James Dean
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor with a career that lasted five years. He is regarded 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).
This article is about the American actor. For other uses, see James Dean (disambiguation).
James Dean
September 30, 1955 (aged 24)
Park Cemetery, Fairmount, Indiana
Actor
1950–1955
Dean died in a car crash in 1955. He became the only actor to receive two posthumous Academy Award acting nominations, being nominated in the Best Actor category for East of Eden and Giant. 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. Dean's film roles, fashion, and manners became celebrated in popular culture and influenced the development of rock and roll in the 1950s and 1960s.
Early life and education
Dean was born on February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana,[1] 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".[2] 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.[3] 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".[4] 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.[3] 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,[5] where he was raised in their Quaker household.[6] Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
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 upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater.[7] According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years".[8][9] An alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean.[10] In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death.[11] Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was sexually abused by DeWeerd either as a child or as a late teenager.[9][10]
Dean's overall performance in 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.[12] After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949,[13] he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. Dean enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law. He transferred to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for one semester[14] and changed his major to drama,[15] which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated.[16] While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth.[17] 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.[18][19]
Legacy
Cinema and television
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.[102] 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."[103]
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy".[104] According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star".[105] Dean's appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era,[106] and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.[107]
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death.[108] 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.[109]
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.[110] The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954,[111] 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.[112]
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine.[113] 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,[114] the movie was to have been directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor would voice Dean's part.[115] 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.[115][116]
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean.[117] 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."[118] For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.[119]
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor.[120] Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean.[121] "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.[122] Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview.[123] Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors.[124] 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."[125] Salman Shah, commonly regarded as one of the most popular and influential figures in Bangladesh's film history,[126] 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.[127]
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[128] and many other musicians who followed,[129] including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
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'."[130]
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world,[131] Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon.[132] Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music[133] to the modern classical music of Stravinsky[134] and Bartók,[135] as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra.[134] While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality,[136] his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.[137][138]
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film,[139] 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.[140] 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."[141]
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,[142][143] 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.[144][145] 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".[146] 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."[130]
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly,[147] Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence.[148] 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.[149] 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),[150] and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965),[151] cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar".[152] 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),[153] "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974),[154] and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989).[155] He has also been referenced in some pop songs of the 2010s, such as "Blue Jeans" by Lana Del Rey (2012), "Style" by Taylor Swift (2014),[156] "Ghost Town" by Adam Lambert (2015), and "Ordinary Life" by The Weeknd (2016).
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.[157] 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."[158]
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean.[159] 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."[160] 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."[161] 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."[162]
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers.[163] 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."[164] Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.[165]
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?"[166][167] 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."[168] Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000.[169] 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."[170]
