| And the job appeared. It was Beat the Clock, a TV game show featuring contestants who attempted to execute various stunts within a given time frame. Jimmy was the one testing the stunts before the shows to know if they were humanly possible to perform and how long they took to be completed. Jimmy was getting 5 dollars an hour, around 60 dollars a week, but he didn’t stay long. He seemed superhuman so he was no good for the job! “He was the best coordinated human being I’ve ever known. Because Jimmy could do everything and make it look easy, he was no good for us!” -Frank Heller of Beat the Clock In February, Jimmy celebrated his 21st birthday at Jerry’s Bar with friends, playing bongos. Also in February, the producer Frank Heller, appreciating his work at Beat the Clock, asked him for a small role in Sleeping Dogs, an episode of CBS, aired on February 20. The Winslows bought their first TV to watch it, and Aunt Ortense saw Jimmy so skinny that she immediately sent him a check especially for groceries. The director said he went to the rehearsals without shaving, uncombed, arrogant and uncooperative, but... “he was absolutely horrible until we were on air... and then... he was absolutely brilliant...” Twenty days later he performed a little line in Ten Thousand Horses Singing, a CBS production, aired on March 3. Jimmy’s line: “Yes, Sir,” the only one because someone still remembers that show. Another little line in Forgotten Children, aired on NBC on June 2nd. Jimmy had taken an agent who got him these roles. Her name was Jane Deacy. She said he showed up in her office on 42nd Street with terrible black bags under his eyes. He was smoking so much and drinking coffee all day long to stay awake after nights awake. There he met Christine White, a young girl who was also trying to be admitted at the Actor’s Studio. She had written a piece and they prepared it together, rehearsing at Central Park, on the streets, and in Jimmy’s room at the Iroquois Hotel. (The name of that play written by Christine White was “Ripping Off Layers to Find Roots”.) In August they took the test with another hundred people. Just twelve had the level they required. Jimmy and Christine were among the selected elite. Jimmy gave a dramatic reading of “The Metamorphosis” and was touching the heavens with his hands. He wrote to his uncle and aunt: “...If I can keep this up and nothing interferes with my progress, one of these days I might be able to contribute something to the world.” October ‘52. And they began to attend the lessons with the legendary teacher, Lee Strasberg. For his first personal performance, Jimmy chose a part from Barnaby Conrad’s novel, Matador, and adapted it. Strasberg didn’t like Jimmy’s arrangements and criticized him in front of the whole class. Jimmy listened, apparently impassive, but the colors flushed his usually pale face and deceived him: he was furious. When Strasberg finished, Jimmy placed his toreador cape on his shoulders and walked away without a word. He never came back. This dramatic art school nourished the Cinema World since the 1950's and it was located on the 14th floor at 1967 Broadway, by the corner of 53rd street. The concept of guidance was based on the work of Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938), who said that acting is not just oration but an exploration of personality used in order to merge the inner self of the actor with the inner self of the character. The Austrian Lee Strasberg (1901-1982) systemized the ideas of Stanislavsky by means of exercises. So he took over techniques like “emotional memory,” “sensory memory” and “psychological identification,” and added to them some rules based on the retrospective inquiries. The body must work like a catalyst of the inside experience. The actor obtains that experience through his own past personal memories which must be transferred to the current situation; that is the actor’s work. Because of this, there is a text and a subtext. The text the actor must play and the subtext is based upon inside dialogues and psychological possibilities. The Actor’s Studio was founded in 1947 by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford and Robert Lewis. In May, his agent got a little job for Jimmy that paradoxically was going to be one of the most appreciated and revealing performances of his kind of genius. It still survives. Devoted people call it “Asleep on Guard” as an homage to Jimmy’s scene, the only one which makes the show a work of art. It’s a single episode that tells an anecdote about Abraham Lincoln’s life. Produced by Westinghouse Studio and directed by John Drinkwater, with Robert Pastene as Abraham Lincoln. It aired on May 26, 1952. The start of that summer, Jimmy spent time walking the New York streets, reading and visiting friends. He also hosted Bill Bast in his room at the Iroquois Hotel. Bill got along well with Dizzy and Christine and together they helped one another. The one having money would pay for the others, and that is the way it would be. Jimmy was often pensive. Something was going on with him. They would spend a lot of time in bars. Minetta Tavern was one of their favorites. Jimmy would bring his bongos and play them when the place was almost empty. Coffee after coffee and maybe even some spaghetti, Jimmy’s favorite meal. Nowadays the Minetta remains the same (113 MacDougal Street). Also, they would spend time at Jerry’s Bar, where Jimmy liked to talk in Italian with the owner. Jerry’s Bar no longer exists. One day he told his friends what was happening to him. He wanted to go back because he missed home. Home, of course, was Indiana. Dizzy and Bill decided to go with him. They left that same night. It was October. Fairmount is wonderful in autumn, maples in red and orange, golden corn fields, ducks in the ponds and squirrels playing in the little streets. It is like a fairy tale. This is the way Dizzy and Bill experienced it, combined with a new aspect of Jimmy’s personality they were discovering: his sweetness with the young Markie, his gentleness with Ortense, his concern for Marcus and the farm, his tenderness around the animals. A fundamental simplicity of spirit shone forth in Jimmy while he was home, something that didn’t have the opportunity to appear while he was in New York. He couldn’t let these feelings appear in New York or Hollywood. According to Dizzy, it was clear that in that town were the things Jimmy loved. He never talked about government or politics or the world