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Biography
Childhood and education
Born in a Fairmount, Indiana, apartment to Winton and Mildred Wilson Dean, James Dean and his family moved to Santa Monica, California six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician. Dean was enrolled in Brentwood Public School until his mother died of cancer in 1940.
At age nine, Dean was sent by his father to live with his aunt Ortense and uncle Marcus Winslow on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana where he was brought up with a Quaker influence. In high school Dean played on the school basketball team and studied forensics and drama. After graduating from Fairmont High School in 1949, Dean moved back to California to live with his father and stepmother.
He enrolled in Santa Monica College, pledged to the Sigma Nu fraternity and majored in pre-law. Dean transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles and changed his major to drama, resulting in his estrangement from his father.
Acting career
Dean began his acting career with a Pepsi-Cola commercial followed by a stint as a stunt tester in the Beat the Clock game show. He quit college to focus on his budding career, but struggled to get jobs in Hollywood and paid his bills only by working as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios.
Following friends' advice, Dean moved to New York City to pursue live stage acting, where he was accepted to study under Lee Strasberg in the storied Actors Studio. His career picked up, and he did several episodes on early-1950s TV shows such as Kraft Television Theater, Studio One, Lux Video Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, Danger and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series, Omnibus (Glory in the Flower) saw Dean portraying the same type of disaffected youth he would later immortalize in Rebel Without a Cause (this summer 1953 program was also notable for featuring the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll). Positive reviews for his role in André Gide's The Immoralist led to calls from Hollywood and paved the way to film stardom.
East of Eden
Further information: East of Eden (1955 film)
Director Elia Kazan was looking for a new actor to play the role of Cal in East of Eden; Dean and another relatively unknown actor, Paul Newman, were the final two chosen. Following a screen test in New York City the part was given to Dean.
On March 8, 1954, Dean left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting East of Eden. Dean played the son of a constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey).
The relationship between Cal and his father paralleled that between Dean and his own father, and so Dean took the role personally. He became known on the set for his improvisational contributions to the script; his creativity proved to be very important as some of the most famous scenes were his addition to the script. Dean would apparently drive past cinemas during the release of the film and stare in amazement as people lined up to see him. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.)
Rebel Without a Cause
Further information: Rebel Without a Cause
James together with Natalie Wood in a screenshot from Rebel Without a Cause.
He followed this up in rapid succession with the starring role in Rebel Without a Cause , a film that would prove to be hugely popular amongst teenagers. The film is widely cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst of the early 1950s.
The film co-starred Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. Director Nicholas Ray often encouraged Dean’s creative input.
During filming, Dean purchased one of only 90 Porsche 550 Spyders, and introduced himself to competitive auto racing, where he had early success.
Giant
Further information: Giant (film)
Giant which was posthumously released in 1956, saw Dean play a supporting role to both Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. His role was notable in that, in order to portray an older version of his character in one scene, Dean dyed his hair grey and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would be Dean’s last film. Towards the end of the film, an artfully aged Dean is at a banquet set to make a speech. This would be his last ever on-screen appearance. That scene has been dubbed “The Last Supper”.
Dean was nominated for an Academy Award after the release of the film.
Racing Career and "Little Bastard"
The feature that is distinct about Deans' 550 Spyder (nicknamed "Little Bastard") was that it was customized by the young George Barris, who would would go on to greater things, including the design of the Batmobile. Dean's Porsche was numbered 130 at the front, side and back. The car had a tartan on the seating and two red striping at the rear of its wheelwell.
Death
Dean and his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich set off from Competition Motors where they had prepared his Porsche 550 Spyder that morning for a sports car race at Palm Beach. Dean originally intended to tow the Porsche to the meeting point at Salinas behind his Ford, crewed by actor Bill Hickman and photographer Stan Roth, who was planning a photo story of Dean at the races. At the last minute Dean decided he need more time to familiarise himself with the car.
James Dean Memorial in Cholame. Dean died about 900 yards east of this tree.
