James Dean

This article is about the actor James Dean. You might also be looking for Jimmy Dean.

File:JamesDean.jpg

James Dean

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was a charismatic American film actor who epitomized youthful angst. Dean's status as a cultural icon is likely embodied in the title of his most cited work, Rebel Without a Cause.

Childhood and education

Born on a Marion, Indiana, family farm to Winton and Mildred Wilson Dean, he and his family moved to Santa Monica, California six years after Winton had left farming to become a dental technician. Dean was enrolled in Brentwood Public School until his mother died of cancer in 1940.

File:James Dean stamp.gif

James Dean on a United States postage stamp

At age nine Dean was sent by his father to live with relatives on a farm near Fairmount, Indiana where his upbringing received a Quaker influence. In high school Dean played on the school basketball team and participated in 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 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 a parental fight that left him turned out of his father's house.

Acting career

Dean began his acting career with a Coca-Cola television commercial followed by a stint as a stunt tester in the game show Beat the Clock. He quit college to focus on his budding career but struggled to get jobs in Hollywood and succeeded in paying his bills only by working as a parking lot attendant at CBS studios.

Following the advice of friends 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 Dean did several episodes on early-1950s episodic television programs such as Kraft Television Theater, Studio One, Lux Video Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, Danger and General Electric Theater. Positive reviews for his role in André Gide's The Immoralist led to calls from Hollywood and film stardom.

He appeared in several uncredited bit roles in forgettable films like Sailor Beware but gained recognition and success in 1955 with his first starring role, Cal Trask in East of Eden, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history). He followed this up in rapid succession with two more starring roles in Rebel Without a Cause and the posthumous 1956 release Giant, for which he was also nominated for an Academy Award.

Death

Dean had become friends with fellow auto enthusiast and multi-millionaire Lance Reventlow, one of the last people to speak to Dean when they met on their way from Los Angeles to an auto race in Salinas, California. A few hours later Dean was driving his Porsche 550 Spyder west on Highway 466 (later 46) near Cholame, California when a car driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, attempting to take the fork onto highway 41, crossed into Dean's lane without seeing the very low-slung, topless silver-grey Porsche in the twilight. The two cars hit almost head on. According to a story in the Oct 1, 2005 edition of the Los Angeles Times^[1], 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. His mechanic Rolf Wutherich 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, aged twenty-four.

Contrary to reports of excessive speed 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, was not cited by police for the accident, and died of lung cancer in 1995. While completing Giant, Dean had recently filmed a driving safety announcement targeted at teenaged drivers. "The life you save," he had said in conclusion, "may be mine."

Legacy

James Dean is one of only five people to have been nominated Best Actor for his first feature role and the only one nominated twice posthumously. He is buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana.

Two films from 1955, Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle, are 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.

Memorial

In 1977 a Dean memorial was built in Cholame. 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.

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."

Filmography

File:RebelWOCausePoster.jpg

James Dean on the film poster to Rebel Without a Cause

• 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)

External links

• James Dean (Official Website)
• James Dean at IMDb
• Colour photo of James Dean with his Porsche hours before the accident (he also owned the station wagon and trailer)

Footnotes

1. ^ Chawkins, Steve, "Remembering a 'Giant'", Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2005.