James Dean

James Dean
File:JDEAN1.jpg James Dean during filming of Giant; Photo: Howard Frank ArchivesTemplate:Unverifiedimage
Born	James Byron Dean
Other names	Jimmy Dean
Years active	1951-1955

For the film, see James Dean (film).

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American film actor. Dean's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled high school rebel Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his star power were as the awkward loner Cal Trask in East of Eden, and as the surly, racist farmer Jett Rink in Giant. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only three films, his entire starring output. He was the first person to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two such nominations posthumously.

Early life

James Dean was born to Winton and Mildred Wilson Dean at the "Seven Gables" apartment house, at the intersection of 4th and McClure Streets in Marion, Indiana. Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, James and his family moved to Santa Monica, California. The family spent some years there, and by all accounts young Jimmy was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him." He was enrolled in Brentwood Public School until his mother died of cancer in 1940. Dean's "moodiness and antisocial behavior are consistently attributed to her loss," and even in later years he still attempted to regain his mother's "sense of understanding in all of his relationships with women during his acting career."

Unable to care for his nine year old son, Winton Dean sent young Dean to live with Winton's sister Ortense and her husband Marcus Winslow on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he entered high school and was brought up with a Quaker background. Here Dean sought the counsel of, and formed an enduring friendship with a Methodist pastor, Rev. James DeWeerd. DeWeerd seemed to have had a formative influence upon the teenager, especially upon his future interests in bull fighting, motor racing and the theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, "Dean had an intimate relationship with his pastor... which began in his senior year of high school and 'endured for many years.' "

In high school, Dean's overall performance was mediocre, but he successfully played on the baseball and basketball team and studied forensics and drama. After graduating from Fairmount High School on May 16, 1949, Dean moved back to California with his beagle, Maxx, to live with his father and stepmother.

He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMCC), pledged to the Sigma Nu fraternity and majored in pre-law. Dean transferred to UCLA and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. While at UCLA, he beat out 350 actors to land the role of Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting with James Whitmore's acting workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of college to pursue a career as an actor.

Acting career

Marlon Brando is often thought to have been a great influence on James Dean. Dean was not only accused of copying his acting style, but also his rebel lifestyle. However, according to William Russo, "The first James Dean was not Marlon Brando, though it was a popular myth. The Dean persona had always been adolescent in age or psychology." Brando's first film "was about adult military veterans, hardly the subject of teenage angst and conflict."

Dean began his professional acting career with a Pepsi Cola television commercial, followed by a stint as a stunt tester for 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.

At that time, Dean "exchanged sexual favors for a place to live" and for "Hollywood contacts." Interviews with his friend Barbara Glenn and then aspiring actress, Arlene Sachs, who told Dean she loved him, "reveal that Dean's relationships included many brief homosexual encounters." In his biography, "The James Dean Story," literary critic Ron Martinetti deals only with one of these "homosexual relationships", namely, that in his early days in Hollywood and New York City 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. However, according to Leigh W. Rutledge, "Dean bragged to a friend that he'd performed homosexual acts with 'five of the big names in Hollywood.' He also claimed to have worked, with his friend Nick Adams, as a street hustler after he first arrived in Hollywood."

He actually had very small parts in several films before achieving stardom. The first film in which he spoke was Sailor Beware, where he played a boxing trainer. The Paramount comedy starred Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Following actor James Whitmore's 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. Dean was very proud of being a member of the Actors Studio. In 1952, in a letter to his family, he called it "The greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock. ... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." 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 music). Positive reviews for his role in André Gide's The Immoralist led to calls from Hollywood and paved the way to film success. In 1954, he returned to Broadway in The Immoralist.

East of Eden

Main article: East of Eden (1955 film)

File:East of edendvd.jpg

Director Elia Kazan was looking for a new young 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 (a portion of the screen test in which the two joke in a homoerotic manner can be seen here [1]).

On March 8, 1954, Dean left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting East of Eden. The film is based on the 1952 novel of the same name by John Steinbeck, which dealt with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California in the mid-1800s through the 1910s. The novel was adapted for film by screenwriter Paul Osborn and director Elia Kazan and dealt predominantly with the character of Cal Trask, of whom Elia Kazan said before casting "I wanted a Brando for the role." He eventually cast Dean for the role of Cal, who is essentially the rebel son of a constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) and prostitute mother (Jo Van Fleet). Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are rebel loners and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving parental guidance from a father figure.

