what his motive was, but Marlon set up an incident one night to broaden Pier’s awareness of what some men do,” Gilman said. “If anything, that night shoved her into the arms of Vic Damone.”

  In a perverse move, Brando made dates with both Jimmy and Pier on the same night. Jimmy had been invited two hours before Pier’s arrival. Brando called Pier and told her he’d hurt his leg and that, because he’d been immobilized, he wouldn’t be able to answer his door. He asked her to enter through his garden and to walk through the French doors opening directly into his living room.

  Jimmy showed up for his date with Brando, not knowing that Pier was expected later. When she arrived at eight o’clock, she navigated her way through his garden and then, as instructed, directly into his living room. There she confronted an orgiastic scene that must have sent shock waves through her.

  “On the living room sofa, a nude Marlon and Dean were having a hot sixtynine,” Gilman said. “I was in another room that night, but I heard Pier scream. She raced out, through the garden and back to her car. Welcome to Hollywood, gal.”

  As he expected, Brando read press reports of Pier’s eventual break with Jimmy. “They wrote such bullshit about the end of the romance of those two. Take that story about Jimmy waiting across the street on his motorcycle during Pier’s wedding ceremony. What a piece of crap! While Pier was marrying that Sinatra clone, Jimmy was probably somewhere else taking it up the ass. I should know.”

  Gilmore summed it up: “Pier wanted Marlon’s noble tool, Dean’s pecker, and Damone’s Italian sausage.”

  ***

  As if his conquest of Jimmy’s territory with Pier weren’t enough, Brando set out to date Ursula Andress too. “I think Marlon wanted to show Jimmy who the man really really was,” said Gilman.

  At the time, Ursula was sharing an apartment with Josanne Berenger, whom Brando had declared as “my one true love.” In spite of that ardent declaration, he began dating Ursula after she moved into her own vine-covered cottage overlooking Sunset Boulevard.

  Still living with him at the time, Gilman said that Ursula was a true femme fatale “If Josanne wanted to hold onto Marlon, she should not have introduced him to Ursula. No woman with a boyfriend should ever introduce him to this Swiss bombshell. What a hottie!”

  “One night, when Marlon had too much to drink,” Gilman continued, “he confessed to me his ambition: that involved marrying either Ursula or Pier. He’d take one for a wife, the other for his mistress.”

  He also confessed something else to Gilman: “I know that Dean really goes for Ursula and Pier, and that is precisely why I’m interested in them, too. I want to show him up. If I told either of them to get rid of Jimmy tomorrow, she would. I like playing the game of love—it’s a lot of fun. Rita Moreno’s in love with me, too, plus countless others.”

  “I don’t know if Jimmy ever found out, but Marlon wanted a sworn statement from both of these gals that he was a better lover than Dean,” Gilman said. “He told me that although Jimmy might handle Pier, he wasn’t man enough to handle Ursula. Frankly—and don’t tell him I said this—I think Marlon isn’t man enough for Ursula, either.”

  When Kazan heard of these entangled and interconnected romantic liaisons, he expressed an opinion of his own, telling Tennessee Williams, “I think Dean is in love with Marlon, and that he’s dating these gals just to show how macho he was. Frankly, at one point, Marlon was ready to dump Dean until he heard that he was dating Pier and later Ursula. That aroused Marlon’s sense of competition. Perhaps he wants to pay Dean back for all that press he’s generating as the next Marlon Brando.”

  “For some reasons, those two very competitive men seem to want to date the same women,” Tennessee said. “I heard that both of them are also dating Katy Jurado when she’s not otherwise occupied with Gary Cooper. Marlon told me that Jimmy doesn’t just want to imitate him, ‘he wants to be me.’”

  Even when Marlon was out on a date—most often with a woman—Dean sometimes stalked his prey,” Gilmore claimed. “On his motorcycle, Dean would follow Marlon and his date in their car. If they went, say, to a Mexican restaurant—Dean would go there and sit alone at another table, drinking Tequila sunrises while he studied them. I was living w
ith Marlon at the time, and overheard Dean’s calls to him at three or four o’clock in the morning.”

  “Marlon told me that one groggy night, he was parked at a lookout on Mulholland Drive, making out with Natalie Wood. Suddenly, Dean appeared at the car window, staring in at them. When Natalie screamed, he ran away. Marlon said, ‘I wasn’t as spooked as Natalie was. Knowing Dean, I realize it was harmless—he’s got a crush on me and he wants to see what I’m up to. I understand that. Lovers all over the world do that. So I can’t blame Jimmy. Once he got a taste of my noble tool, he wants to own it. But it belongs to me. Only I will decide where to put it.’”

