Publicity posters and official DVD for the three movies in which
James Dean starred during a tragically-short but never-forgotten movie
career (© – reproduced here on a
strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)
“Dream as if you’ll live forever.
Live as if you’ll die today.”
- James Dean
James
Dean has always been a major hero of mine, so it would be a vast understatement to say that I was honored when, back in the early days of my cryptozoological writing and research career, one newspaper article likened me to the James Dean of
cryptozoology, due not merely to my sharing his habitual leather jacket and jeans image and passion for riding motorbikes but also because of what the article's writer perceived as my rebellious attitude towards the more hidebound, overly conservative traditions and tenets in mainstream zoology. Consequently, on what is a particularly apposite date for this, here today is my Shuker In MovieLand tribute to someone who has influenced
me so much and for so long through my life.
Alongside a
life-sized figurine of James Dean (© Dr Karl Shuker)
He came into this world exactly 90 years
ago today, grew into a uniquely talented and extremely charismatic actor, then
died violently at the age of only 24 after starring in just three films. Yet
there has never been even the briefest of pauses in his popularity. More than six
decades have passed since his death, but his name lives on, undiminished by
time, and his persona remains far more potent and vibrant today than that of
almost any modern celebrity, epitomising the cool yet confused teenage rebel
that he played in so mesmerising and convincing a manner on the silver screen
during the early 1950s. He died just before the advent of rock ’n’ roll, but
with his raw macho image of black leather jacket, jeans, and motorbike, he was
already the archetypal rocker, and his life has been duly commemorated in
numerous rock songs, most notably by The Eagles (click here for the original 1974 version of their song). And the name of this enduring
icon? Who else could it possibly be but James Dean?
EARLY YEARS
An only child, he was born on 8 February
1931, in a nondescript Indiana town called Marion. Nevertheless, perhaps the
portents of future fame were present even then. Certainly, it is nothing if not
remarkably apt that someone destined to be one of the most controversial and
mercurial of movie stars should come to share a name with so close a
counterpart from the literary world - for although he would always be known
simply as Jimmy or Jim to his friends and colleagues, he was christened James
Byron Dean.
Jimmy’s
parents were Mildred and Winton Dean (a dental technician but descended from
generations of local farmers), and Jimmy’s first few years were idyllic, his
mother nurturing in him a life-long love of acting and the classics before the
family moved to Santa Monica, California, to further Winton’s career. While
Jimmy was still only nine years old, however, tragedy struck, when Mildred was
found to be suffering from advanced uterine cancer, dying shortly afterwards on
14 July 1940. Robbed of his beloved mother, Jimmy was grief-stricken. Only two
days later, moreover, adding further to his disorientation, Winton, feeling
unable to care for him single-handedly, sent Jimmy back to Indiana, to be reared
from then on by his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow (a farmer), in
small-town Fairmount, not far from Marion. It is widely believed that this most
unsettling episode in his life is what ultimately transformed the young James
Dean into the rebellious, troubled, yet wholly captivating star that transfixed
movie-goers yet consistently failed to find personal happiness or stability.
A philatelic souvenir sheet
issued by the Grenadines of Grenada commemorating James Dean; from my personal
collection of James Dean memorabilia (© Dr Karl Shuker/Grenadines of Grenada
Philatelic Bureau – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis
for educational/review purposes only)
At school (as well as at home), Jimmy became
something of a troublemaker, but he excelled at sports, especially basketball,
and after obtaining his first motorbike in his early teens he also became an
extremely accomplished, daredevil rider. However, his passion for acting
superseded everything, and he appeared in numerous school plays, increasing his
ambition to become a successful actor. After graduating from high school in May
1949, Jimmy journeyed to California to live with his father in Santa Monica,
but a month later he moved to Los Angeles, where in September 1950 he entered
UCLA to commence a university course in drama. Yet despite his success in
winning the much-coveted role of Malcolm in a major UCLA production of
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, staged from 29
November to 2 December 1950, he was forced to take a series of dead-end jobs
while seeking the showbusiness break for which he so earnestly yearned.
