Memorial Page for James Dean (née James Byron Dean)

James Dean (born February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana; died September 30, 1955, near Cholame, California) was an American actor. In just three leading roles – East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant – he defined the image of the restless, rebellious young man like few actors before or since, and after his death at 24 became an icon for an entire generation.

Childhood between California and Indiana

Dean was born to dental technician Winton Dean and his wife, Mildred Marie Wilson. The family moved to Santa Monica, California, in 1936. When Mildred Dean died of uterine cancer on July 14, 1940, James was nine years old; his father sent him back to Indiana, where he was raised by his aunt Ortense and uncle Marcus Winslow in a Quaker household in Fairmount. He graduated from Fairmount High School on May 16, 1949, with honors in fine art, sports, and drama.

From a soft-drink commercial to Broadway

After brief spells at Santa Monica City College and UCLA, where he switched from pre-law to theater arts, Dean left college for good in January 1951. His first paid acting job was a Pepsi commercial on December 13, 1950, for a fee of 25 dollars. He moved to New York in the winter of 1951, was accepted into the renowned Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg in 1952, and made his Broadway debut in See the Jaguar on December 3, 1952 – a production that closed after only four days. He fared better with The Immoralist, which opened on February 8, 1954, Dean's 23rd birthday.

East of Eden

In April 1954 Dean signed on for East of Eden, based on John Steinbeck's novel; under Elia Kazan's direction, for a fee of 10,000 dollars, he played the spurned son Cal Trask. The film opened on March 9, 1955, and made Dean a star overnight. During filming he began a brief, closely watched relationship with actress Pier Angeli, who surprised him by marrying singer Vic Damone in November 1954; Angeli later called Dean the love of her life.

The rebel and the giant

Starting March 28, 1955, Dean filmed Rebel Without a Cause under Nicholas Ray, playing Jim Stark, a teenager at odds with his parents and society, a role that made him the defining symbol of an entire postwar generation. The moment shooting wrapped, he began work on June 3, 1955, in Marfa, Texas, on George Stevens' epic Giant alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, playing the rising oil tycoon Jett Rink. Filming ended in late July 1955 – Dean would never see either film released in a theater.

The crash at Cholame

On September 30, 1955, Dean was driving his silver Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed "Little Bastard," to a road race in Salinas when, at the junction of State Routes 41 and 46 near Cholame, California, a student named Donald Turnupseed turned left in his Ford directly into his path. Dean had no time to avoid the collision; he died at the scene or shortly afterward at the hospital in Paso Robles, while his passenger, German mechanic Rolf Wütherich, suffered a broken jaw and hip. Later technical analyses of his speed reached conflicting results, ranging from roughly 90 to 120 km/h. A funeral service was held on October 8 at the Fairmount Friends Church, where some 2,400 fans gathered outside; James Dean was buried the following day at Park Cemetery in Fairmount.

Giant opened on September 30, 1956, exactly one year after his death. For both films shot before the crash, Dean was nominated posthumously for the Academy Award for Best Actor – for East of Eden in 1956, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy history, and a year later for Giant. No other actor has ever received two posthumous nominations in the same leading category. Out of a career of only three starring roles grew one of the most enduring images in American cinema: a young man, forever 24.