James Dean's Giant co-star dishes on gay antics

James Dean

The topic of James Dean's true sexuality has been the source of endless gossip and theorizing over the decades, with friends, co-stars, Hollywood historians, and everyone else under the sun chiming in to add their own opinions to the mix. The years of speculation have only added to the legend.

Now comes news that Noreen Nash, Dean's co-star on what would be his final film, Giant, has offered up another tantalizing bit of gossip from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Apparently, while filming Giant, stars Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson had a bet over who would be the first to get Dean in the sack. And according to Ms. Nash, just days into the shoot, Hudson won.

Scandalous! Now, I've always had a soft spot of James Dean. He is, after all, the archetype for the troubled youth with brooding good looks. But stories of gay trysts occurring between Old Hollywood's leading men aren't quite as shocking as they once were (thanks to Hudson, Cary Grant, Tab Hunter, Farley Granger, etc.) so this bit of news got me to daydreaming about how often this sort of thing happens on todays movie sets... In another twenty or so years are we going to be reading about all the salacious activities going on behind the scenes of modern film shoots?

On a ::ahem:: completely unrelated note; when are Jake Gyllenhaal and Matt Damon finally going to make a movie together?