Just days before James Dean’s first movie premiered, the actor reportedly paid off a disgruntled male lover who threatened to expose their relationship.
The agreement, which remained a secret for seven decades, is unveiled in a new book, "Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean." The star died in a car accident at age 24 in 1955.
"James Dean had been blackmailed by a former lover," author Jason Colavito claimed about the "Rebel Without a Cause" icon.
"He had met a man named Rogers Brackett who was an advertising executive and radio show producer way back when he was just starting his career," Colavito explained.
"The two of them had a relationship, according to Rogers Brackett. It was a loving relationship, and they were partners. They lived together. He provided Dean with a great amount of help and assistance in getting his career started. [But] their relationship fell apart."
According to Colavito, the two men met in 1951. At the time, Dean, an Indiana native, was working as a parking valet. Colavito claimed that Brackett introduced Dean to several prominent people in the film industry, kicking off his Hollywood career.
Dean, struggling financially, reportedly took a smitten Brackett’s offer to move in with him. The relationship became tumultuous with Brackett saying of Dean years later that he was "like a child" who "behaved badly just to get attention." Meanwhile, Dean saw Brackett as "increasingly desperate" and "manipulative," Colavito wrote.
The relationship, which was on and off, lasted until about 1953, Colavito claimed.
"There were many reasons that the relationship between James Dean and Rogers Brackett soured," said Colavito. "One of the reasons was that James Dean simply wasn’t comfortable being in a relationship with a man.
"This was the first time that he had been in such a relationship, and it moved very fast. They went from meeting each other to living together in a matter of weeks. And according to the stories that Dean’s friends later told, James Dean felt overwhelmed by it."
"It was simply too much," Colavito continued. "He felt like Rogers Brackett was trying to control him, that he was acting more like a father to him than an equal." As for Dean, he felt "used," said the author.
After the couple parted ways, Brackett seemingly disappeared from Dean’s life – at least until Dean was about to make his screen debut in 1955’s "East of Eden."
"Rogers returned, and he started sending letters and making telephone calls to James Dean’s agent demanding money," Colavito claimed. "He wanted James Dean to repay him all the money that he had spent on him during their relationship, supporting him. Things like paying for his rent, paying for his clothes, for meals, for travel. He wanted reimbursement for all of that."
Colavito claimed that at the time, Brackett had lost his job and was looking to finance an opera he wanted to produce.
"He was trying to hit up Dean for that money," said Colavito. "He knew that James Dean was about to become a huge movie star in ‘East of Eden.’ So, he timed this strategically. There are letters between James Dean’s agent, his attorney and Rogers’ attorney that show the development of this incident. It eventually rose to the level that Rogers said that he was going to sue Dean."
At the time, a homosexual relationship would have destroyed Dean’s career before it even started – and he knew it.
Dean, feeling sexually exploited, but wanting to avoid a public scandal, reluctantly agreed to pay Brackett $800, which, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, is about $10,000 today, to "make him go away." The average salary for men at the time was about $3,400, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
