The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People by Sylvia Wallace, Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky Page A
Tags: General, Social Science, Biography & Autobiography, Psychology, Health & Fitness, Sexuality, Rich & Famous, Human Sexuality, Popular Culture
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dabbled in art, read constantly, and
won trophies racing sports cars. When he
turned this energy on his greatest passion,
acting, the results were remarkable.
But it was Dean’s death that was truly, as the saying goes, larger than life. On Sept. 30, 1955, he was driving his $7,000 silver, aluminum-bodied Porsche 550
Spyder to a race in Salinas, Calif. At 5:45 P.M. he died in a collision with a car driven by Donald Turnupseed. The end of Dean’s life was the beginning of a rabid death cult. It was bigger than Valentino’s and bigger than Marilyn Monroe’s.
Teenagers paid 50¢ to sit behind the wheel of the crushed Spyder. They bought chewing gum wrappers supposedly peeled from gum chewed by Dean. In the three years following his death, his studio received more mail addressed to him than to any living star—hundreds of thousands of fans writing to him as if he were still alive. A magazine offering Dean’s words “from the other side” sold 500,000 copies.
Dean’s death mask was displayed at Princeton University along with Beethoven’s.
SEX LIFE: The great debate over James Dean’s sex life centers on whether he was gay, straight, or bisexual. Actually, though he dabbled in sex with both females and males, he was somewhat ambivalent sexually. One friend went so far as to say that he didn’t think Dean enjoyed sex, that he only wanted to be mothered. Another said that he was basically asexual in his needs and drives, that acting and car racing came first.
The crushing loss of his mother seems to have infused him with a kind of little-boy quality that both women and men found very attractive. His favorite seduction technique, which he claimed never failed him, was to curl up with his head in a woman’s lap and let her cuddle him. “All women want to mother you. Give
them a chance to and before you know it you’re home free.” He discovered by the time he was 21 that he scored most successfully with older women. Sometimes he would date a girl for sex alone, and just as often he would date a girl repeatedly without ever making advances. As with every other aspect of his life, he was capable of yo-yo emotions and behavior. When he was courting a girl, he would take her on a hair-raising motorcycle ride as a kind of initiation rite. He often went on such rides with his very close friend Eartha Kitt, who called him “Jamie.”
Naturally, as the god of a death cult that fed on hysterical teenage worship, he inspired some weird rumors about his sex practices. The rumor that he was a masochist who enjoyed being burned with cigarette butts, and thus was dubbed
“the Human Ashtray,” is completely false. Also, the fabled pornographic photos of a young man—allegedly Jimmy—sitting nude in a tree with a huge erection show no evidence of really being Dean.
The rumors of his bisexuality do have a basis, although they are often greatly exaggerated. He probably did a bit of hustling in his early Hollywood days, when he was practically starving, calling his gay dates “free meal tickets.” For a time he was “kept” by Rogers Brackett, a Hollywood ex-producer, but this was probably the only real affair he had with a man. Mostly what he did with men he did dispassionately—for the experience, for the money, or for the connections, until he found out the connections never came through. He told a friend, “I’ve had my cock sucked by five of the big names in Hollywood, and I think it’s pretty funny because I wanted more than anything to get some little part, something to do , and they’d invite me for fancy dinners….” When asked if he was gay, he replied, “Well, I’m certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back.”
SEX PARTNERS: His first major love affair was with Elizabeth “Dizzy” Sheridan, with whom he lived happily for a while in New York. Their relationship was a close and private one, and Dizzy remembers Jimmy as “gentle.” Eventually they drifted apart, and he
won trophies racing sports cars. When he
turned this energy on his greatest passion,
acting, the results were remarkable.
But it was Dean’s death that was truly, as the saying goes, larger than life. On Sept. 30, 1955, he was driving his $7,000 silver, aluminum-bodied Porsche 550
Spyder to a race in Salinas, Calif. At 5:45 P.M. he died in a collision with a car driven by Donald Turnupseed. The end of Dean’s life was the beginning of a rabid death cult. It was bigger than Valentino’s and bigger than Marilyn Monroe’s.
Teenagers paid 50¢ to sit behind the wheel of the crushed Spyder. They bought chewing gum wrappers supposedly peeled from gum chewed by Dean. In the three years following his death, his studio received more mail addressed to him than to any living star—hundreds of thousands of fans writing to him as if he were still alive. A magazine offering Dean’s words “from the other side” sold 500,000 copies.
Dean’s death mask was displayed at Princeton University along with Beethoven’s.
SEX LIFE: The great debate over James Dean’s sex life centers on whether he was gay, straight, or bisexual. Actually, though he dabbled in sex with both females and males, he was somewhat ambivalent sexually. One friend went so far as to say that he didn’t think Dean enjoyed sex, that he only wanted to be mothered. Another said that he was basically asexual in his needs and drives, that acting and car racing came first.
The crushing loss of his mother seems to have infused him with a kind of little-boy quality that both women and men found very attractive. His favorite seduction technique, which he claimed never failed him, was to curl up with his head in a woman’s lap and let her cuddle him. “All women want to mother you. Give
them a chance to and before you know it you’re home free.” He discovered by the time he was 21 that he scored most successfully with older women. Sometimes he would date a girl for sex alone, and just as often he would date a girl repeatedly without ever making advances. As with every other aspect of his life, he was capable of yo-yo emotions and behavior. When he was courting a girl, he would take her on a hair-raising motorcycle ride as a kind of initiation rite. He often went on such rides with his very close friend Eartha Kitt, who called him “Jamie.”
Naturally, as the god of a death cult that fed on hysterical teenage worship, he inspired some weird rumors about his sex practices. The rumor that he was a masochist who enjoyed being burned with cigarette butts, and thus was dubbed
“the Human Ashtray,” is completely false. Also, the fabled pornographic photos of a young man—allegedly Jimmy—sitting nude in a tree with a huge erection show no evidence of really being Dean.
The rumors of his bisexuality do have a basis, although they are often greatly exaggerated. He probably did a bit of hustling in his early Hollywood days, when he was practically starving, calling his gay dates “free meal tickets.” For a time he was “kept” by Rogers Brackett, a Hollywood ex-producer, but this was probably the only real affair he had with a man. Mostly what he did with men he did dispassionately—for the experience, for the money, or for the connections, until he found out the connections never came through. He told a friend, “I’ve had my cock sucked by five of the big names in Hollywood, and I think it’s pretty funny because I wanted more than anything to get some little part, something to do , and they’d invite me for fancy dinners….” When asked if he was gay, he replied, “Well, I’m certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back.”
SEX PARTNERS: His first major love affair was with Elizabeth “Dizzy” Sheridan, with whom he lived happily for a while in New York. Their relationship was a close and private one, and Dizzy remembers Jimmy as “gentle.” Eventually they drifted apart, and he
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