Much of Dean's performance in the film is completely unscripted, such as his dance in the bean field and his curling up and pulling his arms inside of his shirt on top of the train during his ride home from meeting his mother. The most famous improvisation during the film was when Cal's father rejects his gift of $15,000 (which was in reparation for his father's business loss). Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively ran to Massey and desperately embraced him. This cut and Massey's surprised reaction were kept in the film by Kazan.

He received a posthumous Best Actor in a Leading Role Academy Award nomination for this role, the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.

Rebel Without a Cause

Main article: Rebel Without a Cause

File:Natalie wood james dean.jpg

James Dean and Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause

Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role in Rebel Without a Cause, a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film is widely cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. It co-starred Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, and was directed by Nicholas Ray.

William Russo said that "Nick Ray's world of the teenager rebel contained knife-fights, drag racing (a baptism named 'chicky run'), stolen cars, underage drinking, social worker, high school scene, a police station scene, death of teens by speeding car and gunshot, dysfunctional families, a teenage gang with both male and female members," etc., and that Rebel Without a Cause "unleashed a spate of teen-oriented films, both with message and without."

Director Nicholas Ray often encouraged Dean’s creative input. However, "Verbal battles with his directors increased in each film as James Dean became more sure of himself as a director ... He demanded and was allowed to direct scene after scene from Rebel Without a Cause by Nick Ray, and he became so engrossed in throttling his on-screen father that a few cognoscenti wondered if he knew the difference between his performance and his life."

In her study on bisexuality, Professor Marjorie Garber writes that Ray, when he directed Rebel Without a Cause, "was not averse to using Jimmy's bisexuality to good purpose. The director knew that Sal was homosexual and encouraged him to explore that part of him that would love Jimmy. At the same time, according to Ray, Jimmy fell in love with Sal." "The studio heads refused to allow Nick Ray to film a kiss between James Dean and Sal Mineo that the director had proposed." At the actor's insistence, Jack Simmons played "one of the members in the gang in Rebel Without a Cause, a pay-off for reportedly serving as James Dean's live-in-boyfriend." This rumor, however, was contradicted by Dean's close friend and confidant William Bast, who states that Dean specifically insisted to him that Simmons and he had no sexual involvement, that Simmons was only a groupie who "ran routine errands for him."

File:Giant James Dean.jpg

Giant

Main article: Giant (film)

Giant, which was posthumously released in 1956, saw Dean play a supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. This was due to his desire to avoid being typecast as Jim Stark and Cal Trask. In the film, he plays Jett, a surly, racist Southerner with a strong prejudice against Mexicans. His role was notable in that, in order to portray an older version of his character in one scene, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.

Giant would be Dean’s last film. At the end of the film, Dean is supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the "Last Supper" because it was the last scene before his sudden and horrible death. Dean mumbled so much that the scene had to later be re-recorded by his co-stars because Dean had died before the film was edited.

Coincidentally, the #1 pop song in the US at the time of Dean's death, "The Yellow Rose Of Texas" by Mitch Miller, was also featured in "Giant" in a scene following the actor's last appearance in the film described above.

Dean received his second Academy Award nomination after Giant.

Racing career and "Little Bastard"

When Dean got the part in East of Eden, he bought himself a red race-prepared MG TD and shortly afterwards, a white Ford Country Squire Woodie station wagon. Dean upgraded his MG to a Porsche 356 Speedster (Chassis number: 82621), which he raced. Dean came in second in the Palm Springs Road Races in March 1955 after a driver was disqualified; he came in third in May 1955 at Bakersfield and was running fourth at the Santa Monica Road Races later that month, until he retired with an engine failure.

During filming of Rebel Without a Cause, Dean traded the car in for one of only 90 Porsche 550 Spyders. He was contractually barred from racing during the filming of Giant, but with that out of the way, he was free to compete again. The Porsche was in fact a stopgap for Dean, as delivery of a superior Lotus Mk. X was delayed and he needed a car to compete at the races in Salinas, California.

Dean's 550 was customized by the young George Barris, (who would go on to 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 stripes at the rear of its wheelwell. The car was given the nickname "Little Bastard" by Bill Hickman, his language coach on Giant. When Dean introduced himself to Alec Guinness outside a restaurant, he asked him to take a look at the Spyder. Guinness thought the car appeared "sinister" and told Dean: "If you get in that car you will be found dead in it by this time next week." This encounter took place on September 23, 1955.

