The dying game: to save their careers, gay and lesbian celebrities stayed mum to the end. But in the end, it didn't matter.

TO SAVE THEIR CAREERS, GAY AND LESBIAN CELEBRITIES STAYED MUM TO THE END. BUT IN THE END, IT DIDN'T MATTER

Montgomery Clift: Beautiful Loser (Barney Hoskyns, Grove Weidenfeld, 1992)

Originally published in Great Britain, this book doesn't mince words. At one point in his unflinching rendering of the tormented star, Hoskyns writes, "In the summer of 1954...Monty rented a house up in Ogunquit, a Maine equivalent of Long Island's gay enclave Fire Island, and gave himself up to bouts of sadomasochistic sex with boys he picked up on the beach."

Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance (Jennifer Dunning, Addison Wesley Longman, 1996)

Written by Dunning, a reporter and dance critic for The New York Times, this biography chronicles in excruciating detail the life and death (from AIDS-related complications at age 58 in 1989) of master dancer-choreographer Ailey. Its author never shies away from depicting her superbly talented subject's self-destructive excesses and dizzying self-deception. "At first I was not treating AIDS, only auxiliary problems," Dunning quotes private-duty nurse Anne McKnight as saying. `That was the dance we played.... He was furious I was trying to get him well. He was in such denial about his illness. But you see, I wanted him to live."

Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-1964 (Edited by Martha Freeman, Beacon Press, 1995)

The enduring, intimate correspondence between lauded author Carson (The Sea Around Us, Silent Spring) and her Maine summer neighbor Freeman was compiled by the latter's granddaughter. The sum is a tale of friendship for those who skim the surface, a love story for those willing to read between the lines. "What can I say to you tonight that has not been said before? Or that is not already in your heart? What new words are there to describe this beautiful experience we are sharing?" writes Carson in a Christmas Eve missive. "We both know that no new words are necessary--that the three simple words that were first said a trifle shyly in a pre-Christmas letter in 1953 still say all that need be said.... I love you, Rachel."

Babe: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (Susan E. Cayleff, University of Illinois Press, 1995)

The androgynous Olympian may not have fessed up about her lesbianism in her 1955 autobiography, This Life I've Led, but Babe's lover, fellow pro golfer Betty Dodd--who actually shared a Tampa, Fla., home with Babe and her husband, George Zaharias, near the end of Babe's life--goes on the record with Cayleff here. "I never wanted to be away from her even when she was dying of cancer," Dodd says. "I loved her. I would have done anything for her."

Barbara Jordan: The Biography (Austin Teutsch, Golden Touch Press, 1997)

"Neither of them realized at the time that their meeting would escalate into a relationship that would last almost twenty years," writes Teutsch in his reverent if perhaps overly imaginative biography of celebrated African-American politician Jordan, who died in 1996, and her life partner. "As George Gershwin wrote in one of his immortal songs, `It's very clear, our love is here to stay.' Which is how it became with Barbara and Nancy Earl."

Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean (Donald Spoto, HarperCollins, 1996)

Openly gay veteran biographer Spoto makes it clear that Dean was neither a male prostitute nor a gay-porn performer. Was he bisexual? You better believe it. "I would say that James Dean was oriented toward people who cared for him, who would encourage and comfort him. That was the standard," Spoto says. "I don't think he had discovered an essential orientation one way or the other at the time of his death. He was extremely immature."

Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins (Charles Winecoff, Dutton, 1996)

This book labels Perkins "a victim of the notorious Hollywood closet, forced to act the part of a ladies' man while privately struggling with his own homosexuality." Indeed, Perkins, who married socialite Berry Berenson at 41 and fathered two beloved sons, was tormented by his double life until his death in 1992 from AIDS-related complications. More than 300 interviews--with friends and colleagues such as Tab Hunter, Gregory Peck, Dominick Dunne, Janet Leigh, and Mary Tyler Moore--help to bring the cryptic Psycho star into sharper focus.

Stanwyck (Axel Madsen, HarperCollins, 1994)

In this must-read for both Barbara Stanwyck fans and Hollywood history buffs, Madsen probes the peculiar sexual dynamics of the star's second of two failed marriages (to closeted matinee idol Robert Taylor). "Neither of them found exclusively homosexual circles attractive," writes the author, "although they were friends of Hollywood's newest lavender couple: Tyrone and Annabella Power." Madsen also quotes Judy Garland biographer David Shipman, who sheds additional light on the duo's nontraditional arrangement: "The Stanwyck-Taylor marriage was obviously a precedent, since both were basically attracted to people of their own sex."

Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature (Anthony Heilbut, Knopf, 1996)

"That central experience of my heart" is how Mann--50 years married and father of six children--refers to his feelings for young violinist and painter Paul Ehrenberg. Whether the author of Doctor Faustus and Death in Venice ever consummated that same-sex relationship or any other remains a matter of heated debate. But at 75, Mann wrote, `That the adoration of `godlike youths' surpasses that for everything feminine and arouses a desire comparable to nothing in the world is my axiom."

Walt Whitman: A Gay Life (Gary Schmidgall, Plume, 1997)

"Drawing from Whitman's poetry, private journals, and intimate letters, renowned scholar and critic Gary Schmidgall explores Whitman as artist, lover, and friend," boasts the publisher of this exhaustive investigation of the poet's life, which includes his long-term relationship with "loving comrade" Peter Doyle. Never again can the poet's sexuality be seen as irrelevant to his work. As Schmidgall notes, Whitman called sex "always immanent...