James Dean confessed to Elizabeth Taylor that he’d been sexually abused by his childhood Methodist minister – and it is now thought he lost his virginity to the man local townspeople called ‘Dr Weird’.
The Reverend James DeWeerd arrived in Fairmount, Indiana, when Dean was still a teenager.
Something of an outsider, the youngster had lost his mother to cancer when he was just nine and, his father – unable (or unwilling) to care for his son – had sent him sent to Fairmount, to live with his Quaker aunt and uncle on their hardscrabble farm.
DeWeerd, on the other hand – 15 years Dean’s senior – seemed to locals to be cultured and worldly. A former army chaplain, he had spent time studying in England, knew Winston Churchill, and spoke knowledgeably about art, literature, and music.
He also, according to Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean by Jason Colavito, had a penchant for teenage boys.
Under the guise of offering these young, impressionable teens spiritual guidance, he would take them to the YMCA, visit museums and, allegedly, asked them to swim nude with him.
‘No boy ever accused the pastor of any wrongdoing,’ writes Colavito, ‘but decades later, some townsfolk looked back and wondered.’
Colavito continues: ‘Dean found himself drawn to DeWeerd, the most worldly and sophisticated man he had ever met and someone he felt understood him better than most.
Dean is thought to have lost his virginity to the man local townspeople called ‘Dr Weird’
In a 1997 interview, Elizabeth Taylor talked about Dean’s confessions to her while on the set of the film Giant
‘DeWeerd was happy to oblige, seeing in Dean the only boy in town who could genuinely appreciate the higher parts of culture. They soon developed a friendly relationship.’
The pair would have dinners together, and discuss philosophy and poetry for hours in the grand home the minister shared with his mother, one filled with antiques and curiosities, and surrounded by sumptuous flower beds.
DeWeerd’s influence is said to have sparked Dean’s passion for the theater, car racing, and bullfighting.
‘Jimmy was usually happiest stretched out on my library floor, reading Shakespeare or other books of his choosing,’ the pastor is quoted as saying. ‘He loved good music playing softly in the background. Tchaikovsky was his favorite.’
But, as Colavito points out, the older man was also known for his intense preaching style and fundamentalist religious views.
Dean, plagued with sadness and self-loathing, poured out his heart to his mentor. ‘He worried that he was evil, that God had punished him for his evil by taking his mother and driving away his father, and that if anyone knew how evil he must be inside, then no one would ever love him.’
DeWeerd’s counsel was harsh, to say the least.
‘I taught Jim that he was depraved and vile, that he had to seek salvation,’ he said.
Dean (photographed as a boy), plagued with self-loathing, poured out his heart to his mentor. DeWeerd (right) taught ‘taught Jim that he was depraved and vile, that he had to seek salvation’
James Dean was something of an outsider at school, having been sent to Fairmount after losing his mother to cancer
Giant was Dean’s final film; his co-star Rock Hudson is among his rumored affairs
‘The nature of Dean’s evil remained between him and DeWeerd,’ writes Colavito, ‘but those who knew Dean felt DeWeerd’s words alluded to sex.’
Dean grew increasingly close to the minister over the last two years of high school, and, long after his untimely death in a car crash at the age of 24 – just as he was on the cusp of becoming a star – press stories started to suggest their relationship had turned sexual around this time.
In fact, in his 1994 book, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Paul Alexander wrote: ‘In all probability, Jimmy lost his virginity to DeWeerd.’
‘It had started, or so the story went, with some touching during drives in DeWeerd’s convertible,’ says Colavito, ‘and these touches progressed to more sexual intimacies.
‘Dean alluded to this only once, years later, when, in a rare unguarded moment late one night, he confessed that his minister had molested him.’
In a 1997 interview, Elizabeth Taylor talked about Dean’s confessions to her while on the set of the film Giant – Dean’s final film. But she made the writer promise the information would remain off the record until after her death.
‘Whatever had transpired, the two had grown emotionally intimate in ways that both recognized had to remain private. Neither man spoke publicly about their relationship during Dean’s lifetime,’ writes Colavito.
‘DeWeerd would soon rise to national fame as an evangelist and radio and television preacher, and he had no desire to invite unwelcome questions.’
For his part, Dean always denied he was gay, saying: ‘I’m not homosexual. But I am also not going through life with one hand tied behind my back.’
With that, he tacitly acknowledged that he enjoyed liaisons with both men and women – his animal magnetism did not discriminate – and he seemed more than happy to explore all his sexual options.
Among his rumored affairs are his Giant co-star Rock Hudson, Marilyn Monroe, and Marlon Brando.
Dean always denied he was gay, saying: ‘I’m not homosexual. But I am also not going through life with one hand tied behind my back’
The actor with his Porsche 550 Spyder, the Little Bastard, a few hours before his death. DeWeerd is said to have inspired his love of fast cars
Taylor talked about Dean’s confessions to her on the set of Giant – but they remained off the record until after her death
James DeWeerd (right) was one of two ministers who officiated at Dean’s funeral
He was also blackmailed into paying off a former lover just before his big break because he was terrified of being outed as gay.
He is alleged to have paid $800 to Rogers Brackett in 1954, days before the East of Eden premiere, in an agreement that remained secret for seven decades.
Dean handed over the money even though he thought that Brackett, an older, wealthy advertising executive, had sexually exploited him during their year-long affair.
However, he also knew his reputation could have been destroyed as homophobia ran rampant in 1950’s America. So he paid the equivalent of $14,500 today to avoid a ‘public scandal’ and make it go away.
Dean died on September 30, 1955, in a head-on collision while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder.
James DeWeerd was one of two ministers who officiated at his funeral. He read a poem by John G. Neihardt, that includes the lines: ‘Let me go quickly, like a candle light, Snuffed out just at the heyday of its glow. Give me high noon — and let it then be night! Thus would I go.’
Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean by Jason Colavito is published by Rowman & Littlefield
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