Death

Porsche 550 Spyder

On September 30, 1955, Dean and his mechanic Rolf Wütherich set off from Competition Motors, where they had prepared his Porsche 550 Spyder that morning for a sports car race at Salinas, California. Dean originally intended to trailer the Porsche to the meeting point at Salinas, behind his new Ford Country Squire station wagon, crewed by Hickman and photographer Stanford Roth, who was planning a photo story of Dean at the races. At the last minute, Dean drove the Spyder, having decided he needed more time to familiarize himself with the car. At 3:30PM, Dean was ticketed in Kern County for doing 65 in a 55 mph zone. The driver of the Ford was ticketed for doing 20 mph over the limit, as the speed limit for all vehicles towing a trailer was 45 mph. Later, having left the Ford far behind, they stopped at Blackwell's Corner for fuel and met up with fellow racer Lance Reventlow.

Dean was driving west on U.S. Highway 466 (later California State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a 1950 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 October 1, 2005 edition of the Los Angeles Times, 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. Wütherich 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. His last known words, uttered right before impact, are said to have been "That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us."

Junction of highways 46 and 41

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 Wütherich 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" 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.). BMW once made a commercial with the footage of the infamous clip and reconstruction of the crash, which cuts into a scene indicating that Dean would be alive if he had driven one of their models, the commercial was never shown due to poor taste but is aired in programs such as Tarrant on TV.

Memorial

James Dean Memorial in Cholame. Dean died about 900 yards east of this tree.

James Dean is buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana. In 1977, a Dean memorial was built in Cholame, California. The stylized sculpture is composed of concrete and stainless steel around a tree of heaven growing in front of the Cholame post office. The sculpture 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 (San Luis Obispo county) was dedicated as the James Dean Memorial Highway as part of the commemoration of 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 a handwritten description by Dean's close friend, William Bast, of one of Dean's favorite lines from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince - "What is essential is invisible to the eye."

The James Dean Gallery opened in 2004 in Fairmount.

Dean's iconic appeal

Dean's appeal is that he portrayed the teens of America. They identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially in 'Rebel Without A Cause.'The typical teenager, caught where no one, mostly not even his(or her) peers can understand them. Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, who both men and women find sexy." However, according to Marjorie Garber, this quality is not rare, "it is the undefinable extra something that makes a star." Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. Dean's "loving tenderness towards the besotted Sal Mineo in Rebel Without a Cause continues to touch and excite gay audiences by its honesty. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the male gay icon of all time..."

Dean's personal relationships and sexual orientation

Dean is today often considered an icon because of his "experimental" take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality.

There have been several accounts of Dean's sexual relationships with women, although Dean's "true" sexual orientation remains unknown. William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. Dean's first biographer (1956), Bast was his roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. Bast has recently published a revealing version of his first book, in which, after years of successfully dodging the question as to whether he and Dean were sexually involved he has finally admitted that they were (Surviving James Dean, 2006). In this second book Bast describes the difficult circumstances of their involvement and also deals frankly with some of Dean's other homosexual relationships, notably the actor's friendship with Rogers Brackett, an influential producer of radio dramas who encouraged Dean in his career and provided him with useful professional contacts.

Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any homosexual acts Dean might have involved himself in appear to have been strictly "for trade," as a means of advancing his career. Val Holley notes that, according to Hollywood biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, gay Hollywood columnist Mike Connolly "would put the make on the most prominent young actors, including Robert Francis, Guy Madison, Anthony Perkins, Nick Adams and James Dean." However, the "trade only" notion is debated by Bast and other Dean biographers. Indeed, aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow biker and "Night Watch" member John Gilmore claims he and Dean "experimented" with homosexual acts on one occasion in New York, and it is difficult to see how Dean, then already in his twenties, would have viewed this as a "trade" means of advancing his career.

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. Rebel director Nicholas Ray has also gone on record to say that Dean was bisexual. Consequently, 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. William Russo also confirms that Dean's bisexuality was well-known.

As for Dean's relationships with women, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped "Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who has not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: 'They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals.' " Dean is best remembered for his relationship with a young Italian actress Pier Angeli, whom he met while Angeli was shooting The Silver Chalice on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli's mother was reported to have disapproved of the relationship because Dean was not a Catholic. In his autobiography, East of Eden director Elia Kazan, while dismissing the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, paradoxically alluded to Dean and Angeli's "romance," claiming that he had heard them loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. For a very short time the story of a Dean-Angeli love affair was even promoted by Dean himself, who fed it to various gossip columnists and to his co-star, Julie Harris, who in interviews has reported that Dean told her about being madly in love with Angeli. However, in early October 1954, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian singer Vic Damone, to Dean's expressed irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month, and gossip columnists reported that Dean, or someone dressed like him, watched the wedding from across the road on a motorcycle. However, Dean denied that he, personally, would have done anything so "dumb", when his friend William Bast questioned him about the reports later.

