But even during his short life, Dean was widely known as a nonconformist-a rebel who had taken Hollywood by storm and who did as he pleased. For young people coming of age, Dean was someone they could easily identify with: an outsider, a loner-he was the antithesis of everything a well-behaved youth was supposed to be. His screen portrayals symbolized the rebelliousness of adolescence. In public he was often rude, even surly. A fan magazine quoted him as saying, "I wouldn't like me, if I had to be around me."
He had been known to fight with directors and storm off the set. "Jimmy knew what young people were up against," an admirer once said. "He understood." Later, someone else referred to him as "the first student activist." From the day of his death, it seemed that young people would not let Dean die. A special fan mail agency had to deal with the deluge of mail that poured into the studio. Many of the letters were addressed to the dead star.
A record, "His Name Was Dean," put out on a small label, sold twenty-five thousand copies in a single week. Mattson's, a Hollywood clothing shop, received hundreds of orders for red jackets identical to the one Dean had worn in Rebel Without a Cause, and Griffith Park, where scenes from the movie were shot, became almost overnight a tourist attraction. Admirers lined up inside the Observatory, hoping to sit in the same seat Dean had used in the film. "It's like Valentino," a reporter told Henry Ginsberg, the coproducer of Giant, Dean's last movie, referring to the craze that had swept the nation after the Italian actor's death in the 1920s. Ginsberg disagreed, "It's bigger than Valentino."
Some fans refused to believe that Dean was really dead. Walter Winchell printed in his column the rumor that Dean was disfigured but still alive. Other stories insisted that it had been a hitchhiker and not Dean who had been killed and that the actor was in hiding while learning to operate his artificial limbs or that he had been placed in a sanitarium. Hollywood, of course, had always been a commercial enterprise: Dean's popularity was not lost on the moguls who had built the industry. Jack Warner admitted: "That kid Dean...gave us a lot of trouble, but it was worth it. He was surrounded with stars in Giant, but we believe he was twenty-five percent responsible for the success of the picture."
Aided by studio press releases, fan magazines printed stories with titles like, "You Can Make Jimmy Dean Live Forever" and "The Boy Who Refuses to Die." Dean's 1951 MercuryNot everyone, however, was enthusiastic about Dean. Herbert Mitgang, of the New York Times, dismissed him as "an honor graduate of the black leather jacket and motorcycle school of acting and living it up." And director Elia Kazan, Dean's mentor, claimed: "Every boy goes through a period when he's seventeen or so when he hates his father, hates authority, can't live within the rules. . . It's a classic case. Dean just never got out of it."
Dean's recklessness and commitment to having lived his life to the fullest had its appeal as well. "All adolescents," wrote Martin Mayer in Esquire, want to rope steers...and sculpt busts of famous novelists and drive a custom sports car and write poetry and be a great Hollywood star. Dean did it.... In a way, the kids feel he did it all for them." He was, moreover, the one hero who would never sell out. He would never have a chance to.
A few of Dean's close friends refused to take part in the hysteria-or cash in on the enterprise. Dennis Stock, a young photographer, remembers being invited to dinner by another photographer, Sanford Roth, after Dean's death. Roth had been the still photographer on Giant and had shot numerous poses of Jimmy both on and off the set. When Stock arrived, he assumed that he and the Roths would spend a quiet evening reminiscing about their gifted friend. But when he realized the Roths had invited a newspaper reporter who was doing a story on Dean, Stock got up and left. "It was a publicity setup," he recalled with disdain.
In a sense, however, Dean had almost invited the reaction that followed his death. "He was a boy with a wonderful sense of the theater," director George Stevens said. As a farmboy, in high school, Jimmy had been a show-off; in Hollywood, he cultivated his offbeat image with the press. After making East of Eden, Dean excused his obnoxious public behavior by telling an interviewer, "I can't divert into being a human being when I've been playing a hero, like Cal, who's essentially demonic."
On another occasion, he explained: "A neurotic person has the necessity to express himself and my neuroticism manifests itself in the dramatic..." He was-cool; the perfect quote was always on his lips. Humphrey Bogart, who also knew a thing or two about image making, once said: "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."
But Dean did not live and in death became transformed into a myth: Even today, visitors come from all over to visit his grave in Fairmount, Indiana, the small farming community where Dean grew up. In one recent year, there were over six thousand visitors, some from as far away as Argentina and Australia. Dean's handsome, brooding face adorns posters and T-shirts. A licensing company, run by lawyers, markets James Dean calendars, postcards, and ashtrays around the world.
Over the years, an impressive list of actors and performers have claimed to have been influenced by him: Bob Dylan, Al Pacino, Martin Sheen, Michael Parks, the late Jim Morrison, poet and lead singer for the Doors, who lived fast and died hard, just like one of his heroes, James Dean. Dean's life has been the subject of novels, plays, even a song by the Beach Boys entitled, "A Young Man Is Gone."
