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Home , James Dean, James Whitmore, Kraft Television Theatre, Paul Osborn, Sal Mineo

INTRODUCTION

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. I chose to speak about him because he is a cultural icon of the of America .From the research I have done,I found out James Dean was and still is a symbol of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956). Dean's enduring fame and popularity rest on his performances in only these three films, in two of which he is in the leading role.

Dean's premature death in a car crash cemented his legendary status He 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 ranked him the 18th best male movie star on theirAFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.

1 GENERAL INFORMATION

James Dean

Dean in Rebel Without a Cause

Born James Byron Dean February 8, 1931 Marion, Indiana, U.S.

Died September 30, 1955 (aged 24)

Cholame, California, U.S.

Cause of death Vehicular accident

Resting place Park Cemetery, Fairmount, Indiana, U.S.

Other names Jimmy Dean

Santa Monica College Alma mater University of California

Occupation Actor

Years active 1950–1955 East of Eden Notable work(s) Rebel Without a Cause Giant

Home town Santa Monica, California, U.S. Fairmount, Indiana, U.S.

Religion Quaker Golden Globe Awards (1956) Awards Special Achievement Award Jussi Awards (1955) Best Foreign Actor

Signature

2 I. Life

1. Early life

James Dean was born at the Seven Gables apartment house at the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the son of Winton Dean (January 17, 1907 – February 21, 1995) and Mildred Wilson 3 (September 15, 1910 – July 14, 1940). Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean and his family moved to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of , but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary school. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, young 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 pains and began to lose weight quickly. 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 sister Ortense and her husband, Marcus Winslow, on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in a Quaker household. Winton 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. DeWeerd seemed to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. 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". Their alleged sexual relationship was earlier suggested in the 1994 book Boulevard of Broken 4 Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean by Paul Alexander. In 2011, it was reported that he once confided in that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.

James Dean and his family

In high school, Dean's overall performance was mediocre. However, he was considered to be a popular student, having 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, Dean moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in (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 theSigma 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 's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.

2. Acting career

Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola television commercial. He quit college to act full- time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie 5 Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch.

Dean in 1953

Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets!, as a boxing trainer in Sailor Beware, a Paramount comedy starring Dean Martinand Jerry Lewis, and as a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? While struggling to get jobs in , Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay.

In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore's and his mentor Rogers Brackett's advice, Dean moved to . There he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series, The Web, Studio One, and , before gaining admission to the legendary Actors Studio to study under . Proud of this accomplishment, Dean referred to the Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "The greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like , , , . ... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong."

Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early television shows as , Robert Montgomery Presents, Danger, andGeneral Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later immortalize in Rebel Without a Cause. (This summer 1953 program was also notable for featuring the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature .) Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as "Bachir", a pandering North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist, led to calls from Hollywood.

6 • East of Eden

Dean in East of Eden (1955)

In 1953, director was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter 's adaptation of 's 1952 novel East of Eden. The lengthy novel deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in , California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s. In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by ) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress .

Dean in East of Eden (1955)

Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested the relatively unknown young actor, James Dean. Dean met with Steinbeck who did not like the moody, complex

7 young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.

Much of Dean's performance in the film is unscripted,[35] including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The most famous improvisation of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans prior to World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film. Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from a father figure.

For the 1956 , Dean received a posthumous nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in East of Eden, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. ( was unofficially nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.

• Rebel Without a Cause

Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause, a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. It co-starred teen actors , , and and was directed by .

Rebel Without a Cause(1955) 8 • Giant

Giant, which was posthumously released in 1956, saw Dean play a supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and . This was due to his desire to avoid being typecast as Jim Stark and Cal Trask. In the film, he plays Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy. His role was notable in that, in order to portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.

James Dean in Giant(1956)

Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Dean mumbled so much due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take that director decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.

Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.

9 3. Personal life

Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Dean's first biographer (1956), Bast was his roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. Fifty years after Dean's death, he stated that their friendship had included some sexual intimacy.

While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love. They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function: "Jimmy saw red. He grabbed the fellow by the collar and threatened to blacken both of his eyes," she said. Dean had also remained in contact with his girlfriend in New York, Barbara Glenn, whom he dated for two years. Their love letters sold at auction in 2011 for $36,000.

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