Actress Liz Sheridan claims that she and Dean had a short affair in New York. In her memoir detailing this, she also states that Dean was having a sexual involvement with Rogers Brackett, and describes her negative response to this situation.

Contrary to popular notions, Gavin Lambert wrote in his Wood biography that Natalie Wood's casting in Rebel Without a Cause did not lead to a romance with Dean: "Like many people, she was fascinated by his charm. He had this magnetic quality on the screen and in life... They got on very well, they liked each other a lot," but there was no affair and no sexual relationship.

Dean avoided the draft by registering as a homosexual, then classified by the US government as a mental disorder. When questioned about his orientation, he is reported to have said, "Well, I'm certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back."

Legacy

James Dean was the first — and is one of five — to have been posthumously nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award and the only one so nominated twice. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine.

Along with Blackboard Jungle, Dean's Rebel Without a Cause is frequently cited as having symbolized the growing post-war rebellion of 1950s teenagers as well as playing a part in the emergence of rock and roll as a lasting cultural phenomenon. 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. His name is mentioned in countless songs, movies, and is a pop icon of apparently timeless fascination. Some examples of this:

• Phil Ochs wrote a biographical song about James Dean called "Jim Dean of Indiana" and released it on what would be his final album.
• James Dean was noted by writer/director George Lucas and actor Hayden Christensen as a direct inspiration for the latter's portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
• Dean's also mentioned in Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire."
• Dean is referred to as "just a careless driver" in British indie band Half Man Half Biscuit's song "99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd."
• Don McLean also mentions Dean in "American Pie"; the line goes "When the jester sang for the king and queen, in a coat he borrowed from James Dean..." an allusion to the young Bob Dylan's fascination with the 50's idol.
• Dean is mentioned in the song "moviestar" made by Harpo.
• Dean is mentioned in Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side."
• Dean is also mentioned in American rock group Bon Jovi's song "These Days", the line goes "I guess she's tryin' to be James Dean."
• James Dean is a title song on Bonnie Tyler album Silhouette In Red.
• Rapper Jay-Z's song "Allure" off The Black Album lines mention "Even James Dean couldn't escape the allure/ Dying young, leaving a good looking corpse."
• Dean may be the inspiration for the monologue at the beginning of Placebo's song "This Picture" and is mentioned in their song "2468:" "He kicked me out of the house and he burnt all my pictures of sweet Jimmy Dean."
• Dean is the subject of the John Prine song "Picture Show".
• The Eagles recorded a song called "James Dean" on their album On The Border. The lyrics note that Dean was "too fast to live, too young to die."
• Hard Emo band Senses Fail mention James Dean in their song "Choke On This". "You can be my James Dean, I'll be your swet queen."
• Alternative rock moralists Anberlin reference Dean in their song "Dance, Dance Christa Päffgen," from their second album Never Take Friendship Personal. The line goes, "So mysterious, shadows meet James Dean; She's intoxicating... soon your favorite drink."
• Dean is mentioned by British indie band Space in their song "A Little Biddy Help from Elvis:" "Buddy Holly and Jimmy Dean could come to our wedding in the sky."
• Deana Carter mentions Dean in her song "One Day At A Time" the line goes: "And Thelma and Louise, you got nothing on me, and you can tell ol' James Dean to get in line."
• Dean is mentioned in David Essex's hit single "Rock On", in the line "See her shake on the movie screen, Jimmy Dean."
• Dean is one of the stars referenced in Madonna's song "Vogue."
• The Goo Goo Dolls has a song titled "James Dean", off of their album "Jed", where the subject dreams of being just like Dean, until 'And then you go and you tell me/that you found out Dean was gay...'
• In Brian K. Vaughan's comic series Runaways, the titular characters meet up twice at the James Dean memorial at Griffith Observatory. The comic contains several other references to Dean and Rebel Without A Cause.
• The Frank and Walters' song "This is not a song" contains the line "This song is not about old James Dean 'cause he's mentioned in too many songs already."
• Dean has also been referenced in several country music songs, including Shenandoah's "I Wanna Be Loved Like That" with the opening lyric "Natalie Wood gave her heart to James Dean," and Sawyer Brown's "Some Girls Do" with the lyric "You was laughing at me, I was doing James Dean."
• Elvis Presley was a noted admirer of James Dean. According to David Burner, "Both Dean and Elvis Presley conveyed a smoldering sexuality at the same time both threatening and androgynous."
• Rock band REM mentions Dean in their song "Electrolite": "Hollywood is under me/I'm Martin Sheen/I'm Steve McQueen/I'm Jimmy Dean."
• Creator Matt Groening revealed in the Futurama Vol. 1 DVD Commentary that the character Fry was specifically drawn dressed like Dean, in the iconic red jacket, white t-shirt and blue jeans.
• Morrissey is an admirer of James Dean, in the Music Video for Suedehead, he is seen stood looking sad at James Dean's Grave.
• Lesław, vocalist and guitarist of Polish rockabilly band Komety is a big James Dean fan; his first band had a song called "Chcialbym Umrzec Jak James Dean" ("I Want to Die Like James Dean").
• James Dean Bradfield, lead singer and guitarist of Welsh band Manic Street Preachers, is named after Dean as his father was a fan of the actor.
• Joan Jett and the Blackhearts released a song called "Ridin' with James Dean" on their 1988 album, Up Your Alley.
• The song "Rockstar" written by Nickelback mentions James Dean: "Somewhere between Cher and James Dean is fine for me"
• James Dean Strother, Bassist for Seattle based band "bicycle" Capricorn Records was conceived in the back seat of a 49'Merc and named after his parents teen idol.
• Daniel Bedingfield, British pop artist, has a song called "James Dean (I Wanna Know)" on his album "Gotta Get Thru This".
• James Dean is referenced by the English band Bloc Party in their songs, "Helicopter" and "Rhododendron," (which was a bonus track off the album A Weekend In The City. In "Helicopter," the line goes, "Stop being so American/So James Dean/So blue jeans," while in "Rhododendron," he's noted as a movie star along with John Wayne and Brando.
• Digging James Dean, a mystery novel by Robert Eversz, is about the desecration of his grave.
• The subject, "Where were you when James Dean died?" is the topic of an interesting round-table male discussion at the end of Chapter 14 of the novel White Noise, written by Don DeLillo (1985).
• The Killers' song, "Under the Gun" also references Dean.
• Duo Evan and Jaron have a song on their album We've Never Heard of You Either called "Could've Been James Dean"
• Nickelback has a song in their album "All the Right Reasons" titled "Rockstar" which references James Dean. The line goes "I want a new tour bus full of old guitars/My own star on Hollywood Boulevard/Somewhere between Cher and/James Dean is fine for me".

