September 30: On This Day in World History … briefly

1955:  James Dean – Just too fast and furious to live

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).

After his death in a car crash, Dean 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 American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars list.

Early career

Dean’s first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola 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 Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets!, a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware, and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal?

While struggling to get jobs in Hollywood, 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. Dean’s career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General 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 portray 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 rock and roll. 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

Sexuality

Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers’ Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, ‘No, I am not a homosexual. But I’m also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.’ Bast, Dean’s first biographer, once said he and Dean ‘experimented’ sexually, but without explaining, and in a later book describes the difficult circumstances of their involvement.

Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly ‘for trade’, as a means of advancing his career. However, the ‘trade only’ notion is contradicted by Bast and other Dean biographers. Aside from Bast’s account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean’s fellow motorcyclist and ‘Night Watch’ member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean ‘experimented’ with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as ‘Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves.’ James Bellah, the son of James Warner Bellah who was a friend of Dean’s at UCLA, said ‘Dean was a user. I don’t think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act….’

Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record as saying that Dean was gay, while author John Howlett believes that Dean was ‘certainly bisexual’. George Perry’s biography attributes these reported aspects of Dean’s sexuality to ‘experimentation’. Martin Landau stated, ‘A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true.’ Mark Rydell stated, ‘I don’t think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them.’ Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends after they first met on the set of Giant, referred to Dean as gay during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2001. Biographer Darwin Porter believes that Dean was more likely omnisexual, and that his trysts were often opportunistic and designed to further his career.

Accident and aftermath

Longing to return to the ‘liberating prospects’ of motor racing, Dean was scheduled to compete at a racing event in Salinas, California on September 30, 1955. Accompanying the actor to the occasion was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier’s photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder ‘Little Bastard’ car.Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 pm Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car. As the group traveled to the event via US Route 466, (currently SR 46) at approximately 5:45 pm a 1950 Ford Tudor was passing through an intersection while turning, ahead of the Porsche. Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the driver’s side of the Ford resulting in Dean’s car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean’s passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. The driver of the Ford, Donald Turnupseed, exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries. The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. A woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but ‘death appeared to have been instantaneous’. Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 pm.

Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean’s death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean’s funeral was held on October 8, 1955 at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive. An inquest into Dean’s death occurred three days later at the Paso Robles City Hall, where a coroner’s jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, said the ‘wreckage and the position of Dean’s body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph’.

Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.

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