James Dean: 50 years after his death

The actor "was not the aimless angst-ridden youth he played in the movies.... He was not that suffering, rudderless figure in real life. "

IN MANY WAYS, JAMES DEAN is the star who never died. Fifty years after his speeding sports car death, he remains one of the most enduring of Hollywood's iconic legends ... despite starring in just three features: "East of Eden" (1955), "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), and "Giant" (1956). At the time of the fatal accident, actor Humphrey Bogart made the darkly comic observation that "Dean died at just the fight time. Had he lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." For all the macabre wisdom in Bogie's remark, there is no easy answer to the "why" of the enduring legend of the Hoosier-born "rebel." Ironically, during the cult hysteria that first followed his passing (which ranged from numerous global teen suicides to 300 fan clubs in Japan alone), many felt Dean's home studio (Warner Bros.) was manufacturing the mass mourning. Paradoxically, the Warner honchos were more concerned that audiences would not turn out to see a dead actor, since Dean died before "Rebel" and "Giant" were released.

"It always takes a while to look back and see on what point the significant lines of history converge--that's why they call it perspective," writes cultural historian Adam Gopnick. So, what now would be an educated guess as to why Dean, with only three major movie roles, remains one of the most celebrated of film stars--replete with a full array of memorabilia and marketing schemes--with "Deaner" fans still making his hometown of Fairmount, Ind., a movie mecca? It begins with talent. As period critic Alfred C. Roller of the New York World-Telegram suggested, Dean, coupled with his heroes Marion Brando and Montgomery Cliff, "helped revolutionize the finely-honed art of film acting by making it less finely honed, ruffling it up with [method's] rough edges."

Second, taking a cue from the equally iconic Bogart, the timing of Dean's death fueled the fame. Yet, this point is contingent upon a third component of the Dean legacy, what London Observer writer C.A. Lejeune called being a "symbol of frustrated youth, of mixed-up kiddery, revolt and loneliness." For instance, shortly before the world saw Dean's screen persona test fate by entering a potentially fatal automobile "chicken run" in "Rebel," the young actor's real life recklessness led to his death. A foolish waste--yes! However, that life-on-the-edge consistency legitimized the poignancy of Dean's screen characters. Like the signature fictional figure of the 1950s, novelist J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Dean was all about fighting phoniness. Indeed, Holden's central Catcher in the Rye riff, "I was surrounded by phonies.... They were coming in the goddamn window," sounds just like something Dean's "Rebel" character might have said.

The nature of Dean's death also is linked to a fourth factor in the mythology of the actor--the public's perverse fascination with the self-destructive artist, be it poet Dylan Thomas or rocker Janice Joplin. Why does such interest persist? Biographers and critics alike long have enjoyed romanticizing the creative process. For example, even author Val Holley's superior 1995 chronicle of the actor's life, James Dean: The Biography, finds the need to close with the most simple sentimentality: "Dean's earthy records were achieved because of--not in spite of--his self-destructiveness.... The gift of artistry can be a curse as well as a blessing." This is an entertainingly romantic take on Dean, but ultimately neglects so much.

A fifth item elevating him to movie deity was Dean's duplicity in suggesting he completely mirrored the troubled teens he played. Yes, Dean was every bit as passionate as these screen characters, and the actor suffered neither fools nor phonies in real life. Let's be clear, though. Dean was not the aimless angst-ridden youth he played in the movies. His beloved cousin, surrogate brother Marcus Winslow, Jr., told me in an interview that Dean knowingly let elements of this wounded film persona "rub off' on his accepted biography. Dean instinctively realized that, for the public, this would add poignancy to his performances. That is, he seemingly would be replicating his reality. Or, as a 1950s Movieland critic phrased it, "Fans have sighed and said, 'He didn't need to act, only to remember.' It is a compliment to his art. But it is also a fallacy."

Granted, Dean's method acting was sometimes fueled by tapping into painful memories, such as the childhood loss of his mother. Yet, this simply was performing technique for his art; he was not that suffering, rudderless figure in real life. His friend and pivotal early mentor, high school drama teacher Adeline Nall, probably was the most passionate of his inner circle to attempt to set the record straight. Her refreshing response to the misleading image of Dean as a melancholy boy always mourning his mother was: "Hogwash. It just wasn't so. Jim had as much, in fact more, love and affection than almost any one boy in Fairmount."