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James Dean

American actor (1931–1955) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Dean
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This article is about the American actor. For other uses, see James Dean (disambiguation).

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He became one of the most influential figures in Hollywood in the 1950s, and his impact on cinema and popular culture was profound, although his career lasted only five years. He appeared in just three major films: Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he portrayed a disillusioned and rebellious teenager, East of Eden (1955), which showcased his intense emotional range, and Giant (1956), a sprawling drama. These have been preserved in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for their "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance". He was killed in a car accident at the age of 24 in 1955, leaving him a lasting symbol of rebellion, youthful defiance, and the restless spirit.

Quick facts Born, Died ...

Dean was the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in East of Eden.[nb 1] The following year, he earned a second nomination for his performance in Giant, making him the only actor to receive two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, he was honored by the American Film Institute, being ranked as the 18th greatest male film star from Golden Age Hollywood on their "AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars" list. Time magazine recognized Dean as one of the "All-Time Most Influential Fashion Icons."

Dean's film roles and style had a strong impact on Hollywood, capturing the spirit of 1950s youth and creating an enduring legacy that shaped American pop culture and defined rebellious, countercultural attitudes for generations.

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Early life and education

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Dean was born on February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana,[4] the only child of Mildred Marie Wilson and Winton Dean. He claimed that his mother was partly Native American and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower".[5] Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School.[6] The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him".[7] In 1938, Dean's mother was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old.[8] Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana,[9] where he was raised in their Quaker household.[10] Winton Dean served in World War II and later remarried.[8][11]

In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence on Dean, especially on his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and philosophy.[12][13] The Hollywood columnist and Dean biographer, Joe Hyams, presents an account alleging Dean's molestation as a teenager by his early mentor DeWeerd, writing that, "It was the beginning of a homosexual relationship that would endure over many years".[14] Billy J. Harbin, a historian of the American theater, quotes Hyams when he writes that Dean had an intimate relationship with DeWeerd which began in his senior year of high school and "endured for many years".[15] Biographer Paul Alexander writes in his book Boulevard of Broken Dreams that Dean and DeWeerd "had a romantic relationship that regularly included sex",[16] and he presents Dean as predominantly gay.[17] A New York Times book review, however, said "Mr. Alexander's well-meaning stab at clarity may titillate, but it adds no light..." and called some of the assertions he made in the book "arrant nonsense".[18] A Kirkus Review said, "The book is riddled with errors" and contains "a great deal of unsubstantiated and highly speculative psychobiography".[19] In 2011, The Daily Beast reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death.[20]

Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional, and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams,[21] studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association.[22] After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949,[22] he moved back to California to live with his father and stepmother, Ethel Case Dean.[11] Dean enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law. He transferred to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for one semester and changed his major to theater arts.[23] His attempt to reconcile with his father ended with an impasse of "uncommunicative antagonism" caused by Winton's efforts to direct him into a more traditional career.[24] He pledged to the Sigma Nu fraternity but was expelled for punching one of his fraternity brothers.[25] While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time acting career.[26][27] Of his pursuing an acting career, Dean later said, "The decision to act was never prompted. My whole life has been spent in a dramatic display of expression."[28]

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Acting career

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Early career

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Dean in 1953 (aged 22)

In 1950, Dean made his television debut in a Pepsi commercial.[24][29][11] He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Apostle in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus.[30] Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during the production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952),[31] and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).[32] While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios.[33] During that time, he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay.[34] Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in the play See the Jaguar.[4]

In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett.[35] In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly.[36] He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series, The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg.[24] In 1952, he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.[37]

Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong."[38] There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he later starred in Giant (1956). Dean's career picked up, and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower," saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he later portrayed in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy," one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll.

Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to a call from the Hollywood director, Elia Kazan.[39] During the production of The Immoralist, according to actress Geraldine Page's daughter Angelica, Dean had an affair with her mother.[40]

East of Eden

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Dean in East of Eden (1955)

In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of Cal Trask for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals 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, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s. In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and sensible compared to their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey), who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.[41]

Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said he wanted "a Brando type" for the role, and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and, on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.[42][43]

Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted,[44] including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and, in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film. Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.[45]

Even before the film's release Dean's performance was attracting attention and discussion in Hollywood circles, with film critics, producers and directors flocking to see the film in screenings before its theatrical release. Upon the film's release in March 1955, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper wrote: "I can't remember when any screen newcomer generated as much excitement in Hollywood as did James Dean in his first picture, East of Eden."[28]

In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.[46] (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929,[47] when the rules for selection of the winner were different). East of Eden was the only film starring Dean released in his lifetime.[48]

Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, and planned roles

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Natalie Wood and Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst.[49][50] Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark. Consequently, he took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film based on the novel by Edna Ferber.[51] The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink.[52][53] To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, the make-up department dyed Dean's hair gray and shaved some of it off to give him a receding hairline.[54]

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Dean on the set of Giant (1956) with director George Stevens

Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean gives a drunken speech at a banquet in his honor, a scene John Howlett referred to his "last supper".[55] Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film because Dean had died before the film was edited. Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.[3] Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director.[56]

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Personal life

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Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family.[57] According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life.[58] While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love."[59] They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.[60] Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer,[61][62] would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, describing a night they slept together at a hotel in Borrego Springs.[63]

In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "...just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us."[64] While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau.[65] They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together.[66] In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.[67]

Early in Dean's career, 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 had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."[7]

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Dean with Pier Angeli at the premiere of A Star Is Born (1954)

Dean's best-remembered relationship was with Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954)[68] on an adjoining Warner lot, and they exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. In his 1992 biography, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, Hollywood gossip columnist Joe Hyams, who says he knew Dean personally, devotes an entire chapter to Dean's relationship with Angeli. During an interview 14 years after their relationship ended, Angeli described their times together:

We used to go together to the California coast and stay there secretly in a cottage on a beach far away from prying eyes. We'd spend much of our time on the beach, sitting there or fooling around, just like college kids. We would talk about ourselves and our problems, about the movies and acting, about life and life after death. We had a complete understanding of each other. We were like Romeo and Juliet, together and inseparable. Sometimes on the beach we loved each other so much we just wanted to walk together into the sea holding hands because we knew then that we would always be together.[69]

Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."[70]

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Dean in 1955

Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love said that a number of circumstances drove them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of the fact that he was not a Catholic, and of his casual dress, saying that his behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married.[71] Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic.[72] According to Joe Hyams, Lew Bracker had gone to Dean's apartment after his death and gathered a few of his personal effects to give the actor's father Winton. Bracker had had second thoughts about Dean's items just lying around there and returned to inventory them for Winton. Among these was the entire "Order for the Solemnization of Marriage" pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank.[73]

William Bast believed that the relationship was a mere publicity stunt, writing that Dean had gone so far as to hire a stand-in to ride a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to the church where Angeli and Vic Damone were married, and that after the ceremony when the couple came out of the church to be showered with rice, the double gunned the engine in front of a crowd of press photographers for dramatic effect and rode off.[74] In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he claimed to remember hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room.[75] (Bast, however, mocked the claim that Kazan, and no one else, could have heard such noises through solid walls across a heavily trafficked corridor.[76]) Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends."[77] Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life during an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach.[78] Peter Winkler says these read like "pathetic fantasies".[79] William Bast said the two supposed lovers were just using each other, mainly for the press coverage and that it was next to impossible for them to have ever had sex on the beach, given that her mother seldom let her out of her sight for more than an hour.[80]

After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954.[71] While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony. William Bast wrote that Dean had gone so far as to hire a stand-in to ride a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to the church where Angeli and Vic Damone were married, and that after the ceremony when the couple came out of the church to be showered with rice, the double gunned the engine in front of a crowd of press photographers for dramatic effect and rode off.[74] Angeli, who later divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971 at the age of 39.[81] Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress.[82] "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars and was with him on the day he bought the car he died in.[83]

After Dean got the part of Jim Stark in Rebel he could afford to rent his own place, and moved into a garage apartment on Sunset Plaza Drive.[84] The nearby Googie's Coffee Shop across from the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Strip became his favorite late-night hangout during the shooting of the movie, along with Schwab's Pharmacy. He hung out drinking coffee with a casual group of misfits and insomniacs known as the "night watch"[85] including the actress Maila Nurmi, known for her character Vampira on KABC-TV, Jack Simmons, a gay aspiring actor who worshipped Dean, and John Gilmore,[86] an actor and Dean's motorcycle riding buddy.[87]

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Death

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Main article: Death of James Dean

Auto racing hobby

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Dean and his Porsche Super Speedster 23F at Palm Springs Races, March 1955

In 1954, Dean became interested in pursuing a career in motorsport. Ater filming for East of Eden had concluded, he bought a Triumph Tiger T110 and then in March 1955, he bought a Porsche 356 Super Speedster convertible[88] as East of Eden was being released in the theaters. He placed in several major racing events with the Speedster and its l,500cc engine.[89] Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California, on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class and second place at the main event. On May 1, 1955, Jimmy drove the Speedster in a car race at Minter Field in Bakersfield, California.and placed third.[90] Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.[91]

Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston.[92] His brief racing career was put on hold when George Stevens barred him from all racing during the production of Giant.[93] Dean had finished shooting his scenes, and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.

Accident and aftermath

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The intersection of State Route 46 and State Route 41 was renamed "James Dean Memorial Junction". However, the actual accident location is approximately 100 feet (0.019 mi) to the south due to road realignment.

Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful, and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 2, 1955.[90] Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 were stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard".[94][95] Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 pm, Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman, who was following behind in another car.[96]

On September 30,[97] as the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466[98] (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 pm,[99] student Donald Turnupseed, was traveling east.[100] Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno[101] ahead of the oncoming Porsche.[94][102] Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck.[103] Turnupseed had only minor injuries.[104]

The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer, George Perry, wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, although he writes on the same page that "death appeared to have been instantaneous".[105] Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 pm.[106]

Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets.[107][108] On Monday morning, October 3, John Stander, as deputy coroner, signed a death certificate stating that "24-year-old James Byron Dean, actor, never married, had met his death on 30 September 1955 at 5.45 p.m., one mile east of Cholame at the junction of Highways 466 and 41 in San Luis Obispo County. Chief cause of death was a broken neck, with numerous other fractures and internal injuries."[109] Sheriff-coroner Paul E. Merrick then ordered an inquest into Dean's death, and announced that the hearing was to be held in the Paso Robles City Council Chamber at 10 a.m. the next Tuesday.[110] Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside the building during the procession.[107] He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount.[111]

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James Dean monument at Cholame, half a mile from the site of the fatal accident

On October 11, after deliberating only twenty minutes, the inquest jury returned a verdict that stated, "We find no indication that James Dean met death through any criminal act of another, and that he died of a fractured neck and other injuries received."[112] There is a James Dean monument made of stainless steel, built in Japen and brought to the site by a Japanese businessman, Seiti Ohnishi, in 1977.[113] It is located in front of the former Cholame post office.[114][115]

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Legacy

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Cinema and television

In 1960, Dean received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[116] In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.[117] All three of Dean's films have been preserved in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.[118] American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."[119]

Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy."[120] According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the indefinable extra something that makes a star".[121] Dean biographer George Perry attributed Dean's exalted status to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era,[122] and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.[123]

Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books, and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts how various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death.[124] The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982 but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.[125]

On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective.[126] The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954,[127] drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.[128]

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Dean's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine.[129] On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness would be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. Prior to being shelved,[130] the movie was to have been directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor would voice Dean's part.[131] Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.[131][132]

Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean.[133] Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting; it was human behavior."[134] For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.[135]

Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst for his wanting to become an actor.[136] Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean.[137] "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, 'That's what I want to do,'" Cage said.[138] Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview.[139] Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors.[140] When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability ... his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."[141] Salman Shah, commonly regarded as one of the most popular and influential figures in Bangladesh's film history,[142] is often compared to James Dean, due to the similarities in their lives and careers. Shah had an ephemeral but prolific impact as an actor, was a major enthusiast of fashion and automobiles, died when he was 24, the exact same age as Dean, and has an enduring legacy.[143]

Youth culture and music

Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first notable figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley[144] and many other musicians who followed,[145] including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.[146]

In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star.'"[146]

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Bronze bust of Dean created by sculptor Kenneth Kendall at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California[147]

As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world,[148] Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon.[149] Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music[150] to the modern classical music of Stravinsky as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra[151] and Bartók.[152] While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexes,[153] his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.[114][154]

In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film,[155] and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets.[156] Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."[157]

Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents,[158][159] and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity, which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate.[160][161] In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas".[162] Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."[146]

Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly,[163] Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence.[164] The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally.[165] A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963),[166] and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965),[167] cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar".[168] Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963),[169] "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974),[170] and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). He has also been referenced in songs by artists such as Morrissey, Jay Z, Lady Gaga,[171] and Taylor Swift.[172]

Sexuality

Dean is often considered a sexual icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time.[173] When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."[174]

Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that Dean was willing to have sex with men who could advance his career. He moved in with Rogers Brackett, an advertising executive who had connections in the entertainment industry and supposedly arranged meetings with them on Dean's behalf, leading to speculation that Dean was having sex "for trade".[175] William Bast referred to Dean as Rogers Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean.[176] Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship, "My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous."[177] James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act ... Once ... at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island."[178] Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."[179]

However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers.[180] Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves."[181] Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.[182]

On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that, too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?"[183][184] Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together, we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to."[185] Elizabeth Taylor, whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000.[186] When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I ... twinkled."[187]

Fashion

James Dean's signature style, consisting of jeans, a white T-shirt, and a motorcycle jacket,[188] left a lasting mark on youth culture and influenced broader fashion trends. In modern times, his casual look has become a universal wardrobe staple,[189] with his style continuing to influence men's fashion, as seen in the clothes worn by celebrities and actors.[190][191]

James Dean has been recognized by TIME as one of the "ALL TIME 100 Fashion Icons", highlighting his lasting impact on style and pop culture.[192] Montblanc honored Dean as part of its "Great Characters" collection which celebrates influential figures from various fields who have had a lasting impact on culture and society.[193] Harper's Bazaar ranked James Dean as the top choice in their 2024 list of "The 50 Hottest Men of All Time."[194]

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Notes

  1. [1]
    Jeanne Eagles was nominated posthumously for Best Actress for her role in The Letter at the 2nd Academy Awards in 1930, though hers, like all the nominations at the 2nd Academy Awards, was unofficial, being among several actresses "under consideration" by a board of judges.[1] This makes Dean the first actor in the history of the Academy Awards to be nominated posthumously.[2][3]

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