FIRST
SUCCESSES
During the next two years, a number of
minor breaks did come his way. These included a Pepsi-Cola television advert,
an appearance in an episode entitled ‘Hill Number One’ of the TV show Family Theater playing the disciple St
John, some radio shows, and even a trio of walk-on film appearances - in Fixed Bayonets (1951), Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952), and the
Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis comedy Sailor
Beware (1952), in which he had a one-line speaking role. But these were not
enough to quench Jimmy’s thirst for success. By October 1951, he had already
quit not only UCLA but also California, drawn eastward like so many other young
stage and movie moths to the bright Broadway-beckoning lights of New York, in
search of a place in the celebrated Actors Studio - run by Lee Strasberg and
including Jimmy’s greatest movie star hero, Marlon Brando, among its members.
Official DVD for the 1957 documentary movie The James Dean Story (© Robert Altman/George W. George/Warner Bros.
Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for
educational/review purposes only
Remarkably for a complete unknown, Jimmy
was accepted, where, although failing to impress Strasberg, he did attract the
attention of acclaimed film director Elia Kazan. Indeed, following his albeit
brief Broadway run during December 1952 as a caged teenager in the play See the Jaguar, and a well-received role
during February 1954 as Bachir, a sexually-devious Arab houseboy in a stage
version of André Gide’s novel The Immoralist, in March 1954 Kazan cast
this youthful misfit in a role that could have been written especially for him.
Namely, Cal Trask, the brooding, rebellious, Cain-type brother in the Warner
Brothers film version of John Steinbeck’s powerful novel, East of Eden, published in 1952, in which the very
different behaviour and characters of a pair of modern-day brothers closely
mirror those of the biblical Cain and Abel, sons of Adam and Eve. The
title comes from the punishment received by Cain after killing Abel, being
exiled to the land of Nod, east of Eden.
EAST OF EDEN, AND UNLUCKY
IN LOVE
Inevitably, Jimmy attracted Kazan’s
disapproval for his tempestuous, unpredictable behaviour, not to mention his
penchant for hair-raising devilment on four and two wheels, and for noisily
playing the bongo drums (one of his favourite hobbies) while on set. He also
succeeded in alienating the film crew and (with the notable exception of Julie
Harris) most of his co-stars too - particularly the cultured old-school actor
Raymond Massey, playing Cal’s father, and Dick Davalos, playing his
Abel-counterpart twin brother Aron. Yet in spite of (or even perhaps because
of) it all, Jimmy turned in a spellbinding performance, greatly influenced by
the Method school of acting championed by Strasberg’s Actors Studio (click here to watch an official East of Eden trailer featuring Jimmy).
In June 1954, while still filming East of Eden, Jimmy began dating the
actress often said to be his one and only true love, 22-year-old Italian-born
Pier Angeli. In the decades since his death, there has been much controversy
concerning Jimmy’s sexuality. Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, even asexual
– all of these have been attributed to him. There is no doubt that by the time
of East of Eden, Jimmy had been
variously acquainted or infatuated with some homosexual or bisexual figures,
including pastor Dr James DeWeerd at Fairmount’s Wesleyan Church, and CBS TV
director Rogers Brackett (plus, later, ‘Rebel’ co-star Sal Mineo). He had also
dated numerous women – dancer Dizzy Sheridan, teenage actress Barbara Glenn,
New York photography enthusiast Arlene Sachs, and New York actress Christine
White among others. And then there were the various strictly platonic,
brother-and-sister type relationships, most notably with Julie Harris, and
sultry feline singer Eartha Kitt. Little wonder, then, that those who knew him
best agree that it wasn’t a person’s sex that attracted him but their
personality, meaning that in a sense he was both bisexual and asexual, having
little affinity with sexuality but every affinity with living a life that
lacked boundaries or limitations. Until, that is, Pier Angeli entered his life.
Publicity poster for East
of Eden (© Elia Kazan/Warner Bros – reproduced here on a strictly
non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)
She was working on a film called The Silver Chalice in an adjacent film
studio to his, and the two soon became very attracted towards one another.
