James Dean, in full James Byron Dean was an American film actor who was enshrined as a symbol of the confused, restless, and idealistic youth of the 1950s.
Background
Ethnicity:
James was primarily of English descent, with smaller amounts of German, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry.
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Winton Dean and Mildred Marie Wilson.
Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. 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". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old.
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, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
Education
James entered first grade in 1937 at the Brentwood Public School. He took violin lessons, playing well for a young child although his school friends taunted him about this activity. He excelled at debate and drama, coached and trained by teacher Adeline Nall. He won several state titles for his abilities, and on April 14, 1949, the Fairmount News read, "James Dean First Place Winner in Dramatic Speaking. " He transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School.
Dean's overall performance in high school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother.
James enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. 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 career as an actor.
Dean quit school, living precariously as a parking lot attendant and chasing auditions wherever they were available. In 1951, after landing only bit parts and a small role in Fixed Bayonets, a war picture, he left Hollywood for New York. There, in 1953, he landed a spot in the Actors Studio run by Lee Strasberg.
James obtained a small part in See the Jaguar which opened at the Cort Theatre on Broadway on December 3, 1952. After this his career took off. He did television plays and several more Broadway productions and developed a reputation as "difficult." Despite this he won the Daniel Blum Theatre World Award for "best newcomer" of the year for his role in The Immoralist.
In March 1954 Elia Kazan, who knew Dean from Actors Studio days, offered him a Warner Brothers contract. The film was East of Eden. The film's New York preview was March 10, 1955, but Dean declined to attend. "I can't handle it," he said, and flew back to Los Angeles.
Dean finished filming Rebel Without a Cause (with Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood) in June 1955 and began work on Giant. He co-starred in this with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. Completing Giant in September of that year, Dean was to start rehearsing for The Corn Is Green, a play for the National Broadcasting Company. But Dean had a few days free time in which he decided to do some car racing.
Intrigued with fast automobiles, Dean had bought a $6,900 Porsche Spyder which he planned to race at Salinas, California, in September. On September 30th, he and his mechanic, Rolf Wuetherich, were involved in a head-on collision at Paso Robles, California. The Porsche was crumpled, Rolf suffered a smashed jaw and leg fracture. James Dean, dead at the age of 24, was buried in Fairmount, Indiana, on October 8, 1955. Three thousand people attended his funeral.
Less than a month later, Rebel Without a Cause opened in New York City, and the Dean legend began. Warner Brothers received landslides of mail—fans were obsessed with the curt, swaggering Dean.
James Byron Dean is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956). After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list. He also received numerous foreign awards, including the French Crystal Star award and the Japanese Million Pearl award.
While in Fairmont, Dean was raised in a Quaker household. Most accounts of his official religion are that he was a Quaker. And his funeral was held at a Quaker church house in Fairmont.
But there is a strong push by some Christians to paint Dean as an atheist, or maybe an occultist, and quoting him as saying things like:
"No matter what they say, there isn’t any heaven. There’s no hell either."
"I believe in freedom, not God."
Politics
Dean never got too involved in the political discussion of his time. But the political discussion certainly got involved with him.
Dean is considered the great American rebel. In fact, Ronald Reagan (with whom he appeared onscreen) called him “America’s Rebel.”
Dean came to be an icon for the “beatniks” of his day and the hippies of the next generation, those significant minorities in American society who wanted to reject the values of their parents, lost faith in the “American Dream,” and started questioning the supposed benevolent values of America and her place in the world.
He gave purpose to those who felt they didn’t fit into society, and even today Dean is an icon for social outcasts and dissidents.
Views
Quotations:
Dean, interviewed in March 1955, commented on his craft, offering this curiously fatalistic view of life: "To me, acting is the most logical way for people's neuroses to manifest themselves. To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle."
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
"Only the gentle are ever really strong."
"If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he's dead, then maybe he was a great man."
"The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results."
"To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty; to interpret it his problem; and to express it his dedication."
"Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You are all alone with your concentration and imagination, and that's all you have."
"There is no way to be truly great in this world. We are all impaled on the crook of conditioning."
"To me, acting is the most logical way for people's neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves."
"Trust and belief are two prime considerations. You must not allow yourself to be opinionated."
"I also became close to nature, and am now able to appreciate the beauty with which this world is endowed."
Personality
He was the symbol of sexy cool onscreen, but off camera the 5’8”, 135-pound star had some quirky and dirty (as in unwashed) habits. Dean supposedly didn’t care much about his public appearance and went for the disheveled look. At one formal luncheon, he showed up barefoot and in filthy jeans and was known to appear at rehearsals in pants held together with safety pins. He was also know for having pretty extreme mood swings, according to friends, who said he also had the habit of calling or visiting them late at night. “He’d be up one minute, down the next. He was uncomfortable in his own skin,” one of them said.
No matter that it was seized on at the time, Dean’s potency was not that of a rebel without a cause. Although he was vulnerable and sensitive, he never suggested youthfulness or eallowness. On the contrary, he seemed older, sadder, and more experienced than the adults in his films. More than that, he seemed to sense his own extra intuition and to see that it was of no use. His resignation and fatalism showed up the restricted personality of the world he inhabited. Occasionally driven to anger or violence, Dean was not a rebel, but a disenchanted romantic, as brooding and knowing as the darkest Bogart—the Bogart of In a Lonely Place. Dean’s isolation is that of profound understanding; and his dislike of the world, far from being causeless, w'as based on the extent to which the world had fallen away from its proper nobility, into vulgarity, materialism, and self-deception. America today is broken apart. But in 1955 it seemed whole, tight, and solid, except when Dean’s tragic eyes surveyed it.
Dean is often considered an icon because of his "experimental" take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. 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. "
He was a smoker.
Physical Characteristics:
He was short (Height: 1.73 m.) and skinny. Dean was extremely near-sighted and could barely see without his glasses.
Described by his cousin as “never one to sit still,” a young Dean had his two front teeth knocked out while swinging on a trapeze in his aunt and uncle’s barn. (Dean later embellished the story, saying he lost them in a motorcycle accident.) As an adult, he purportedly enjoyed surprising acquaintances by casually removing his false teeth mid-conversation.
Interests
When he wasn’t acting or racing cars, Dean liked to practice magic tricks. A smoker, who was often photographed with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, Dean put a magical spin on his tobacco habit: he would put an unlit cigarette and a flaming match into his mouth and then pull out a burning cigarette. Another reason why Dean was smoking hot.
Sport & Clubs
Dean was a standout athlete at his Indiana high school, playing baseball and basketball and running track. “He was a heady player and a good competitor,” his basketball coach once told a reporter. “He was what you would call a clean-cut, All-American type boy.” Dean particularly excelled at the pole vault, breaking the county record by the time he graduated in 1949.
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing an auto racing career. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. 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. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
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. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Music & Bands
He played the violin.
One of Dean’s favorite instruments to play was the bongo drums.
Connections
He never married.
He dated many women including the actress Beverly Wills, Barbara Glenn, and Liz Sheridan. He had a much publicized affair with the beautiful Italian actress Pier Angeli.
Father:
Winton Dean
(1910–1940)
Mother:
Mildred Wilson James Dean
(1910–1940)
Uncle:
Charles Nolan Dean
(1916–2002)
aunt:
Ortense Adeline Dean Winslow
(1901–1991)
Friend:
William Bast
(April 3, 1931 – May 4, 2015)
He was an American screenwriter and author. In addition to writing scripts for motion pictures and television, he was the author of two biographies of the screen actor James Dean. He often worked with his lover Paul Huson.
