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Introduction
Dean, James
born Feb. 8, 1931,
Marion, Indiana, U.S.
died Sept. 30,
1955, near Paso Robles, California
in full James
Byron Dean strikingly handsome American
motion picture actor enshrined as a symbol
of the confused, restless, and idealistic
youth of the 1950s.
Dean's family moved
from Indiana to California when he was five.
Following the death of his mother four years
later, Dean returned to Indiana where he
was reared on a farm by an aunt and uncle.
He moved back to California after high school
to study theatre for two years at the University
of California at Los Angeles. His first
professional acting assignment was for a
soft drink commercial, which led to a speaking
role as John the Baptist in the television
Easter special Hill Number One (1951). He
played bit parts in three Hollywood films—Sailor
Beware (1951), Fixed Bayonets (1951), and
Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952)—before moving
to New York City on the advice of actor
James Whitmore, with whom he had briefly
studied. After a series of short-term jobs,
including a brief period as a “stunt tester”
for the CBS game show Beat the Clock, he
was cast in a key role in the Broadway flop
See the Jaguar (1953). More successful was
his sly, insinuating performance as a blackmailing
homosexual houseboy in another Broadway
production, The Immoralist (1954), a stage
adaptation of André Gide's book.
The Immoralist
brought Dean to the attention of film director
Elia Kazan, who cast the 23-year-old actor
in the leading role of troubled teenager
Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955), the screen
adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel. On
the set, Dean perpetuated his reputation
for constantly changing his character interpretation
and line readings and for deliberately baiting
and challenging his fellow actors. When
East of Eden premiered, however, Dean was
seen as a movie star of the first magnitude
and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Dean's second starring
film appearance, as sensitive high-school
misfit Jim Stark in director Nicholas Ray's
Rebel Without a Cause (1955), made him into
the embodiment of his generation. His character
defiantly rejects the values of his elders
while desperately aching to “belong” and
attempting to find a purpose in life. Dean's
performance spoke eloquently on behalf of
disenchanted, disenfranchised teenagers
and gave them a hero they could respect
and admire.
Shortly after completing
work on his third starring feature, producer-director
George Stevens's Giant (1956), the restless
Dean drove off in his silver Porsche to
compete in a sports car rally in Salinas,
California. Speeding down the highway, he
crashed headlong into a Ford sedan and was
killed instantly. Almost immediately, an
intensely loyal cult was established and
within days of his death he became a film
icon. The James Dean mystique continued
to flourish into the 21st century.
Additional Reading
Donald Spoto, Rebel:
The Life and Legend of James Dean (1996,
reissued 2000), explores the darker aspects
of Dean's character in an objective and
unsensationalized manner. Val Holley, James
Dean: The Biography (1996), is perhaps the
most comprehensive and exhaustively researched
Dean biography. John Gilmore, Live Fast—Die
Young: Remembering the Short Life of James
Dean (1997), is an intimate account of Dean's
private life by one of his closest friends.
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