During the old Hollywood times, being openly gay meant that your career and life are about to get destroyed. But behind all that Hollywood glamour, Matt Tyrnauer, director of the documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood said that a “sexual Gestapo,” was actively present. “It was very difficult,” he said, “for people to have authentic lives.” In his movie, Scotty Bowers was an L.A. personality who stood as a “confidante, friend, and pimp for Hollywood’s closeted movie stars.”
Here is a list of celebrities who were supposedly gay.
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James Dean
Salon published that Dean declared, “No, I’m not homosexual, but I am also not going through life with one hand tied behind my back.” In the biography James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes, writers Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince claimed that Dean liked “kinky sado-masochistic sex” with actor Marlon Brando. Composer Alec Wilder alleged “they were definitely a couple,” continuing, “Of course, the words ‘sexual fidelity’ would be unknown in each of their vocabularies.” Brando wasn’t the only one Dean had a relationship with. Speaking to Ronald Martinetti for his biography The James Dean Story, advertising manager Rogers Brackett declared, “I loved him, and Jimmy loved me.” In the book James Dean: The Biography, writer Val Holley claimed Brackett “took [Dean] in when almost no one else believed in him.”
Marilyn Monroe
Lois Banner wrote in her book Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox that Marilyn Monroe “desired women, had affairs with them and worried that she might be lesbian by nature.” She supposedly hooked up with Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford. Records of Monroe’s therapy sessions with Dr. Ralph Greenson imply that she once boasted by stating, “Oh yes, Crawford. We went to Joan’s bedroom. Crawford had a gigantic orgasm and shrieked like a maniac.” Judy Garland insisted that Monroe stalked her at a party. “Marilyn followed me from room to room,” she said.
Spencer Tracy
The before-mentioned Bowers insisted that Tracy was one of various stars he “serviced” out, and he insisted that he slept with Tracy “on numerous occasions.” At the opening-night gala for the documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood in August 2018, Indiewire asked Bowers a question: “So how gay was Spencer Tracy?” to which Bowers replied, “He got drunk and thanked the man beside him in the morning for taking care of him.”
Katherine Hepburn
Bowers alleged a common demand from Hepburn was: “When you get a chance, do you think you can find a nice young dark-haired girl for me? Someone that’s not too heavily made-up.” Bowers said that he has obtained “over 150 different women” for Hepburn.
Marlon Brando
In his 1976 autobiography Marlon Brando: The Only Contender, Brando shared with journalist Gary Carey, “Homosexuality is so much in fashion, it no longer makes the news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences, and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me.”
Barbara Stanwyck
Axel Madsen stated that the actress was publicly speculated to be “Hollywood’s biggest closeted lesbian.” There were even rumors about how her matrimonies to Robert Taylor and Frank Fay were “lavender marriages” designed by studio executives to hide her secret.
Anthony Perkins
The Psycho star supposedly had an affair with actor Tab Hunter, despite being married to Berry Berenson. Scotty Bowers proved this, alleging that Perkins was always looking for attractive young men. “He always wanted someone different,” Bowers said, remembering Perkins request, “Who do you have for me for tomorrow night that will surprise me? Anything really new?”
Greta Garbo
In her book The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood, writer Diana McLellan spent five years investigating Hollywood lesbian love affairs of Old Hollywood. McLellan discovered proof that implied actresses Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich had an affair when Garbo was 19 years old.
Montgomery Clift
Actor Jack Larson, one of Clift’s supposed ex-partners, insisted his day-to-day personality was in contradiction to the brooding figure we saw on the TV. Larson joked that Clift “was closer to Jerry Lewis on-screen than he was to Montgomery Clift on-screen,” continuing, “He was very much a clown himself.”
Tallulah Bankhead
According to The Daily Beast, actress Tallulah Bankhead would often say, “I’m a lesbian. What do you do?” Her union with actress Eva Le Gallienne was a disgrace during Bankhead’s existence. The actress said, “I want to try everything once” and “conventional sex gives me claustrophobia.” She supposedly had an affair with actress Patsy Kelly. Kelly said, “It was on and off and mostly it depended on Tallulah’s mood. When she’d get caught up with a man, she’d go quite hetero on us.”
Cary Grant
According to the documentary Women, He’s Undressed, Grant used to hook up in “a Greenwich Village love nest” with Australian costume designer Orry-Kelly. Before he was a star, Grant worked as a carnival barker, an entourage, a member of a “stilt-walking troupe,” and even helped stencil the ties Kelly made by hand. They ended their relationship after thirty years, and it even became abusive sometimes. “A combination of self-loathing and confusion was manifested in a punch-up,” Katherine Thompson, the writer of the documentary, shared with Post. She alleged Grant even threw “Kelly out of a moving vehicle” after an argument.
Rock Hudson
People magazine questioned Lee Garlington, a “retired stockbroker” who allegedly dated Hudson between 1962 and 1965. “He was a sweetheart,” Garlington said. They always attended movie premiers with women, because “nobody in their right mind came out.’’ Garlington continued, “It was career suicide. We all pretended to be straight.” After Hudson’s death, Garlington read in a profile that Hudson had proclaimed him his “true love.” “I broke down and cried,” he shared with People, revealing that he “had no idea I meant that much to him.”
Source: Nicki Swift
