HALF A CENTURY AGO, THIS POP-CULTURE ICON LOST HIS LIFE IN A 550 SPYDER. THAT WARM SEPTEMBER EVENING, NO ONE KNEW JUST HOW DEEPLY HIS DEATH WOULD IMPACT SO MANY... STORY BY WlLLlAM EDGAR Irr .. I "'7 "-TI I" I ' "I ' d&&&eII fc~rbe - ' jri San#a~i*. h7 , ,4w qobedufrheahi '

I * ; t, hb3sm*ud Saturdafs races and will ha38 immy Dean's name came there for. So, somehow, 50th~have a spe- Today, that fatal moment 50 years ago up in our conversation cial meaning all their own. in central replays again and that Friday evening at Ingrained now in American folklore, few again as words and images revive that an Italian cafe and bar don? know James Dean's story, or at least highway scene and Dean's brief life. I'm on the Sunset Strip. My a sketch of it. 9130155 is forever remem- as responsible as the rest, I suppose, for first wife and I were still bered as the day he died. Bound for this eternal theater born of Dean's demise. wonder~ngif we should Salinas, Dean was driving his new alloy- As 2004 ticked away its final hours, I was headJ north, to Salinas, for the weekend's bodied 550 Spyder into the setting sun, at Warner Brothers in Burbank licensing sports-car races. Wutherich going along to wrench, riding 16-mm color footage of Dean at Santa and passenger. The classic silver Porsche had Barbara's 1955 Memorial Day sports-car would be racing Lance's aluminum-bod- crimson flashes on its rear fender crowns races. For the past ten years, documen- ied 300SL Mercedes. was sup- and movie-car man George Barris had tary filmmaker Michael J. Sheridan and posed to be driving John von Neumann's painted 130on the 550's hood, doors, and his company, Screen Icons, have worked new Monza. And Dean would have rear deck, above the engine's vent grills. on a project about the life and rebellious the 550 Spyder he'd bought just nine days Beneath the grills, Barris scrawled Little times of James Dean. Sheridan knew I earlier from von Neumann's Competition Bastard- a nickname given to Dean that owned perhaps the only color footage of Motors around the corner, on Vine Street. summer while on the set of Giant. Dean at a racevenue, shot by John Edgar. Bearing in mind that Jimmy's last race was A long, straight stretch of California In his trademark black driving suit with in a 356 Speedster at Santa Barbara four Highway 466 lay in front of them. that ubiquitous cigarette, Dean -already months before, his new Spyder would be Heading east in a two-tone 1950 Ford known as the sullen Cal Trask in the movie a big step up for the budding star. Custom Deluxe sporting white-walls and version of John Steinbeck's East of Eden Yeah, Salinas sounded like fun. fender skirts, a 23-year old Cal Poly col- -walked through Santa Barbara's pad- John Edgar had been considering a lege student named Donald Turnupseed dock and later drove his #33F Speedster 550 Spyder, the latest from Stuttgart, for approached Dean's westbound, fast-mov- in a Sunday consolation race. Edgar had Jack McAfee to race on his team. And I ing 550 on that ribbon of two-lane asphalt him framed in his hand-wound Bell & wanted to see one in action. Even with 28 miles east of Paso Robles. Turnupseed Howell's viewfinder. The filming was just a speculation as to whether Dean -who slowed, preparing to swing left onto an diversion, really, something for Edgar to do had no track experience in th~smost intersecting road. Dean, absorbed in the before the main event won that day by his recent Porsche -would be allowed by performance of his fast new Porsche, kept Ferrar~Monza with former mechanic Ernie officials to run his Spyder at Salinas, Patti his foot in it, allegedly saying to Wutherich, McAfee driving. Stored with home movies and I decided we'd make the trip. "He'll see us." Turnupseed didn't. of past birthdays and lakeshore vacations Hours later, someone at the bar got a The near head-on collision killed Dean as well as races at Palm Springs, Torrey phone call. And the startling news started instantly. Donald Turnupseed