Dean was driving west on U.S. Highway 466 (later California State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a Ford Tudor driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed attempted to take the fork onto California State Route 41 and crossed into Dean's lane without seeing him. The two cars hit almost head on. According to a story in the Oct 1, 2005 edition of the Los Angeles Times[2], California Highway Patrol officer Ron Nelson and his partner had been finishing a coffee break in Paso Robles when they were called to the scene of the accident, where they saw a heavily-breathing Dean being placed into an ambulance. Wuetherich had been thrown from the car but survived with a broken jaw and other injuries. Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:59PM at the age of 24. His last known words, uttered right before impact, are said to have been: "That guy's got to stop... He'll see us."[3]
Contrary to reports of Dean's speeding, which persisted decades after his death, Nelson said "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed was more like 55 mph (88 km/h)." Turnupseed received a gashed forehead and bruised nose and was not cited by police for the accident. He died of lung cancer in 1995. Rolf Wuetherich would die in a road accident in Germany in 1981. While completing Giant, and to promote Rebel Without a Cause, Dean had recently filmed a short interview with actor Gig Young for an episode of "Warner Bros. Presents"[4] wherein he ad-libbed the popular phrase "The life you save may be your own" instead into "The life you save may be mine." Dean's sudden death prompted the studio to re-film the section, and the piece was never aired - though in the past several sources have referred to the footage, mistakenly identifying it as a public service announcement. (The segment can, however, be viewed on both the 2001 VHS and 2005 DVD editions of Rebel Without a Cause.),
crash references [5] [6]
The curse of "Little Bastard"
Since Dean's death, his Porsche 550 Spyder has been infamous as being the vehicle that killed not only him, but for injuring and killing several others in the years following his death.
Over the years, many groups of people believed that the actor's vehicle and all of its parts were cursed. Legendary Hot Rodder George Barris bought the wreck for $2,500, only to have it slip off its trailer and break a mechanic's leg.
Soon afterwards, Barris sold the engine and drive-train to physicians Troy McHenry and William Eschrid respectively. While racing against each other, the former would be killed instantly when his vehicle spun out of control and crashed into a tree, while the latter would be seriously injured when his vehicle rolled over while going into a curve.
Barris later sold two tires, which malfunctioned as well. The tires, which were unharmed in Dean's accident, blew up simultaneously causing the buyer's automobile to go off the road.
Two young would-be thieves were injured while attempting to steal parts from the car. One tried to steal the steering wheel from the Porsche; his arm ripped open on a piece of jagged metal. Later, another man was injured while trying to steal the bloodstained front seat. This would be the final straw for Barris, who decided to store "Little Bastard" away, but was quickly persuaded by the California Highway Patrol to loan the wrecked car in a highway safety exhibit.
The first exhibit from the CHP featuring the car ended unsuccessfully, as the garage storing the Spyder went up in flames, destroying everything except the car itself, which suffered almost no damage whatsoever from the fire. The second display, at a Sacramento High School, ended when the car fell, breaking a student's hip. "Little Bastard" also found itself causing trouble while being transported several times. On its way to Salinas, the truck containing the vehicle lost control, causing the driver to fall out, only to be crushed by the Porsche after it fell off the back. On two separate occasions, once on a freeway and again in Oregon, the car came off other trucks, although no injuries were reported, another vehicle's windshield was shattered in Oregon.
Its last use in a CHP exhibit was in 1959. In 1960, when being returned to George Barris in Los Angeles, California, the car and the truck holding it, as well as its driver, would mysteriously vanish. It has not been seen since.
Legacy
James Dean on a United States postage stamp
James Dean is one of only five people to have been nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for their first feature role and the only one nominated twice posthumously. He is buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana.
Of the films released in the 1950s Rebel Without a Cause (along with Blackboard Jungle), is most often cited as having symbolized the growing post-war rebellion of 1950s teenagers along with playing a part in the emergence of rock and roll as a lasting cultural phenomenon. Many young people of that and later generations modeled themselves after James Dean. His charismatic screen presence and very brief career combined with the publicity surrounding his death at a young age transformed Dean into a cult figure and pop icon of apparently timeless fascination.