  One night when Jimmy came to visit Brando, he kept him entertained by what Gilmore called a series of puckish tricks. “Like a Houdini, he disappeared into the bathroom and locked the door from the inside. Then he escaped through the lone window, yet managed to re-lock it, from the outside, after his escape. Marlon rushed to the front door to answer the bell. Dean was standing THERE, on the stoop. Marlon could never figure out how he pulled off that stunt.”

  Sometimes, Dean would put both a cigarette and a lit match in his mouth and put his lips together. He’d then open his mouth and the cigarette would be lit. and the match would still be burning. “It was amazing,” Gilman said. “It drove Marlon wild.”

  “Dean and Marlon shared one bad boy trait in common,” Gilman said. “When either of them had to take a piss, they found the nearest wall and urinated to their heart’s content, regardless of who was looking on. When a wall wasn’t available, they used a fire hydrant or a tree, like a dog.”

  Brando had another close friend, Carlo Fiore, who was sometimes present during his interactions with Jimmy. Once, he overheard the younger actor’s praise for Brando’s performance in The Men (1950).

  “You were terrific,” Jimmy said. “I didn’t know what acting was until I saw you in that picture. You conveyed much with minimalism. Suddenly, I knew how to do it. Through you, I learned to show anguish. Unlike Bette Davis, who’s in constant motion, you taught me the power of stillness. The use of outward serenity to convey internal turmoil was in complete opposition to most screen acting until you came along. Even the tiny flicker in your face conveys something, an emotional byproduct, an unrealized dream, an unfulfilled passion. It wasn’t until I saw you in The Men that I decided to become a serious actor. It was the greatest moment of revelation of my entire life.”

  Both Fiore and Gilman agreed that all these pronouncements from Jimmy “was a form of ass-kissing.”

  “I think there was also a lot of ass-kissing, or whatever, of another sort going on with him in Marlon’s bedroom,” Gilman said.

  One night, Jimmy took Brando for a spin in a new Alfa Romeo. Brando returned home two hours later, his face white, telling Gilman, “I think he has a death wish. He drives like he wants to die and take me with him. If I ever get into a car with him again, I’m going to take the wheel. Behind the wheel of a car, Jimmy boy is absolutely fearless.”

  Brando then confused Gilman with yet another pronouncement about Jimmy: “He wants to be loved, but he doesn’t.” Gilman was left to ponder that for himself.

  “Don’t fall in love with me,” Jimmy warned Brando one night in front of Gilman. “When emotional demands are made on me, I collapse.”

  “Don’t worry your pretty head about that,” Brando said. “At least, you’ve revealed to me how to get rid of you in case that’s my desire in the future.”

  When Jimmy left that night, Brando told Gilman, “There’s a toughness to Dean that’s only pretend. Actually, he needs to be nursed like a baby. Sometimes, when he’s in need of a mother, I let him suckle at my breasts.”

  ***

  Director Robert Wise, for a time, thought Brando, an amateur boxer, would be ideal in the story of middleweight champ, Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me. Brando considered the offer, but later rejected it. Wise, with revisions, then offered the role to Jimmy, despite his observation that he didn’t have the hardened physique of a boxer.

  Jimmy seemed thrilled with the offer, and subsequently, Brando agreed to train and work out with him in the ring.

  “Frankly, I thought Marlon threw some killer punches at the kid when he wanted to punish him,” Gilman said. “There was this undercurrent of hostility between these two guys. It was definitely a love-hate relationship.”

  After Jimmy’s death, Paul Newman was shoehorned into the role of Graziano for a 1956 release. In a touch of Hollywood irony, the picture starred four of the late Jimmy Dean’s lovers: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Steve Mc-Queen, and Sal Mineo.

  ***

  After Jimmy’s filming of East of Eden he paid a surprise visit to the gallery of a sculptor in West Hollywood, Kenneth Kendall to admire a sculpted head whose look had been inspired by Brando. Kendall later revealed that Jimmy was so impressed with the sculpture of Brando that “he almost devoured it, fondling it, loving it. He was totally fascinated.”

  While at the gallery, Jimmy asked to see Kendall’s photos of Brando. “He went through my files one by one. At the end, he was very hesitant, but managed to blurt out a request.”

  “Would you sculpt me like you did Brando?” he asked.

