According to a recently published biography, James Dean confided in close friend and co-star Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused at the hands of his childhood priest.
The late “Rebel Without a Cause” star, who was killed in a 1955 car accident at the age of 24, reportedly told Taylor about the molestation while they were working on “Giant,” a film released after his death.
“They stayed up long nights talking, and Dean found that once he started to let slip bits of emotional truth, the words poured out,” writes Jason Colavito in “Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean,” according to People.
“He told Taylor that his minister — he almost certainly meant the Reverend [James] DeWeerd — had sexually abused him, and Taylor felt that the trauma of the abuse had hurt him deeply and profoundly,” Colavito claims.
But according to the author, Taylor surmised that Dean’s confession was also allusion to his sexuality.
“As he shared more of his life, his loves and his pain, Taylor developed the distinct impression that Dean was trying to tell her he was gay,” Colavito writes.
The latest biography isn’t the first piece of writing to dive into speculation about Dean’s sexuality, nor the alleged confession about the abuse Taylor said he suffered.
In a since-deleted article for The Daily Beast, Kevin Sessums said that during a 1997 interview for POZ magazine, Taylor told him Dean’s abuse began when the “East of Eden” actor was 11 and that it “haunted” him.
“During ‘Giant,’ we’d stay up nights and talk, and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me,” she reportedly told Sessums, who she swore to secrecy until after she died.