was barely Pines, and La Carrera Panamericana, the to spread. Dean died that afternoon in a scratched. WMherich, seriously injured, old James Dean footage remained in a highway collision while driving his 550 lived to work on Porsches again, traveling sealed green can for decades. towards Salinas. Dean's passenger, Rolf with John Edgar's team to tune the ex-fac- Now it's in an 88-minute Warner Brothers Wutherich - a talented German four- tory 550 Jack McAfee would drive to win documentary release James Dean: Forever cam mechanic working for von Neumann SCCA's 1956 Class F Championship. Young. Sting sings the t~tlesong, Mart~n -and the other driver had survived. The date was September 30, 1955. James Dean, all that he was in his fast, short life, can be measured in a time cap- sule. James Dean, born 1931 in Indiana, primarily raised by an aunt and uncle, UCLA for a while, acting schools, New York theatre, bi-coastal playhouse televi- sion, his three Hollywood movies East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant, instantaneous celebrity as youth's hero of the discontent, a passion for racing his Speedster and, at only 24, his untimely death in Spyder 550-0055. Such a long time ago. Afterward came Sputnik, civil rights, Vietnam, riots, hippies, Watergate, hostages, abrupt little wars, personal com- puters, e-mail, and digital images lighting up screens and expanding our lives with broadband incandescence. Too busy living life, having kids, and working, it's been easy to not think much about J~mmyDean. Until earlier this year, when September 30, 1955 started look- ing like yesterday. Few of us live to see the 100th anniversary of any events we were

84 excellence NOVEMBER 2005 Sheen narrates, and it premiered at 2005's German producer Alexander Wechmar Dennis Stock and historian Lee Raskin Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, more put together a public television program both have new books out. French televi- James Dean-related exposure has been on countryman Rolf Wotherich and his sion producer Michel Calvetti has done "a wrought. James Dean: From Passion for connection with the American icon. film on what was the real man," Fuji Speed to Immortaliiy, is a new biography The list goes on. Dean photographer Television in Japan -the largest Dean fan written by Philippe Defechereux for Dalton base outside of the U.S. - is now the Watson Fine Books. PBS has produced a If these photos look new to you, know that force behind two stage productions based stunning American Masters documentary they're not photo-they are video capture. upon Eden and Rebel. Finally, allowing for on Dean's life, while stylish London pro- Here we see James Dean chatting trackside other media efforts possibly overlooked, duction company Zig Zag has created a (11, chasing down a Simca Special (21, and on September 30 this year, a Dean enthu- National Geographic special. Likewise, showing off his 356's dented body (3). siast named Vic Bent will drive his replica "Little Bastard" Spyder from Sherman Oaks, where Dean lived, to Cholame, California, where James Dean died. He'll arrive at the fated highway intersection precisely at 545 pm -the moment of impact on 9130155, It is to that time, 50 years ago, that we now return. Eisenhower was America's president and, while the critical consciousness of Rock & Roll injected angst into our cul- ture, the U.S. economy was bustling. Cigarettes, blatantly advertised on net- work television, had smoke pouring from tens of millions, perhaps a metaphor of our collective need to let off some steam. New-car sales were the highest ever, for- eign imports were on the rise, and American sports-car racing was swing- ing from its East Coast birthplace to prominence on the West Coast. Those who owned MGs, Simcas, Alfas, and whatever else - or some hashed- together special - drove them race- ready to road-course meets. Out of reach for most was the cream of imports: Ferrari and Maserati, Aston ~arti; and Allard.