  Jimmy had not made a good first impression on Kendall. He’d shown up at the gallery looking slovenly—“a real turn-off to me.”

  However, the sculptor changed his mind when he saw Jimmy’s performance in East of Eden He called Jimmy and asked him to pose for him, and Jimmy seemed delighted.

  Kendall’s sculpture of Jimmy was later placed in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. By that time, however, its subject was dead.

  ***

  Sam Gilman claimed that Brando’s affair with Jimmy continued until the young actor’s death. So did their rivalry.

  Midway into the shoot of Giant, director George Stevens generated a genuine hysteria in Jimmy when he informed him that he had originally offered the role of Jett Rink to Brando.

  “First, it was Marlon who turned me down,” Stevens said. “Then I offered it to Montgomery Clift. He turned me down too.”

  “Guess I’m left with sloppy seconds,” Jimmy said. Before storming off the set in anger, he told Stevens, “Or should I say sloppy thirds?”

  “Hudson and Dean were thick as thieves for a few weeks there,” Gilman said. “Marlon found their affair amusing, warning me that their romance wouldn’t last. ‘Rock is too square for our boy pervert,’ Brando said.”

  “During his final months with Brando, Dean was out of control,” Gilman said. “He arrived at Marlon’s house at about three o’clock one morning. I let him in. He was threatening to kill himself if he didn’t see Marlon. I woke up a sleepy Marlon who wandered downstairs naked. He conferred privately with Dean. Somehow Dean managed to persuade Marlon to drive away with him in the middle of the night. I hope Marlon was driving.”

  “I noticed that Dean would get drunk after only two glasses of vino. And he was one mean fucking drunk. Marlon would just sip a coke observing Dean like a boa constrictor sizing up a chicken to deep throat. Marlon needed to keep his sanity in order to control Dean later in the night. Under the influence of alcohol, Dean was a shit. He tried to physically assault Marlon on more than one occasion. Marlon never fought back. He was the stronger of the two, and he could have restrained or even destroyed Dean.”

  “I shouldn’t mention this, and God will get me for it, but Marlon and Dean engaged in some very sick games together, especially near the end of Dean’s short life,” Gilman claimed. “Very S&M stuff. Marlon on occasion did engage in violence with some of his girlfriends, as has been widely reported. To my knowledge, he never got violent with any of his male lovers except with Dean. They played their dirty games with each other. It was like the two rivals brought out only the darkest side in each other. Many a night I heard Dean sobbing yet begging for more.”

  “Dean had a whole string of seduction mates, Gilman said. “To Marlon, I called them his little girlfriends and his little fairyboys. I can
’t speak for his whole life, but during the time he was dating Marlon, he also had a whole harem, both male and female, each one of whom seemed willing to do his bidding. He was banging some bitch one night, and the very next night getting fucked by some biker. I hear he liked only bikers who dressed like Marlon did in The Wild One.”

  Jimmy’s last night with Brando was a disaster,” claimed Ronnie White, who hosted an all-male party in Malibu, which both Jimmy and Brando attended.

  “Jimmy apparently had been drinking heavily all afternoon, and he came to the party stoned,” White said. “Brando came in a little later. He was sober and ordered only a cranberry cocktail. Jimmy switched from liquor to pot. Then he and Brando got into a tiff, a sort of catfight.”

  In front of the other guests, Brando suddenly attacked Jimmy, accusing him of going out with women just to mask his homosexuality. “You and Tab Hunter just date for all this manufactured Hollywood publicity crap. You shamelessly court it. As for me, and unlike you guys, I have nothing to cover up. I am what I am, and I’m proud of it.”

  “Jimmy seemed on the verge of tears at this sudden attack from Brando,” White said. “He ran out of the house and tried to hop onto his motorcycle, but Brando bolted from my living room and ran outside and stopped him, using force.”

  “I really believe that Jimmy that night would have committed suicide on that cycle. He was too far gone.”

  “Then Brando drove Jimmy home in his car,” White said. “The next afternoon, a very hung-over Jimmy came to my house and retrieved his motorcycle. But he didn’t come in and thank me for the party. I guess he wanted to forget it. The next thing I heard, he was dead.”

  ***

  In the wake of Jimmy’s death, when the crowds died down, Brando, with Gilman, drove to the site of the young actor’s fatal car crash.

  Getting down on his knees, Brando surveyed the ground so recently soaked with blood.

  Standing only a few feet away, Gilman heard Brando say, “Jimmy, I loved you more than I told you.”