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 people have come to believe 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 (CHP) 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 mysteriously vanished. It has not been seen since.

Pop Culture

The Bay's radio commercial makes a reference to James Dean.

Filmography

• Fixed Bayonets (1951)
• Sailor Beware (1952)
• Deadline - U.S.A. (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" (April 1; Easter Sunday, 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)

Further reading

• Bast, William : James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
• Bast, William : Surviving James Dean. Barricade Books, 2006. ISBN 1-56980-298-X
• Dalton, David : James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001. ISBN 1-55652-398-X
• Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al : Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-6082-1
• Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998. ISBN 1-56025-169-7
• Gilmore, John : The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975. ISBN 0-515-03814-8
• Holley, Val : James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996. ISBN 0-312-15156-X
• Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay : James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992. ISBN 0446516430
• Martinetti, Ronald : The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975. ISBN 0-523-00633-0
• Morrissey : James Dean Is Not Dead. Babylon books, 1983. ISBN 0 907 188 06 0
• Perry, George : James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-4053-0525-8
• Sheridan, Liz : Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000. ISBN 0-06-039383-1
• Spoto, Donald : Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. Harpercollins, 1996. ISBN 0-06-017656-3

Biographical Films

• [2]James Dean: Portrait of a Friend aka James Dean (1976)
• [3] Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
• [4]Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
• James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001)
• [5]James Dean - Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean - Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
• [6] Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
• [7] James Dean - Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
• [8] James Dean - Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).

References

• Holley, Val. James Dean: The Biography. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1996. ISBN 0-31215-156-X.

External links

• James Dean at IMDb
• James Dean at the TCM Movie Database
• James Dean at the Internet Broadway Database
• James Dean.com link to new "Official" CMG James Dean website
• 10 James Dean Essentials: Photo Essay on AMCtv.com
• Mad about the boy on the Guardian Unlimited.
• Fairmount Historical Museum, a James Dean Memorabilia webstore.
• James Dean Gallery site (The gallery was closed in 2006.)
• James Dean at Find A Grave, includes photos of Dean's Tombstone.
• James Dean in Death, a site related to exploring Dean's death.
• James Dean, on The Living Room, a biographical website which focuses on Dean's sexuality.
• James Dean at American Legends.
• JamesDeanArchives.com
• William Bast, Dean's biographer.
• Report to the Hollywood Caucus for Producers Writers and Directors detailing efforts made by the NBC television network in 1976 to censor a commissioned James Dean bio of "unacceptable" homosexual content.

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