Records of Monroe’s therapy sessions with Dr. 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. 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 in when almost no one else believed in him.” Marilyn Monroe 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.
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.
