News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media

James Dean

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The Monkey knows all--including who's the hottest TV duo and whether David Cook is gay!

AfterElton Briefs: Exclusive new Nuke pic, new Milk goodies, and more!


Give me liberty or give me Nuke (photo: George de Sota/JPI Studios)

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

  • Feast your eyes on that gorgeous, exclusive pic of Luke (Van Hansis) and Noah (Jake Silbermann) from As the World Turns, which is from the shoot that will appear on next week's show. (Luke did pop up on today's show to give Lady Drumstick a pep talk, but no Noah. If ever there were a person to cheer up with ice cream, it would have been her!)
  • Reader nightfish91 tipped us off to this great video of highlights from the Broadway Backwards show (which we covered in a delightfully humpy photo essay earlier this week). Okay, I'm officially hot for Malcolm Gets. Curse you, rhythm!
  • Today would have been James Dean's birthday, and he would have turned 76.


  • These folks posted what they say is a pic of High School Musical's Lucas Grabeel on the set of Milk, where he plays an employee at Harvey Milk's camera shop. Yes, he's wearing a dress. And yes, this is looking even gayer than his character from HSM.
  • Greg Hernandez ran into gay actor Leslie Jordan who assured him that his Sordid Lives co-star Delta Burke is doing very well with her depression treatment.
  • Don't forget to catch up on all the queer stuff that matters in Michael's oven-fresh Best.Week.Ever. column, and have a great weekend!

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

AfterElton.com Readers' Choice: What are the Best Male Movie Costumes?

Yesterday, we looked at a survey of the best film costumes of all time, a list that lacked any iconic men's costumes (as Gwen noted in the comments). Now to some degree, that could be seen as an example of how women's fashion allows for more experimentation, but there are a number of male film costumes that have had an impact on our culture and it seems a shame not to give them credit.

Thus, here are a few suggestions for men's movie costumes that deserve a place among the greatest film costumes of all time, and a poll inviting you to cast your vote for the best. Some of them are from recent films (though nothing as recent as Keira Knightley's Atonement dress) while some are images that have stood the test of time, but they're all memorable.

Tell us what you think of these suggestions in the poll that follows!

Jack Twist's shirt
From: Brokeback Mountain

Jack's shirt is the cornerstone of Brokeback's touching, closing scene where Ennis discovers his dead love's clothing intertwined with his. That reminder of lost love was a powerful image and when the shirts were put up for sale they pulled in over $100,000. The buyer, actor and activist Tom Gregory, called them "The Ruby Slippers of our time" (referring, of course, to the iconic costume pices from The Wizard of Oz) and swore to keep the shirts together, as they appeared in the film.

James Dean's Jacket
From: Rebel Without A Cause

James Dean showed have quite a bit of media savvy in one popular story about Rebel without a Cause. The story claims that Dean's character, Jimmy Stark, was originally supposed to wear a leather jacket but when Dean learned the film would be in color, he suggested his character wear something more colorful. The red, nylon jacket Dean wore became an iconic image for the classic film and for Dean himself. Rebel also featured an unrequited homoerotic relationship between Stark and Sal Mineo's Plato, with the red jacket playing a role in their relationship's final moment.

Daniel Craig's squarecut trunks
From: Casino Royale

One image key to marketing of the prior Bond film, Die Another Day, was the image of Halle Berry stepping out of the water in a bikini. With the arrival of Craig's Bond, however, we got a change in how Bond was marketed to audiences: this time it was Bond walking out of the surf looking sexy in a swimsuit. The movie poster showed Craig in Bond's traditional tuxedo, but Craig's buff body in revealing swimwear was the image we most frequently saw when the media discussed the film. It was the first time Bond's barely-clad body (as opposed to that of a "Bond girl") was the film's most lasting imagery.

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

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?


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