Farley Granger writes of taboo celebrity flings

In Farley Granger’s newly published memoir, “Include Me Out,” the former screen idol makes a revelation that is unusual among Hollywood tell-all books: He was bisexual.

Granger describes a Honolulu night that epitomized his life. A 21-year-old virgin and wartime Navy recruit, he was determined to change his status. He did so with a young and lovely prostitute. He was about to leave the premises when he encountered a handsome Navy officer. Granger was soon in bed again.

“I lost my virginity twice in one night,” he writes.

The 81-year-old Granger, who starred in the Alfred Hitchcock thrillers “Rope” and “Strangers on a Train” and other movies, recently talked about his relationships from his apartment in New York.

“My lifelong romance with Shelley [Winters] was very much a love affair. It evolved into a very complex relationship, and we were close until the day she died,” he said.

A briefer affair with Ava Gardner began when both quarreled with their dates at a Hollywood Christmas party. “We met at the bar and left together,” he recalled. “It was a short but pretty intense and enormously fun affair.”

Granger also writes about his same-sex celebrity affairs. For a time, he lived with Arthur Laurents, writer of the stage and movie versions of “West Side Story” and “Gypsy.” In New York, Granger says he had a two-night fling with Leonard Bernstein. Since the 1960s, Granger’s companion has been Robert Calhoun, who shares the writing credit on “Include Me Out.”

Until now, Granger has not discussed his bisexuality publicly.

“I had never hidden anything, and nobody asked me any questions,” he said. “My only outing came eight or 10 years ago when I was an old man. Arthur Laurents gave an interview in which he outed me publicly.”