James Dean, a legend; Biography

He was a U.S. motion-picture actor enshrined as a symbol of the confused, restless, and idealistic youth of the 1950s.  Raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle, Dean studied theatre for two years and then began a professional stage career in New York.  Dean was helped early in his career by Rogers Brackett, a Hollywood producer.  He got Dean into bit parts in various movies and television.  Brackett was the key starter to Dean's eventual success, albeit Dean eventually would've been discovered anyway with his talent and photogenic face.  It's been well documented that Dean and Brackett were briefly lovers, and Dean made every effort to hide and conceal his association with Brackett by creating myths that would dispel anything being related to Brackett.

         He got a role in a broadway play called See the Jaguar when he was only 21 years old.  At this time Dean started to get many roles in television dramas and eventually he won another role on Broadway in The Immoralist co-starring Louis Jordan and Geraldine Page.  His portrayal of the blackmailing Arab in this particular play (New York City, 1954) showed promise, and he was offered a Hollywood contract.  He gave a sensitive interpretation of the brooding, restless son in the film East of Eden (1955), based on the novel by John Steinbeck, then starred in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film dealing with the explosive social relationships among misunderstood teenagers.  In Giant (1956), from the novel by Edna Ferber, Dean (in a supporting role) was featured as a rough, nonconformist ranch hand.  Critics were mixed in their evaluation of Dean's performance.  Some thought he was wonderful, others thought he was mediocre.  Nonetheless, these three films established Dean as the personification of youthful frustration and made him the object of a cult of young Americans.  His tragic death in a automobile crash before the release of Rebel Without a Cause and Giant caused nationwide mourning among them and contributed to his further idolization.  He had very little publicity when he was alive and his death turned him into an eternal legend.