Sexuality
The factual accuracy of this section is disputed. Please view the article's talk page.
Dean's sexual orientation is a matter of some debate. Often considered a gay film icon [7], there are many published accounts of Dean having had sexual relationships with both men and women. In literary critic Ron Martinetti's biography, "The James Dean Story," Martinetti writes, "Only one of Dean's homosexual relationships is dealt with in this book — and that in his early days in Hollywood and New York with a director named Rogers Brackett. Toward the end of his own life, however, when he was stricken with cancer, Rogers granted me the only interviews he ever gave on Dean. He was tired of the "half-truths" that had been published and wanted "to set the record straight."
Further, Boze Hadleigh, a Hollywood biographer who focused on film figures who he believed to be gay or bisexual, published a 1972 interview with Sal Mineo in which the actor said, "Nick (Adams) told me they had a big affair." Further sources support the view that Dean could have had homosexual relationships. John Gilmore, a friend of Dean from the early days in New York, and later in Hollywood where he was a member of Dean's "Night Watch" motorcyle riders, wrote a book on James Dean claiming they had an "experimental" homosexual encounter. Gilmore writes that Dean was "multi-sexual." In his Natalie Wood biography, Gavin Lambert, himself homosexual and part of the Hollywood gay circles of the 50s and 60s, describes Dean as being bisexual. In her memoir of her brief affair with Dean, actress Liz Sheridan states Dean had an affair with Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency whom Dean met in the summer of 1951 while working as a parking attendant at CBS. Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon's book Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day (2001) includes an entry on James Dean. "Live Fast, Die Young – The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause," a recent book by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel, states that Rebel director Nicholas Ray knew Dean to be bisexual.
However, it was well-known that Dean was infatuated with Italian actress Pier Angeli. Their affair began when Dean was shooting East of Eden, and Angeli was shooting a film on an adjoining studio lot. Dean's costar, Julie Harris, recalls Dean being madly in love with Angeli. Director Elia Kazan in his autobiography also alluded to Dean and Angeli's romance, saying he often heard them making love in Dean's trailer. Angeli's mother disapproved of the relationship because Dean was not a Catholic. Angeli eventually married Vic Damone, but the marriage was a disaster. Friends of Dean have said how heartbroken he was over Angeli's marriage. Angeli ended up committing suicide, but shortly before she died she said Dean was the only man she ever loved. Dean is also known for having romanced, among others, a young Ursula Andress and dancer/actress Liz "Dizzy" Sheridan (Sheridan wrote a memoir of her experiences with Dean, entitled "Dizzy and Jimmy: My Life with James Dean - A Love Story;" and an episode of Seinfeld, with Sheridan playing Jerry Seinfeld's mother, featured the idea that Jerry could actually be the illegitimate son of Dean.)
In his 1992 biography, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, author Joe Hyams, who knew Dean personally, devotes an entire chapter to Dean's relationship with Angeli, and also brings out the account regarding Dean's molestation by a minister as his first homosexual encounter (although the minister DeWeerd himself portrayed these encounters as part of a wholesome relationship.) Hyams also suggests that by all accounts, any homosexual acts that the undeniably shrewd Dean involved himself in appear to have been strictly "for trade," as a means of advancing his career - and that as soon as Dean achieved a measure of stardom he turned his sexual attentions to the women in his life.
Memorial
James Dean Monument.
In 1977, a Dean memorial was built in Cholame, California. The stylized sculpture composed of concrete and stainless steel around a tree of heaven growing in front of the Cholame post office was made in Japan and transported to Cholame, accompanied by the project's benefactor, Seita Ohnishi. Ohnishi chose the site after examining the location of the accident, now little more than a few road signs and flashing yellow signals. In September 2005, the intersection of Highways 41 and 46 in Cholame was dedicated as the James Dean Memorial Highway as part of the celebration for the 50th anniversary of his death. (Maps of the intersection 35°44′5″N, 120°17′4″W)
The dates and hours of Dean's birth and death are etched into the sculpture along with one of his favorite lines from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince - "What is essential is invisible to the eye."
