James Dean Secret

When the late actress spoke to journalist Kevin Sessums back in 1997, she had one big-time revelation that had to wait until after she was gone.

The shocker concerned James Dean, her friend and handsome costar in the classic film Giant, which was released in 1956. Dean died a year earlier at age 24 in a car crash, and received a posthumous Oscar nomination for his performance in the movie.

"I loved Jimmy," Taylor told Sessums, writing in a Daily Beast item. (Taylor passed away in L.A. at age 79 of congestive heart failure, and was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, Calif. Thursday.)

In the chat 14 years ago, Taylor revealed: "When Jimmy was 11 and his mother passed away, he began to be molested by his minister. I think that haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did. We talked about it a lot. During Giant we'd stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me."

"I would have to give up today," she said in the 1997 chat. "And dive into yesterday. You can't predict tomorrow. And my life has had so many startling tomorrows that I don't think they've stopped."