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In little more than a year's time and after appearing in only three
feature films, James Byron Dean became one of the most admired screen
stars of all time, achieving cult status and becoming an icon of
American culture. The son of a dental technician, Dean was born in
Marion, IN, an unprepossessing Midwestern burg that has since become a
shrine to Dean aficionados. At five, Dean moved to Los Angeles with his
family. Four years later, his mother died, and he was returned to the
Midwest, to be cared for by relatives on their Fairmount, IN, farm. Upon
graduation from high school, he returned to California and attended
Santa Monica Junior College and U.C.L.A., later gravitating to acting,
first with James Whitmore's workshop group, then in television
commercials. His earliest existing film appearance was as one of
Christ's apostles in "Hill Number
One," a 1951 episode of the TV religious series Family Theatre.
Working as a busboy between acting engagements in New York, he was given
his first Broadway break in the short-lived The Jaguar. Dean soon began
receiving uncredited bit parts in Hollywood films, the most prominent
of which was his tongue-twisting turn as a soda emporium customer in
Universal's Has
Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952). Then it was back to New York, where he
observed classes at the Actors' Studio. While making a few scattered
live-TV appearances, Dean paid the bills by working as a "test pilot" on
the audience-participation series Beat
the Clock, walking through the various stunts in rehearsal to see
if "normal" people could perform them during the telecast. Upon being
cast in the Broadway play The Immoralist, he was compelled to give up
his Beat
the Clock job to another aspiring actor, Warren
Oates.
Creating a sensation as an Arab gigolo in The Immoralist, Dean came
to the attention of director Elia Kazan,
who'd previously brought the "Method" to the masses by casting Marlon
Brando in A
Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Viva Zapata!
(1952). Sensing an embryonic Brando
in Dean, Kazan
cast the sensitive young actor as Cal Trask in the 1955 film adaptation
of Steinbeck's
East of Eden. Playing a hell-raising teenager who yearned openly and
unashamedly to be loved and accepted by his rigid and taciturn father (Raymond
Massey), Dean "spoke" to the disenfranchised youth of the Eisenhower
era far more eloquently than any previous actor. Dean carried his loner
persona over into his next film, Rebel
Without a Cause (1955). Even after four decades, this Nicholas
Ray-directed film remains the quintessential misunderstood-teen
flick. While Rebel
was in production, East of Eden
hit the theaters, stirring up the first signs of Dean's staggering
popularity -- what would later become the "James Dean Cult." Knowing
they had a gold mine on their hands, Warner Bros. instantly upped the
budget of Rebel,
scrapping the black-and-white footage that had already been shot and
starting the whole project over in color and Cinemascope. Now committed
to a seven-year contract at Warners, Dean was afforded third billing to Rock
Hudson and Elizabeth
Taylor in Giant,
director George
Stevens' epic cinemazation of Edna Ferber's best-seller. As Jett
Rink, Dean once more played the brooding outsider, this time separated
from his heart's desire by his lowly station in life. Even when cast in a
villainous light, however, Dean remains the most fascinating presence
in the film, especially in his brilliantly choreographed climactic drunk
scene. Dean plays the cast-off loner in all three of his starring
features, unable to draw attention to himself until forcing the issue.
Off camera, Dean unfortunately possessed a fascination with fast
cars. Upon completing Giant, he piled
into his new 7,000 dollar Porsche and zoomed off to a racing event in
Salinas. Traveling 115 miles an hour, Dean was killed in a head-on crash
just outside Paso Robles, CA. The hysterical outpouring of grief that
attended his death had not been witnessed by the motion picture
community since the demise of Rudolph
Valentino in 1926. The cult worship of James Dean assumed a variety
of shapes, sizes, and degrees. Book upon book has been written about
Dean's short life; original poster art from his films has been auctioned
off at astronomical prices and two full-length biopics have been
produced: the hastily cobbled together The
James Dean Story (1957) and the made-for-TV James Dean
(1976), the latter project based on the memoirs of Dean's roommate,
James Bast, and starring Stephen
McHattie. After Dean's death, two of the actor's scheduled post-Giant projects,
the 1955 TV musical adaptation of Our Town and the 1956 Rocky
Graziano biopic Somebody
Up There Likes Me, were both re-cast with Paul
Newman. It is quite possible that the James Dean mystique, which
persists to the present day, might not have been as intense had he lived
longer, but like so many others untimely ripped from our midst -- Jean Harlow,
Marilyn
Monroe, John Lennon
-- James Dean has transcended mere idol status and entered the hallowed
halls of Legend. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Internet Movie Database
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