James Dean

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February 8, 1931

September 30, 1955, Cholame, California, USA (road accident)

Interred at Park Cemetery, Fairmount, Indiana, USA

James Byron Dean

Movies:

Giant (1956)

Crossroads (1 episode, 1955)

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1 episode, 1955)

Lux Video Theatre (2 episodes, 1952-1955)

East of Eden (1955)

The United States Steel Hour (1 episode, 1955)

General Electric Theater (2 episodes, 1954)

Danger (4 episodes, 1953-1954)

The Philco Television Playhouse (1 episode, 1954)

Harvest (1953) (TV)

Robert Montgomery Presents (1 episode, 1953)

Armstrong Circle Theatre (1 episode, 1953)

Kraft Television Theatre (3 episodes, 1952-1953)

Campbell Playhouse (2 episodes, 1953)

Omnibus (1 episode, 1953)

The Big Story (1 episode, 1953)

Studio One (3 episodes, 1952-1953)

Tales of Tomorrow (1 episode, 1953)

Treasury Men in Action (2 episodes, 1953)

Trouble Along the Way (1953) (uncredited)

You Are There (1 episode, 1953)

The Kate Smith Hour (1 episode, 1953)

Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952) (uncredited)

Hallmark Hall of Fame (1 episode, 1952)

Deadline - U.S.A. (1952) (uncredited)

Sailor Beware (1952) (uncredited)

CBS Television Workshop (1 episode, 1952)

The Stu Erwin Show (1 episode, 1951)

Fixed Bayonets! (1951) (uncredited)

The Bigelow Theatre (1 episode, 1951)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Family Theatre (1 episode, 1951)

Appearances

Biography (TV series documentary) 1 episode, 2002)

Warner Pathé News Issue # 87 (1955)

'Giant' Stars Are Off to Texas (1955) (uncredited)

A Star Is Born World Premiere (1954) (TV)

The Web (1 episode, 1952)

Academy Awards

1957 Nominated Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Giant (1956). This was James Dean's second consecutive posthumous nomination.

1956 Nominated Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role for: East of Eden (1955). This was the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.

BAFTA Awards

1957 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Foreign Actor for: Rebel Without a Cause (1955) USA
1956 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Foreign Actor for: East of Eden (1955) USA

Golden Globes, USA

1957 Won Henrietta Award World Film Favorite - Male

1956 Won Special Achievement Award…given posthumously for Best Dramatic Actor.

Jussi Awards

1956 Won Jussi Best Foreign Actor for: East of Eden (1955)

Walk of Fame

Star on the Walk of Fame Motion Picture At 1719 Vine Street.

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Though he starred in only three films, James Dean was one of the key movie figures of the 1950s. He followed Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando in male beauty, showing a more sensitive, agonized style than previous manly icons like Clark Gable or Errol Flynn. But Dean was much younger - in their first film roles, Clift and Brando played damaged World war II veterans, whereas Dean was a postwar young man, his traumas not picked up on D-Day or Guadalcanal. In Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Dean's finest picture, he plays his most archetypal role as Jim Stark, a man troubled by tensions within an affluent, peaceful 1950s American social scene, bereft of anything worth fighting for and desperate for his parents to be more than sitcom caricatures. Directed by Nicholas Ray, Rebel is a major film - a widescreen Technicolor melodrama that doesn't tutut over juvenile delinquents like Blackboard Jungle (1954) and iterates that some of the most troubled kids come from "good" homes rather than poverty.

Dean did a great deal of work in live TV from 1952 to 1953 (The Kate Smith Hour, Studio One, Robert Montgomery Presents) and near-invisible, uncredited bits in a handful of movies (Fixed Bayonets!, 1951; Sailor Beware, 1952; Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, 1952), but his star oeuvre consists of three roles - Cal Trask in Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955), from the John Steinbeck novel; Jim Stark in Rebel; and Jett Rink in George Stevens's Giant (1956). Of the three performances, only Rebel really lasts: Eden is lopsided by Kazan's indulgence of Dean's method, and Giant offers a handful of iconic images and moments (Dean crucified on a rifle, his distinctive farewell wave), but flounders in an unconvincing later section in which Dean awkwardly plays a talcum-haired old Jett. But Rebel is enough to secure him screen immortality, and his premature death in a car crash probably added to the film's stature and poignancy - though it isn't Jim Stark who dies in the film's daredevil race or Griffith Park Observatory climax. Dean was set to play the role taken by Paul Newman in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) - but after that, who knows what would have happened?

Salaries:

Giant (1956) $21,000

Rebel Without a Cause (1955) $10,000

East of Eden (1955) $1,000/week

Only the gentle are ever really strong.

Gratification comes in the doing, not in the results.

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.

I think the prime reason for existence, for living in this world, is discovery.

My purpose in life does not include a hankering to charm society.

He was issued a speeding ticket only two hours and fifteen minutes before his fatal accident.

Donald Turnupseed, the driver of the other car involved in Dean's accident, died of cancer in 1995.

Contrary to popular belief, Dean's middle name was not taken from Lord Byron, but from a relative, "Byron" Dean.

His favorite book was "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Lost his two front teeth in a motorcycle accident in his youth.

His favorite drink was coffee and his favorite ice cream flavors were coffee and raspberry.

He was terribly near-sighted and wore thick glasses when not on screen.