Despite rumours that their romance was a studio publicity stunt, Kazan and
others had no doubt whatsoever that it was genuine. In keeping with the tragic
idol persona that Jimmy nowadays embodies, however, it was doomed from the very
beginning, due to the implacable disapproval of Pier’s mother, a staunch
Catholic who hated non-Catholic Jimmy’s hip, reckless image and sullen
attitude. Nevertheless, the film world was still startled when in October 1954
Pier abruptly announced her engagement to singer Vic Damone, and married him
just a month later. The nuptials were watched from across the way by a
thunderous, uninvited Jimmy, sitting astride his motorbike before riding off
alone. Abandoned by his mother in death, by his father in despair, and now by
his greatest love in favour of someone else – from then on, Jimmy’s moods,
always uncertain and stormy at best, became ever darker, his insecurities ever
more apparent.
Premiered in New York on 9 March 1955, East of Eden had cost over one and half
million dollars to make, but was a huge success, with Jimmy acclaimed as a
major new star, resulting in fan clubs springing up all around the world in his
honour. Highly uncomfortable as the focus of such unexpected adulation, Jimmy
derived great pleasure from sneaking anonymously into cinemas to watch how
audiences reacted to his riveting portrayal of the haunted, alienated outcast
Cal Trask on screen. Sadly, this was to be the only one of the three films in
which he starred that Jimmy would live to see released. Nor would he ever know
of his ‘Best Actor’ Oscar nomination in 1956 for his performance as Cal.
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, AND
PHOTOGRAPHIC IDOL
In January 1955, two months before the East of Eden premiere, Jimmy had been
signed up for the film role that he was assuredly born to play, and with which
he will forever be most intimately identified – the disaffected, red
bomber-jacketed, Lee jeans-clad teenager Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Another Warner Brothers movie but directed
this time by Nicholas Ray, it co-starred a young Natalie Wood and an even
younger Sal Mineo, creating both off-screen and on-screen a complex triangle of
mutual attraction. Jimmy stars as a loner, misunderstood by his parents,
especially by his weak father played by Jim Backus (thereby yielding an
uncomfortably close parallel, perhaps, with Jimmy’s own life), and rejected by
the other students at his new school. (Incidentally, this movie's memorable
title came from a 1944 non-fiction book by psychiatrist Robert M. Lindner
concerning the hynoanalysis of a criminal psychopath, to which Warner Brothers
had purchased the rights.)
It was during this same period that Jimmy,
by now becoming a serious movie heart-throb, featured in two major photo-shoots
for Life magazine. The first, a studio-based session on 29 December 1954
with celebrity-snapper Roy Schatt, resulted in the classic ‘Torn Sweater’
series, named after the tatty sweater worn by Jimmy, who was also sporting photogenic
designer stubble long before it became fashionable to do so. The second, in
February 1955, saw Jimmy return to New York and Fairmount with New York
photographer Dennis Stock, which yielded some of the most famous and iconic of
all James Dean images.
Official 2-disc DVD for Rebel
Without A Cause (© Nicholas Ray/Warner Bros – reproduced here on a strictly
non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)
As with East
of Eden, Jimmy played his role in Rebel
Without A Cause in his own unique, idiosyncratic way, replete with
extraordinary mannerisms, improvisations, and what had become by now his
trade-mark mumbling delivery. But again, the result was both hypnotic and
groundbreaking – for countless young screen-goers everywhere, James Dean was
the definitive teenager, epitomising and embodying the angst, confusion,
rebellion, pain, rage, and sexual awakenings that they were experiencing. (Click here to watch an official Rebel Without A Cause trailer showcasing Jimmy in the movie that he most directly personified and with which he will always be most readily identified.)
GIANT, AND A CHILLING PROPHECY
Rebel
Without A Cause would be premiered in New York on 26
October 1955, but well before then Jimmy was already hard at work on film #3,
shooting for it having begun in Texas on 3 June 1955. This was Giant, a big-budget Warner Brothers
movie adaptation of Edna Ferber’s bestselling oil-boom eponymous novel of 1952,
with veteran director George Stevens, in which, for the first time, Jimmy’s two
principal co-stars were major-league movie actors – Rock Hudson and Elizabeth
Taylor. Yet again, Jimmy played a disturbed, embittered outsider – ranch-hand
Jett Rink, who becomes, following the discovery of oil on his tiny plot of
land, an extremely wealthy oil baron, surpassing even the fortune amassed by
his hated rival, Bick Benedict (played by Hudson, with Taylor as his wife,
Leslie, who also nurtures a soft spot for Jett). Ironically, Jimmy’s off-screen
relationship with his co-stars mirrored their on-screen one, Jimmy and Hudson
loathing one another but Jimmy and Taylor forming a genuine platonic
friendship. (Click here to watch an official trailer for Giant featuring Jimmy in his iconic role as Jett Rink.)