NOVEMBER 2005 excellence 85 Predictably, when the zippy new 356 and finished 1-2. With less horsepower, booth call to Competition Motors down in Speedsters began showing up, Porsche though pacing himself like a pro, Dean Hollywood. He was told to go by Pat and became an instant hit. crossed the line first in class F production Bob Smith's P & S Motors, a Bakersfield Dean was among the first to have one. and third overall, and got upped to sec- shop servicing German imports. One P & He bought his White 1500 Super #80126 ond when an infraction disqualified Miles. S employee just missed the movie star. "I off von Neumann's Competition Motors Cy Yedor recently spoke of Dean that was on lunch and missed Dean by 20 showroom floor. He began playing with it day at Palm Springs, about his thoughts minutes!" laments Richard Cole, who spe- on twisty roads in the Santa Monica moun- of the new kid on the block from Hollywood: cializes in Ferrari restorations today. The tains - an easily accessible training "He was just another guy who was driv- repair made, Dean hustled north 12 miles, ground. By the time southern California's ing there and happened to be in the to Minter Field on the old Ledro Highway 1955 racing season was to get underway movies. John Edgar, the McAfees, and -site of a warbirds museum today. Many at Palm Springs, Jimmy knew the basics Shelby -they were bigger stars than he of the faces in the Minter pits were now of sports-car acceleration, braking, and was. Even I was a bigger star!" And what familiar to Jimmy. And his to them. how to get through a corner fast. kind of a driver was Jimmy3 "I don' know Saturday, April 30, was wet and blus- Adamantly, Warner Brothers didn't -he was always behind me!" But Dean tery. Dean gridded his Speedster in a race want its newest prime property behind the was hot, and noticed. Trackside skeptics for Under 1500-cc production cars, a race wheel of a race car. But the studio knew who'd doubted the talent of this 24-year- in which the SCCA officials also allowed nothing about Dean's plan to drive his 356 old wonder were impressed. The screen Modifieds to wage combat on a haybale- Speedster to Palm Springs on the heat- sensation, who so naturally fused anger strewn airfield layout. Again, James Dean wave weekend of March 26. Dean made and vulnerability on camera, this instant prevailed, finishing first in F Production speed tests on arrow-straight Sunrise icon for the nation's young and restless, and third overall behind the fast specials Way, a Palm Springs thoroughfare often was proving himself to be one hell of a of Joe Playan and Jean-Pierre Kunstle. used for illicit drags, then wheeled the promising new sports-car shoe - even if John Edgar, who'd driven to Bakersfield new Porsche into the paddock, ready for not everyone was willing to admit it. to catch John von Neumann's freshly his racing baptism on the 2.3mile, 12-turn A month later, and still shooting scenes imported 550 Spyder on movie film, also airport course in Saturday's Under 1500- for Rebel, James Dean and his Porsche saw Jimmy's Speedster wending through cc production event. Winning it hands were on the way to Bakersfield, California. the hay in Sunday's Under 1500-cc main, down guaranteed him a start in Sunday's Not unlike Palm Springs' airport course, where James Dean finished second in Under 1500 main, and he gridded his #23F runways and service roads at the old class to another Porsche Super, scoring Speedster on the first row of a 20-car field. Minter Army Air Field were again calling a respectable ninth overall. Cut short by Leaping to the race lead were hotshots him to glory. Or at least something of that a dust storm, Sterling Edwards in a Ferrari Ken Miles in his R-2 Flying Shingle MG order. Minter, a training camp for Air Corps Monza took first in the big-bore main later special and Cy Yedor in the ex-Miles R-1 . flyers during World War II, had an answer that day, with Ak Miller and Jack McAfee Dean fell into third as the small-bore cars for James Dean's newfound craving to be following. Watching these titans in anger buzzed their way into the desert mirage. an even better Porsche pilot. gave Dean a close look at the yin and yang Dean intuitively nailed his racing debut. Driving into Bakersfield -then a dusty of road racing, deepening his desire to get Just as he'd done in front of studio cam- San Joaquin Valley town known for oil and one more event on his race card before the eras, he let the heavies play the fore- cotton - Dean needed a problem fixed summer's shooting of Giant in Texas. ground while laying back to hone his own on his Speedster. With rain to deal with Back in Hollywood, Dean returned to performance. Smart that he did. Scrappy and a Porsche that wasn't running right, his work on Rebel Without A Cause, the veterans Miles and Yedor battled away the young actor made a hurried phone- breakthrough film encasing a 24-hour

86 excellence NOVEMBER 2005 though a few still serve vintage aircraft until after the fact - the director fumed, and slick executive jets. There's a nearby personally ordering Dean by memo not to restaurant fittingly called The Elephant race again until filming for Giantfinished. Bar, where a terrace overlooks the silent That long Texas summer of '55 was a siz- front straiaht for those roarina s~orts-car zler, weatherwise and otherwise, as rebel races helifrom 1953 to 1969:~hil Hill was star and scrupulous dire~tor's~arred first to win here, piloting his own 2.9-liter toward a final "CutF It was not called until Ferrari. Later, Ken Miles won Santa Barbara September 22. But let's return to Santa in a Porsche RSK, then an RS 550, with Barbara, starting for Dean on day two of Scooter Patrick winning in 1965 driving a the race weekend - Sunday, May 29. 904 and Jerry Titus the following year in Having missed Saturday's preliminary an Elva Porsche. Maseratis and muscu- race, Dean gridded 18th in Sunday's 10- lar specials were victorious here, too. lap consolation for Under 1500-cc pro- I recently stood on that dining terrace, duction and modified cars. To make the listening, looking - it was a Zen moment. afternoon's semi-main, as Dean had pre- I heard willowy blues composed of distant viously at Palm Springs and Minter Field, engines, tires on the tarmac. I saw a ghost he needed to finish among the top three parade of sports cars and drivers gone in the consolation's line-up. The race by. I was there then, and I'm there again included William Eschrich's now. It's different. And yet the same. Special and sports-car ace Jean-Pierre Dean competed here that Memorial Kunstle's supercharged Devin-Panhard. Day weekend in the first half of 1955, hus- Right from the flag, Dean flogged his 356 tling his Speedster up from Los Angeles Speedster, overtaking a dozen cars to find slice of teenage isolation and disen- along the Pacific Coast Highway. He'd just himself in fourth, closing on a quick Simca chantment. Directed by the avant-garde wrapped Rebel and, on Saturday morn- special. But the strain on Dean's Speedster Nick Ray, Jimmy Dean played Jimmy ing, May 28, when he should have been killed it. A burned piston sidelined him. Dr. Stark, born to find trouble. It was a part driving his Class F preliminary race at Bill Eschrich took the checkered. made for him, and Dean proved brilliant Santa Barbara, Dean had instead been Santa Barbara convinced Dean he had in it. But Ray took longer than expected standing for hair and make-up on a WB to upgrade equipment if he was to con- to finish shooting, putting Dean in front stage in Burbank, requisite for his next tinue racing. And, by now, it was his pas- of Warner Brothers cameras right up to picture, Giant- Edna Ferber's best-sell- sion to do so. All through the shooting of the Memorial Day weekend - and the ing epic directed by George Stevens Sr. Giant, Jimmy thought about what his next Cal Club races scheduled at Santa Starring along with Jimmy as Jett Rink Barbara's airport road course. was the radiant Elizabeth Taylor and fussy Dean, not shy behind the wheel, takes the Today, as if an immense burial ground, Rock Hudson. Stevens saw James Dean's inside line on a 356 coupe (1). Pondering the old Santa Barbara hangers that once road racing as potentially disastrous to his his future, Dean checks out the 550 Spyder housed the US. Marine Corp's Wolfpack production. When Stevens found out about of John Porter after the races in Santa Squadron during WWll stand empty, Jimmy doing Santa Barbara - it wasn't Barbara (2). Smoking in the paddock (3)...

