New James Dean Biopic to Explore His Gay Romances

Next year will mark the 70th anniversary of James Dean’s untimely death — and yet the actor remains a compelling figure to plenty of cinephiles born in the decades since then. (That’s without getting into the use of the late actor’s voice in an AI-powered reading app.) At a time when celebrities from Bob Dylan to Maria Callas are becoming the subjects of upcoming biopics, it’s not surprising to hear that Dean is at the center of one as well.

What is interesting about writer-director Guy Guido’s planned Dean film is the book it will reportedly adapt. Ryan Gajewski writes at The Hollywood Reporter that Guido’s film will be based on William Bast’s memoir Surviving James Dean. Bast, a writer with a long career in film and television, met Dean when the two were at UCLA. He wrote a more traditional biography of Dean shortly after his death, but Surviving James Dean chronicles a more personal account of the actor — including a romantic relationship the two had.

In their review of the later book, Publishers Weekly called Surviving James Dean a “simple, heartfelt book [that] records Bast’s coming out and the long-term impact Dean had on his life.” And for his part, Bast’s own view of Dean’s sexuality was multifaceted.

“Having sampled both sides of the sexual banquet, Dean was still in the process of defining his sexuality at the time he died,” Bast wrote in a letter to the editor at The Guardian in 2005.

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According to The Hollywood Reporter, Guido has adapted Bast’s book for the screen and is currently meeting with producers. “As a filmmaker, I love telling the story of a celebrity’s life in their coming-of-age period,” Guido said in a statement. “As a gay man, I was particularly drawn to Bast’s unique story.”

We’re currently living through a moment where biopics both dutiful and experimental have made it to screens small and large. Will Guido’s retelling of James Dean’s life be the next to do so? Stay tuned.