But not every writer has been adoring. In 1993, George Will, the respected conservative columnist, blamed Dean and his film personality for the youthful unrest that convulsed the country in the 1960s. Will wrote: "In Rebel Dean played himself-a mumbling, arrested-development adolescent-to perfection. Feeling mightily sorry for himself as a victim (of insensitive parents), his character prefigured the whiny, alienated, nobody-understands-me pouting that the self-absorbed youth of the sixties considered a political stance."
But Dean was a many-sided figure; the sullen young man was only one facet of his personality. He was creative, intellectually curious, and ambitious, as well as manipulative and extremely selfish. Many actors who actually worked with him disliked him-and rued the experience. One actor who worked with Dean on TV recalled decades later that Jimmy had been vulgar, self-congratulatory, and rude. "His movements on stage were far removed from the carefully rehearsed planned positions," the actor recalled. This created "havoc with the other actors' performances and for the director. The result was pandemonium for everyone except Mr. Dean and his sick ego." This comment is all too typical and an ironic epitaph for an actor's icon.
Moreover, not all of Dean's friends found him loyal. After Jimmy had achieved success, a struggling young photographer to whom Dean had reason to be grateful asked him to go halves on a used camera. Dean refused. "I can get all the new equipment I want," he said callously. Alas, this was not the only friend Jimmy left behind after his rapid rise to fame.
In the years since Dean's death, there has been much speculation about his rumored bisexuality. In fact, women were strongly attracted to him, and he engaged in numerous affairs. At one point, in New York, he was simultaneously having affairs with a wealthy debutante and a beautiful high school girl. A few Dean friends continue to deny his homosexuality, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary. After reading a draft of this manuscript, actor Martin Landau refused to be interviewed, saying: "This guy was not gay."
Only one of Dean's homosexual relationships is dealt with in this book-and that in his early days in Hollywood and New York with a director named Rogers Brackett. Brackett was a well-connected figure in Hollywood; the son of a Hollywood pioneer, he knew everyone from Marlene Dietrich to Henry Miller. He got Dean small parts in three Hollywood movies and later helped him land his first starring role on Broadway.
After Dean's death, Rogers regularly refused press interviews about him and turned down biographers' requests. His own attainments were considerable: a witty, cultivated man, he had directed stage plays and had written lyrics for a popular Alec Wilder song. Brackett had no desire to be regarded as an appendage to his famous protege.
Toward the end of his own life, however, when he was stricken with cancer, Rogers granted me the only interviews he ever gave on Dean. He was tired of the "half-truthes" that had been published and wanted "to set the record straight." This book draws on those interviews and the letters he wrote me; many of the items are published here for the first time, since Rogers requested that they be withheld until after his death.
After more than forty years since Dean's death, however, neither his sexuality-nor the quirks in his personality-make much difference to his ever-growing legion of fans: Bikers and mall rats, poets and rockers revere him as much today as teenagers did a generation ago. To them, he is what he is: a rebel for all seasons. Ultimately, it seems, as long as there are young people, so long as there are boundaries, Dean will live-and the legend will endure.
It also created a cultural impact that formed the basis for its critical praise. Along with "The Wild One", "Blackboard Jungle" and rock 'n' roll music, "Rebel" fanned fears (justified or not) among conservative parents that teens would choose anti-establishment heroes and values. The story features three teenagers, each from dysfunctional families. Jim (James Dean) has a shrewish mother (Ann Doran) and spineless father, leaving him afraid of becoming a 'chicken' like his father (Jim Backus). Judy (Natalie Wood) has a father (William Hopper) who is physically repelled by her, making her anxious to find love from a father substitute.
Plato is a creepy, sad-faced teen whose parents are absent, leaving him to be raised by a nanny (Marietta Canty). Plato is looking for substitutes for both mother and father, momentarily achieving this when Jim and Judy appear willing. Anyway, that is my amateur psychological evaluation of the leads. Our three troubled teens have brushes with the law and with gangs of tough-talking hoodlums led by Buzz (Corey Allen) and Goon (Dennis Hopper). "Rebel Without a Cause" expresses the theory that juvenile delinquents from affluent, 'good' families is not the fault of the mixed-up kids, but their mixed-up parents.
The apparent conclusion is that the social problem can be solved by assigning a psychiatrist to every juvenile offender, ideally with their parents participating. James Dean's onscreen persona is surprisingly sensitive and loyal to his friends. He only resorts to violence when he is forced to, except for a frustrated attack on his dithering, hapless father. Backus actually wears a large, matronly apron throughout one lengthy scene: Dean, you'll have to find a role model elsewhere.
