James Dean American Actor Known for American Masters

Early life

James Byron Dean was born on 8 February 1931 in Marion, Indiana. He grew up in the nearby town of Fairmount, where he went to the local public school and took part in sport, drama and public-speaking contests. After his schooling he moved to California and enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied drama and was cast in a campus production of Macbeth. In January 1951 he left the university to try to make a living as an actor.

Career

Dean's first appearance on television was in a commercial in 1950. His first speaking part came soon afterwards, as the apostle John in an Easter television special called Hill Number One. Film work began with very small roles: a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952) and a pressman in Deadline – U.S.A. (1952), which starred Humphrey Bogart. Trouble Along the Way (1953) is also among his early film credits.

In October 1951 he moved to New York City. There he won parts in a run of live television dramas, including episodes of Kraft Television Theatre and General Electric Theater, and he was accepted into the Actors Studio, where he studied under Lee Strasberg. On stage he appeared on Broadway in See the Jaguar in 1952, and in 1954 he drew strong notices as Bachir in The Immoralist, an adaptation of the André Gide novel. That performance led to a call from the director Elia Kazan.

Kazan cast him as Cal Trask in East of Eden, a film based on part of John Steinbeck's novel. Dean travelled from New York to Los Angeles to begin work on 8 April 1954, and the picture reached cinemas in March 1955. It was the only film in which he took the lead that was released while he was alive. Later in 1955 he played Jim Stark, a troubled teenager, in Rebel Without a Cause. His final film role was Jett Rink, a Texas ranch hand who becomes a wealthy oilman, in Giant, which was released in 1956 and also featured Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor.

Away from the cameras, Dean took up motor racing in 1955. He bought a Porsche and entered the Palm Springs Road Races in late March, where he won the novice class and came second in the main event. A later race in Bakersfield brought him third place. James Dean died on 30 September 1955, before Giant had reached the public.

His screen credits on record number eleven in total, ranging from Fixed Bayonets! in 1951 to a 1986 installment of the documentary series American Masters, which looks back on his life.

Recognition

Dean received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor: one at the ceremony held in 1956 for East of Eden and one the next year for Giant. Both came after his death, and he is recorded as the first actor to be nominated for an Oscar posthumously. Earlier, in 1954, he had won a Theatre World Award for his stage work. In 1956 he was both nominated for and won a Henrietta Award.

He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, inducted on 8 February 1960 at a motion-picture location on Vine Street. In 1999 the American Film Institute placed him 18th on its list of the great male screen legends of classic Hollywood. All three of his major films, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Writers on film have often linked his image to the way teenagers dressed and behaved in the 1950s. His jeans, white T-shirt and red jacket from Rebel Without a Cause became a much-discussed part of that image, and Time magazine later named him among its all-time fashion icons. He is also frequently cited as an influence by later actors and by rock musicians, including Bob Dylan and David Bowie, and his name has turned up in the lyrics of many songs.