Walz Hardcore Cycles also built a memorial bike for James Dean with the number 130 on it. The number comes from his silver Porsche 550 Spyder, he had the number 130 painted on the hood, and on the back end of the car, he commissioned car customizer George Barris to paint his nickname, "Little Bastard."
Trivia
James Dean still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine.[8]
Filmography
Fixed Bayonets (1951)
Sailor Beware (1952)
Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952)
Trouble Along the Way (1953)
East of Eden (1955)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Giant (1956)
Stage
Broadway
See the Jaguar, (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) - based on the book by Andre Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) - based on the novella by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) - translation by Ezra Pound
Television
Father Peyton's Family Theatre, "Hill Number One" (March 25, 1951)
The Web, "Sleeping Dogs" (February 20, 1952)
Studio One, "Ten Thousand Horses Singing" (March 3, 1952)
Lux Video Theater, "The Foggy, Foggy Dew" (March 17, 1952)
Kraft Television Theater, "Prologue to Glory" (May 21, 1952)
Studio One, "Abraham Lincoln" (May 26, 1952)
Hallmark Hall of Fame, "Forgotten Children" (June 2, 1952)
The Kate Smith Show, "Hounds of Heaven" (January 15, 1953)
Treasury Men In Action, "The Case of the Watchful Dog" (January 29, 1953)
You Are There, "The Capture of Jesse James" (February 8, 1953)
Danger, "No Room" (April 14, 1953)
Treasury Men In Action, "The Case of the Sawed-Off Shotgun" (April 16, 1953)
Tales of Tomorrow, "The Evil Within" (May 1, 1953)
Campbell Soundstage, "Something For An Empty Briefcase" (July 17, 1953)
Studio One Summer Theater, "Sentence of Death" (August 17, 1953)
Danger, "Death Is My Neighbor" (August 25, 1953)
The Big Story, "Rex Newman, Reporter for the Globe and News" (September 11, 1953)
Omnibus, "Glory In Flower" (October 4, 1953)
Kraft Television Theater, "Keep Our Honor Bright" (October 14, 1953)
Campbell Soundstage, "Life Sentence" (October 16, 1953)
Kraft Television Theater, "A Long Time Till Dawn" (November 11, 1953)
Armstrong Circle Theater, "The Bells of Cockaigne" (November 17, 1953)
Robert Montgomery Presents the Johnson's Wax Program, "Harvest" (November 23, 1953)
Danger, "The Little Women" (March 30, 1954)
Philco TV Playhouse, "Run Like A Thief" (September 5, 1954)
Danger, "Padlocks" (November 9, 1954)
General Electric Theater, "I'm A Fool" (November 14, 1954)
General Electric Theater, "The Dark, Dark Hour" (December 12, 1954)
U.S. Steel Hour, "The Thief" (January 4, 1955)
Lux Video Theatre, "The Life of Emile Zola" (March 10, 1955) - appeared in a promotional interview for East of Eden shown after the program aired
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, "The Unlighted Road" (May 6, 1955)
References
Holley, Val : James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996. ISBN 031215156X
Spoto, Donald : Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. Harpercollins, 1996. ISBN 0060176563
Dalton, David : James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001. ISBN 155652398X
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998. ISBN 1560251697
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al : Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005. ISBN 0743260821
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay : James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992. ASIN: 0446516430
Sheridan, Liz : Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000. ISBN: 0060393831
Footnotes
^ Celebrities. URL accessed on December 5, 2005.
^ Chawkins, Steve, "Remembering a 'Giant'", Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2005.
^ Famous Last Words. URL accessed on February 24, 2006.
^ Plot Summary for "Warner Brothers Presents". URL accessed on February 24, 2006.
^ PopcornQ Movies. URL accessed on December 5, 2005.
^ Lisa DiCarlo (October 25, 2004). The Top Earners For 2004. URL accessed on February 24, 2006.
