Sal Mineo
by Todd Richmond
365Gay.com Features Editor

Sal Mineo refused to live by Hollywood's rules. Mineo was born November 10, 1939. He grew up tough and moved fast - from the Bronx to Broadway to Hollywood, from street crimes to stage plays to an Oscar nomination, at the age of sixteen, for his portrayal of the doomed teenager in the 1955 James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause. 

He may have fooled his female fans, but gay men in the 50's knew he was gay.

His role in Exodus won him a second Academy Award nomination in 1961, but ten years later he was a movie has-been. As this carefully and caringly researched biography shows, Sal Mineo's talents far exceeded the limits typecasting imposed upon a career that saddled him with the nickname, The Switchblade Kid. It also demonstrates that Mineo's decline had less to do with the loss of the baby-face good looks that quickened the heartbeat of teenage girls than it did with his unwillingness to deny his homosexuality. 

Still tough, though, Mineo refashioned his career, as a stage actor and director. He produced a revival of "Fortune in Men's Eyes", and starred in a west coast production of "P.S. Your Cat is Dead".

In his off hours he was usually on the prowl for rough trade. He was murdered in 1976 a few steps from his home. His tough image but he was not tough enough to survive the shocking encounter with the man who stabbed him to death.

Sal Mineo was brutally knifed down in the carport of his home.