In the film, Jett Rink ages from a
19-year-old youth to a dissipated 46-year-old with white hair, requiring a far
greater scope of acting talent than Jimmy had ever been required to display
before, and critics are still divided as to whether he accomplished this
successfully. Nevertheless, his performance was such that, in 1957, he received
a second ‘Best Actor’ Oscar nomination, the first time that any actor had
received two posthumous Oscar nominations. Sadly, however, he did not win on
either occasion.
Publicity poster for Giant
(© George Stevens/Warner Bros – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial
Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)
Having completed his filming for Giant on 22 September 1955, Jimmy, by
now something of a veteran, successful car-racer, decided to enter a race in
Salinas, California, driving his latest four-wheeled acquisition – a silver
Porsche 550 Spyder that he had dubbed ‘Little Bastard’ (after an affectionate
nickname given to him by his friend Bill Hickman, a stuntman on Giant). At around 10 pm on 23 September,
however, just under a week before he set off for Salinas, Jimmy had a somewhat
macabre chance encounter with British actor Alec Guinness, to whom he proudly showed
off ‘Little Bastard’. Far from being impressed, however, Guinness inexplicably
felt a wave of horror sweep over him as he looked at the car – so much so that
he found himself imploring Jimmy not to get in it, and stating that if he did,
he would be dead in a week.
30 SEPTEMBER
1955
Although he was understandably startled at
first by Guinness’s chilling words, Jimmy soon laughed them off, and so it was
that during the afternoon of 30 September 1955 he and his mechanic Rolf
Weutherich found themselves heading down Route 466 towards Salinas in ‘Little
Bastard’, with Jimmy driving. Just before 6 pm, they approached a junction with
Highway 41, at a speed of around 85 mph, and at that same moment a Ford sedan
driven by 23-year-old college student Donald Turnupseed pulled out onto Route
466 directly in front of them. Jimmy swerved desperately, but could not avoid
the Ford. According to Weutherich, who, like Turnupseed, survived the
inevitable crash, Jimmy’s last words were: “That guy’s gotta stop...he’ll see
us!” The feather-light racing car was virtually annihilated, and Jimmy died of
multiple injuries before his broken body arrived at the Paso Robles War
Memorial Hospital. The crash had taken place exactly a week after Guinness’s
eerily-prophetic warning.
Publicity poster for James
Dean: Live Fast, Die Young – the special uncut version of the 1997 TV movie
biopic James Dean: Race With Destiny,
starring Casper Van Dien as Jimmy (© Mardi Rustam/Cheeni Productions/Mardi
Rustam Productions – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use
basis for educational/review purposes only
Jimmy’s death incited shock, grief, rage,
and quasi-religious fervour among his fans around the globe on a scale
unprecedented since that of Rudolph Valentino back in the mid-1920s. What had
until then been an enthusiastic following of fans soon transformed into a
veritable cult – and the rest, as they say, is history.
For James Byron Dean, one journey had
ended, but another had already begun. An actor had died, but a legend was born. (Click here for a montage of Jimmy accompanied by a live version of The Eagles song in tribute to him; and click here to read my Shuker In MovieLand review of the excellent 1997 biopic movie James Dean: Race With Destiny aka James Dean: Live Fast, Die Young, starring Casper Van Dien as Jimmy.)
“Goodbye,”...
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Antoine de Saint-Exup̩ry РThe Little Prince
(James Dean’s favourite quote from his favourite book, and which also happens to be my favourite quote)
And to view a complete listing of all of my
Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly
accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
Philatelic souvenir sheet commemorating James Dean (the stamp's
design originating from one of Roy Schatt's 'Torn Sweater' series of photos
depicting Jimmy, and the sheet's photograph of Jimmy one of those snapped by
Dennis Stock), which was issued in 1996 by the United States Postal Service;
from my personal collection of James Dean memorabilia (© Dr Karl Shuker/James
Dean Foundation Trust/Roy Schatt/Dennis Stock/United States Postal Service – reproduced
here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review
purposes only
