James Dean paid off disgruntled male lover to keep him from revealing gay affair on eve of actor’s big break: book
“Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean,” which drops Tuesday, author Jason Colavito claims the ill-fated Hollywood icon shelled out $800 to advertising executive Rogers Brackett only days before his first movie, “East of Eden,” premiered, averting a public scandal that would have cost him his career in the homophobic 1950s.In excerpts published by DailyMail, Colavito details the disastrous affair which left Dean feeling sexually exploited. “I didn’t know it was the whore who paid – I thought it was the other way around,” Dean reportedly said.The $800 blackmail — around $9,395 today, per the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis — was an enormous sum at a time when a man’s median salary in the US was around $3,100 per year, per DailyMail.Dean and Brackett met in 1951, when Dean was a parking valet next door to CBS studios, where the radio drama “Alias Jane Doe” — produced by Brackett’s advertising agency — was recorded.
Wealthy and older than Dean, Brackett was “struck by the golden beauty of the youth who took his keys,” according to Colavito.
When Dean told the exec that he was an actor, Brackett reportedly said he would keep the handsome youngster in mind for roles on the radio show.
Not long after, Colavito says a “smitten” Brackett found a part for Dean on “Alias Jane Doe,” and Dean quickly grew attached to Brackett. “Although these feelings scared Dean, Brackett unlocked something Dean had kept so closely guarded that it had threatened to break him,” Colavito claims.When a destitute Dean found himself on the verge of homelessness, Brackett allegedly asked the actor to move in with him.