order or stuff like that. He didn’t care at all about anything except the small world he was in – but when he was in Fairmount, he was in the best world. Excerpt from Photoplay “In Memory of Jimmy,” by Elizabeth Sheridan, October 1957. A call from New York interrupted the paradise. He had been summoned to read for the part of Wally Wilkins in See the Jaguar. “In a certain sense, I am a fatalist. I don’t exactly know how to explain it, but I have a hunch there are some things in life we just can’t avoid. They’ll happen to us, probably because we’re built that way - we simply attract our own fate, make our own destiny.” Jimmy to reporter Jack Shafer, 1952. Jimmy arrived at the audition with one lens in his eyeglasses cracked and a bad mood in which to read. They gave him ten dollars to repair the glasses and told him to return two days later. When he did, he was still wearing the broken glasses, but he had memorized the entire text. His presentation was terrific. His manners and tone were exactly what the role needed, a strange creature, vulnerable and wild. The play was written by Richard Nash and directed by Michael Gordon. The premiere was at the Cort Theater of New York, on December 3, 1952, and it was Jimmy’s first performance on Broadway. The cast: Arthur Kennedy, Constance Ford and Mr. Dean’s imagination... “making believable that almost completely impossible role.” (New York Herald Tribune). The play lasted for just five days. Jimmy returned to the long, grey winter evenings at the window of his room at the Iroquois. He was found like this by his agent when she came to bring some Christmas cards she had received for him at her office as well as newspapers reviewing his performance in See the Jaguar. He didn’t even take a look at them. Dizzy also came by and found him sad and messed up: “His condition was even worse, more hard and bitter than before. I thought he needed to go back to Indiana where I saw how completely serene he could be.” With the money he earned he bought a wooden flute. A little bit faded around the mouthpiece, it is proudly displayed at the Fairmount Historical Museum. Arthur Loew, Jr., a friend through friends, gave him an old black overcoat; so, the mythical silhouette was conceived, journeying down the streets of New York... “His face was very poetic-wonderful, and very painful, full of desolation. There are moments when you say, “Oh, God, he’s so handsome - what’s being lost here? What goodness is being lost here?” Elia Kazán (A Life) Jimmy moved to a very little apartment on 19 West 68th Street, which ends in Central Park. The place is still the same. The wooden door and doorbells, the little grey wall and the mailboxes. Just one room and a small bathroom. This place will be Jimmy’s headquarters. Two round windows, a double bed, a small desk, his books and records, a record player, the flute, the toreador cape; those were his treasures, including two little toys, a bull and a tiger that are shown in several pictures by the head of the bed, silent sentries watching time pass by from their glass case at the Fairmount Historical Museum. TV Shows They are considered the most truthful evidence of his talent by the critics. They are one-hour long episodes, all from different series and sponsors; they were aired live or recorded live and presented in three acts. The commercials were also live. These shows were aired during prime time, so there would always be a family gathering around the TV. Good scripts and endings were needed, as well as capable actors able to create convincing characters in a short amount of time. Mr. Dean’s temperament and sharp intelligence bloom in the creation of each and every of those roles, subtle and masterly examples of talent that are obvious points of reference. Most of these episodes survived the time and are kept at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles and at the Museum of Broadcasting in New York. “To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty; to interpret is his problem, and to express it his dedication... Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You’re all alone with your concentration and your imagination and that’s all you have. Being a good actor isn’t easy. Being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I’m done.” James Dean Jimmy came to Fairmount for Christmas The Immoralist - 1954 It was his second appearance on Broadway. Also the last one. It was the winter of ‘54. Ruth and August Goetz adapted the novel of the same name by Andre Gide. The action was situated in 1900's North Africa where newlyweds from France felt seduced by a young Arabian boy. That role, Bachir, was not yet cast, but the director had seen Jimmy’s performance in See the Jaguar and invited him to read for the part in front of Goetz. Ruth says that it was on an icy November evening when she first saw a sullen and wispy-haired boy coming in. The incredible ash-colored hair and very pale skin looked inappropriate for the role, but when Jimmy started reading, she knew he was going to be brilliant. According to her, he delivered a quality of sweetness, suggestiveness and sexuality coming out of his skin. Three hundred dollars a week was the generous compensation for even a supporting role. The premiere was held at the Royal Theater in New York on Jimmy’s 23rd birthday. Ortense and Marcus came specially from Fairmount to attend it and after the event, Jimmy took them to dinner at Sardy’s, on 243 W. 44th Street. It was February 8, 1954. Critic Daniel Blum, editor of the Theater World Yearbooks, gave him the award for “One of the most promising personalities of the 1953-1954 season,” now displayed at the Fairmount Historical Museum. The play went out on tour and the first city was Philadelphia, and it was going well. A week later Jimmy quit. Goetz got desperate but Jimmy’s resignation was indisputable. And he left. Other horizons were waiting for him. He had been summoned for a test with the none other than the director Elia Kazan. Jimmy to Hedda Hopper, 1955: “When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn’t acting. It’s following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that. So the director’s task is just that - to direct, to point the way. Then the actor takes over. And he must be allowed the space, the freedom to express himself in the role. Without that space, an actor is no more than an unthinking robot with a chestful of push buttons.” |
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