As the quintessential 1950s brooding teen full of angst and rebellion, James Dean was a promising young star whose tragic death before his career truly started propelled him into iconic status.
He was a disciplined actor who trained in the famed Method style like Marlon Brando before him and many others who sought to emulate him after.
Dean was the star of three features films in his short career, but only lived long enough to see one of them released. The violent end to his brief life turned this rising star into an Hollywood legend.
Early Life:
Dean was born on Feb. 8, 1931 in Marion, IN. His father, Winton, was a dental technician, and his mother, Mildred, raised the family. In 1935, his father moved the family to Los Angeles.
Dean had an especially close relationship with his mother and was devastated after she died from cancer when he was nine years old. His father sent his son to live with his sister, where the young Dean was raised in a Quaker environment.
At Fairmont High School, he was a below average student but a star athlete, excelling in baseball and basketball. He also developed an interest in acting, which he carried with him when he returned to Southern California in 1949.
Though he enrolled at Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law, Dean transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles and took to studying drama instead. He also began studying with James Whitmore and landed the role of Malcolm in a production of Macbeth.
Early Career:
Dean had his first taste of being a professional actor when he appeared in a television commercial for Pepsi Cola in 1950, which also featured actor Nick Adams. Enrolled at UCLA for only a semester, he quit school altogether to pursue acting fulltime.
He made his television debut as John the Apostle with “Hill Number One” in 1951, an episode of the anthology series Family Theatre that combined World War II with the crucifixion of Christ.
After taking uncredited bit parts in films like Sailor Beware and the Korean War drama Fixed Bayonets!, Dean was persuaded by Whitmore to move to Manhattan and study with famed Method teacher, Lee Stasberg, at the Actors Studio.
In 1952, he appeared on Broadway in See the Jaguar, and the following year made a number of small screen appearances on anthology series like Tales of Tomorrow and the Kraft Television Theatre.
Dean in Hollywood:
By 1954, Dean made his final appearance on Broadway in The Immortalist and signed a contract with Warner Bros. to make films. He continued making television appearances, starring opposite Ronald Reagan on General Electric Theatre: The Dark, Dark Hours and Natalie Wood in a production of I’m a Fool.
He finally starred in his first feature, Elia Kazan's East of Eden, which was loosely adapted from John Steinbeck’s novel. Dean played Cal Trask, the troubled son of a wealthy Salinas Valley lettuce farmer (Raymond Massey), who struggles to win over his intractable father after saving the family business.
Dean’s tendency to over-emote in East of Eden, which some declared was his attempt to impersonate Marlon Brando, was largely overlooked in light of strong critical reviews and the film’s success that helped turn him into an overnight star.
Tragedy on Route 466:
Dean had long been an avid race car driver and owned a number of vehicles throughout his life, including an MG TD and Porsche 356 Speedster. Though barred from racing while making movies, he jumped at the chance whenever he had time off.
On Sept. 30, 1955, just days after completing what would be his third and final film, Dean drove his Porsche 550 Spyder north to Salinas, CA, where he planned to race the vehicle in an auto rally. He would never reach his destination.
Dean and his passenger, mechanic Rolf Wütherich, were speeding in Kern County, where the actor was stopped and ticketed by a highway patrolman. Just two hours later following a brief stop for fuel, Dean’s Porsche collided with a Ford Coupe driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student, Donald Turnupseed, who was taking a left turn onto Route 41.
Contrary to myth, Dean was not speeding and was likely moving at 55 m.p.h. when he struck Turnupseed’s vehicle. Wütherich was thrown from the Porsche and suffered a broken jaw. Turnupseed walked away from the crash with cuts and bruises. But Dean, whose head most likely smashed into the Ford’s grill, suffered a broken neck and multiple internal injuries.
Still alive when officers reached the accident scene, Dean was rushed to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:59 p.m.
Released Posthumously:
The public outpouring over Dean’s death was overwhelming and had not been scene in Hollywood since another young icon, Rudolph Valentino, died at the height of his fame in the silent era.
Dean’s status turned from rising star to American icon with the release of his second film, Rebel Without a Cause, which hit theaters less than a month after his death. His performance as an angst-ridden teen rebelling against his parents – and by extension society itself – struck a chord with America’s youth, who helped propel the film into a major box office hit.
His third and last film, 1956’s Giant, again cast him as a disenfranchised loner, this time battling a wealthy Texas ranch owner (Rock Hudson) for the love of a beautiful socialite (Elizabeth Taylor). A sweeping romantic epic, Giant solidified Dean’s status as a promising actor whose full potential was never to be known.
Dean’s performance in Giant earned him a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, making him the only actor in Hollywood history to be nominated twice after death. His first came the year before for his 1955 performance in East of Eden.
Dean’s Legacy:
In death, Dean became more popular than he was in life. He reached cult status at the time Rebel Without a Cause was released, and his reputation only grew with time. He was the subject of several movies and television specials throughout the decades, from the 1957 documentary The James Dean Story to the 2001 TNT cable movie, James Dean, starring James Franco.
Of course, there were many memoirs and biographies written, most notably by old college roommate and good friend, William Bast, which sought to shed light on the mythical Dean. Some of that light was cast on the question of Dean’s alleged homosexuality, which remained a source of endless speculation for decades.
While the full extent of his talents were never realized, there was no doubt that Dean’s tragic death made him a Hollywood legend who maintained a strong and loyal following well into the next century.