NOVEMBER 2005 excellence 87 "We left before they did - and when Jimmy didn't show up for dinner ..." Kessler's voice trails off 50 years later. "Well, we knew he'd been in a picture and figured he probably met some girls or something." Of course, by then, James Dean had died on the scene in his colli- sion with Turnupseed's heavy coupe. "We knew nothing about it that night," laments Kessler. "In the morning, at tech inspec- tion in Salinas, they told us he'd been killed late that afternoon. We hadn't heard anything - nothing!" So what does Kessler think of Dean as a driver, on track? Was Jimmy really as good as it appeared he was? "It was too early to find out," opines Kessler. He then adds this: "He wanted to be good, and I'm sure he would have improved. Like everybody when they're beginning, you can't tell anything from a couple of races, except that they want to drive." For Dean, that unexpected moment on a nearly deserted highway would cut his passion short. And his life. To quote Jimmy: "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today." He did. The chassis of James Dean's wrecked 550-0055 disappeared later. It has never car would be. The prospect of an Offy- Too young, too fast: James Dean with his resurfaced and remains the focus of end- powered Lotus intrigued him before he helmet, trophies, and the usual cigarette. less rumors. Kessler and Reventlow, as grew ever more keen on Porsche's feather- did so many young drivers from those light new 550 series Spyder, a fast favorite about this, and he says Lance Reventlow days, went on to race many times over. for the mere 550 kilograms it weighed. was pushing the 300SL as fast as it would Reventlow built his exotic sports Giant, wrapping September 22, ended go: "We started down that long empty car that won often, stunningly. Sadly, in Dean's restriction on racing. One day road and I thought somebody was follow- 1972, he died in a light plane crash in the before, he had traded Speedster 80126 ing us. So we stopped the car and put the Rockies near Aspen. Rolf WWherich, hav- and $3,000 in cash for a brand-new 550 hood up. The highway patrol went by, then ing escaped death in Jimmy's Spyder, delivered to Competition Motors. 550- came back. We gave him some story was killed in an auto accident in Europe 0055, its serial number a perfect palin- about how we'd been there for some time, in 1981. Bruce Kessler and his wife Joan drome, was the 1498-cc Spyder that Dean that the car had overheated and we were live aboard their custom trawler today, would take to his next race. It would be yet waiting for it to cool off!" Whether or not sailing hither and yon, always returning to another airport course, a race on the first the officer bought their tale, he nonethe- SoCal for the annual Fabulous Fifties din- weekend of October in Salinas, California. less drove off. Kessler and Reventlow then ner and get-together among the well-sea- Again, roads high in the Santa Monica got back in the Mercedes and went on, soned sports-car diehards who continue Mountains served as Dean's 550 testing pulling in for coffee at a roadside cafe to survive life's trials. grounds. But his fast trial driving also led called Blackwell's Corner. What might have been Jimmy Dean's to some required repairs. When it was time Dean and Wutherich saw Reventlow's racing career had he lived? We wonder. to leave for Salinas, Dean thought his550 Mercedes parked at the cafe, so they He had definite natural abilities for speed still needed more break-in miles. Rather stopped and went in. The Salinas-bound and precision in handling a car in compe- than trailer it behind his Ford station wagon men all knew each other from the races tition. It would have been fascinating to -as had been the plan - Dean decided and took seats together, including those see a longer life for Dean unfold. Perhaps, to rack up some extra miles by actually following Jimmy and Rolf in Dean's sta- as the actor-driver matured, he would driving his Spyder to the race. At 2:30 on tion wagon, studio pal Bill Hickman and have raced alongside Steve McQueen the afternoon of Friday, September 30, noted Dean photographer Sandy Roth. and Paul Newman, as well as others from Dean and Competition Motors mechanic Their conversation was about one thing the movies who took the wheel. Wutherich left von Neumann's Hollywood - speeding. Dean confessed he'd What we Porsche lovers have from shop. They began their 280-mile (pre-free- already been ticketed that day. Kessler Jimmy is this: He puts a face on how we way) trip north towards Salinas in Jimmy's told Jimmy how they'd outfoxed the offi- look back at the transition from Speedster ground-hugging "Little Bastard" 550. cer, maybe the same one, with his and to Spyder in Porsche racing. Taking all into Meanwhile, Reventlow and Kessler Lance's "overheating" ruse. The mood account, it's a shame that, for posterity, had begun the same route to Salinas in was light, convivial -a bunch of guys on James Dean wasn't able to ride the new- Lance's lightweight Gullwing Mercedes. the way to race sports cars. They all made generation 550 into its heyday. And, from We recently talked with Bruce Kessler plans to eat together later. there, go on to who knows what. V

88 exC€!llenC€! NOVEMBER 2005