"Rebel Without a Cause" was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Mineo) and Actress (Wood). Dean was posthumously nominated for Best Actor that year, but for the film "East of Eden", losing to (believe it or not) Ernest Borgnine
[The names of the two main characters, Wyatt and Billy, suggest the two memorable Western outlaws Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Rather than traveling westward on horses, they travel eastward from Los Angeles - the end of the frontier - on Harley-Davidson choppers on an epic journey into the unknown. According to promotional posters, they were on a search: "A man went looking for America and couldn't find it anywhere."] The film's title refers to their rootlessness and ride to make "easy" money; it is also slang for a pimp who makes his livelihood off the earnings of a prostitute.
The film's screenplay was written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern (the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay). Both Fonda and Hopper co-starred, Fonda produced, and Hopper directed (his first effort). Easy Rider surprisingly, was an extremely successful, low-budget, counter-cultural, independent film for the alternative youth/cult market, with sex, drugs, casual violence and a pulsating rock and roll soundtrack reinforcing or commenting on the film's themes.
One morning, two free-wheeling, long-haired, social misfits/dropouts/hippies, a cool and introspective "Captain America" Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and mustached Billy (Dennis Hopper) ride up on motorcycles to La Contenta Bar in Mexico. With Jesus (Antonio Mendoza), they walk around the side of the bar through an auto-wrecking dump yard. After Jesus scoops out a small amount of white powder (cocaine) onto a mirror, both Wyatt and Billy sniff the dope. In Spanish, Wyatt chuckles: "Si pura vida (Yes, it's pure life.)" Then, Wyatt hands a packet of money to Jesus who thumbs through it and smiles. Billy and Wyatt, who has presumably orchestrated the decision to buy the cocaine in Mexico, are given cases of the powder in the drug deal.
As they take to the open road on their motorcycles, cross the Colorado River and pass through unspoiled buttes and sand-colored deserts, the credits begin to scroll, accompanied by the sound of the popular song by Steppenwolf: "Born To Be Wild." It is the start of a beautiful adventure as they travel through memorable landscapes of America's natural beauty, accompanied by the pounding of rock music.
Get your motor runnin' Head out on the highway Lookin' for adventure And whatever comes our way........ Yeah, darlin' gonna make it happen Take the world in a love embrace Fire all of the guns at once and Explode into space...... I like smoke and lightnin' Heavy metal thunder Racin' with the wind And the feelin' that I'm under..... Like a true nature's child We were born, born to be wild We can climb so high I never wanna die. Born to Be Wild Born to Be Wild......
Wyatt picks up a Stranger/hitchhiker (Luke Askew) and they ride up to an Enco gas station to fill their tanks. After filling both tanks, Wyatt holds out a bill, looking for someone to pay, but the hitchhiker dismisses him: "That's all taken care of." Wyatt is pleased: "I like that." As they pull out onto the highway, the last shot cuts to the gas station building, where a poor Mexican girl looks out the window. As they ride through more open desert terrain and the golden sun begins to set over Monument Valley, the Band's "The Weight" is heard on the soundtrack:
The next day, the Stranger leads them to his New Mexico commune where hippies are gathered outside the buildings. The commune is the typical 60s embodiment of idealized dreams - another alternative style of living quite different from the world of the rancher. The bikers are immediately drawn into the commune without fear or prejudice - their dress and mode of speaking are at one with the counter-cultural commune. While the Stranger washes in a washbasin, Billy plays with the hippie children, yelling: "Bang bang" as he exchanges imaginary gunfire with them. Foreshadowing future events, Billy cries out: "Pow, pow, pow. Ppttwanng. You can't hit me, I'm invisible. I'm invisible." But a big glob of mud hits him on his chest.
Along the way, they soon find themselves in the middle of a parade composed of red-uniformed band members and majorettes marching down the main street of Las Vegas, New Mexico. A revolving red light on the top of a police car signals them to pull over. They are thrown in jail for crashing the parade and "paradin' without a permit."
In an adjoining cell and lying on a cot, they meet a genial, drunken ACLU Southern lawyer, George Hanson (Jack Nicholson, in the role that made him famous). He is moaning to himself about his aching head and sleeping off a hangover. "Well, you boys don't look like you're from this part of the country. You're lucky I'm here to see that you don't get into anything...Well, they got this here - see - uh - scissor-happy 'Beautify America' thing goin' on around here. They're tryin' to make everybody look like Yul Brynner. They used - uh - rusty razor blades on the last two long-hairs that they brought in here and I wasn't here to protect them. You see - uh - I'm - uh - I'm a lawyer. Done a lot of work Around the campfire that night, [the third campfire scene in the film and the first of two campfire scenes with George], George takes another drink and again flaps his arms: "Nik, nik, nik, nik - Fire!" They turn George on to marijuana ("grass") and he is soon encouraged to inhale a joint for the first time in his life after sniffing at it and expressing his doubts about lighting it up: You- you mean marijuana. Lord have mercy, is that what that is? Well, let me see that. Mmmmm-mmm. Mmmm....I-I-I couldn't do that. I mean, I've got enough problems with the - with the booze and all. I mean, uh, I - I can't afford to get hooked...it-it-it leads to harder stuff.
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