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I have collected various quotes by and about James Dean. Some are amusing, many are prophetic, and all are true & touching. They give us a glimpse of Jimmy from the point of view of those closest to him - his relatives, friends, and co-workers. The quotes by Jimmy himself are very interesting, and I was amazed at how intelligent he was. With only a little more than a year of college under his belt, Jimmy's words are both clever and proficient. They give us a small peek inside the great man that he was and always will be.
~ Quotes By Jimmy ~
"Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today."
"For me the only true success, the only true greatness, lies in immortality."
"Only the gentle are ever really strong."
"When I can't sleep at night I like to get up and beat the skins.
It drives away the blues."
...on playing the bongo drums
"The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results."
"To grasp the full significance of life
is the actor's duty;
to interpret it his problem; and to express it his
dedication."
"Being an actor is the loneliest thing
in the world.
You are all alone with your concentration and
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."
"Studying cows, pigs and chickens can help an actor develop his character. There are a lot of things I learned from animals. One was that they couldn't hiss or boo me. I also became close to nature, and am now able to appreciate the beauty with which this world is endowed."
"How can you measure acting in
inches?!?"
(when told he was too short to be an actor)
James Dean's actual height was 5'8"
"Trust and belief are two prime
considerations. You must not allow yourself to be
opinionated. You must say, 'Wait. Let me see.' And above
all, you must be honest with yourself."
...to
Hedda Hopper
"An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet. In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible. He must be superhuman in his efforts to store away in the core of his subconscious everything that he might be called upon to use in the expression of his art."
"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 chest-full of push-buttons."
"It was an accident, although I've been involved in some kind of theatrical function or other since I was a child – in school, music, athletics. To me, acting is the most logical way for people's neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves. To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle."
"Since I'm only 24 years old, guess I
have as good an insight into this rising generation as
any other young man my age. And I've discovered that most
young men do not stand like ramrods or talk like
Demosthenes. Therefore, when I do play a youth, such as
in Warner Bros. Rebel Without A Cause, I try to imitate
life. The picture deals with the problems of modern
youth. It is the romanticized conception of the juvenile
that causes much of our trouble with misguided youth
nowadays. I think the one thing this picture shows that's
new is the psychological disproportion of the kids'
demands on the parents. Parents are often at fault, but
the kids have some work to do, too. But you can't show
some far off idyllic conception of behavior if you want
the kids to come and see the picture. You've got to show
what it's really like, and try to reach them on their own
grounds. You know, a lot of times an older boy, one of
the fellows the young ones idolize, can go back to the
high school kids and tell them, "Look what happened
to me! Why be a punk and get in trouble with the law? Why
do these senseless things just for a thrill?" I hope
"Rebel Without A Cause" will do something like
that. I hope it will remind them that other people have
feelings. Perhaps they will say, "What do we need
all that for?" If a picture is psychologically
motivated, if there is truth in the relationship in it,
then I think that picture will do good. I firmly believe Rebel
Without A Cause is such a picture."
from
an interview at a preview of Rebel Without A Cause
~ Quotes About Jimmy ~
"All of us were touched by Jimmy, and
he was touched by greatness."
...Natalie
Wood, co-star in Rebel Without A Cause
"He was very afraid of being hurt. He
was afraid of opening up in case it was turned around and
used against him."
...Elizabeth
Taylor, co-star in Giant
"There were times when I was in his dressing room and he'd tell me, 'I dont feel like talking, but stay anyway.' I would sit there and read while he listened to music and played his bongo drums."
...Faye Nuell, Natalie Wood's double in Rebel
"[Dean's] death caused a loss in the
movie world that our industry could ill afford. Had he
lived long enough, I feel he would have made some
incredible films. He had sensitivity and a capacity to
express emotion."
...Gary
Cooper
"I didn't know what to do. How do you
tell an eight-year-old boy his mother's going to die? I
tried. In my own stumbling way I tried to prepare Jim for
it. Nowadays, he lives in a world we don't understand too
well, the actor's world. We don't see too much of him.
But he's a good boy, my Jim. A good boy, and I'm very
proud of him. Not easy to understand, no sir. He's not
easy to understand. But he's all man, and he'll make his
mark. Mind you, my boy will make his mark."
...Winton
Dean (Jimmy's father) in Modern Screen, August 1955
"He could look in a delicatessen window
and suddenly start waving at a bowl of prunes, like they
were alive. He was childish in a charming way."
...Christine
White
"He had the greatest power of
concentration I have ever encountered. He prepared
himself so well in advance for any scene he was playing,
that the lines were not simply something he had memorized
-- they were actually a very real part of him."
...Jim
Backus (Jimmy's father in Rebel)
"Jim Dean and Elvis were the spokesmen
for an entire generation. When I was in acting school in
New York, years ago, there was a saying that if Marlon
Brando changed the way people acted, then James Dean
changed the way people lived. He was the greatest actor
who ever lived. He was simply a genius."
...Martin
Sheen
"He would be bothered when someone
would say he was mean and disrespectful. Because
actually, he wasn't. They took silence to mean he cared
little or nothing for them. They didn't have the insight,
or didn't care to exercise the insight, in knowing that
he was a shy boy that just didn't know how to approach
them. Instead of making an attempt to approach him, they
just, well, they just wrote him off."
...Lew
Bracker
"He didn't show you very much. He'd
challenge you to find him. Then when you'd found him,
he'd still make you guess. It was an endless game with
him. The thing people missed about Jimmy was his
mischievousness. He was the most constantly mischievous
person I think I've ever met. Full of tricks, full of
magic, full of outrageousness."
...Stewart
Stern
"Every time I go to Europe, I remember
that James Dean never saw Europe, but yet I see his face
everywhere. There's James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and
Marilyn Monroe – windows of the Champs Elysees,
discos in the south of Spain, restaurants in Sweden,
t-shirts in Moscow. My life was confused and disoriented
for years by his passing. My sense of destiny destroyed
– the great films he would have directed, the great
performances he would have given, the great humanitarian
he would have become, and yet, he's the greatest actor
and star I have ever known."
...Dennis
Hopper, co-star in Giant
"I'm obsessed. I don't think there's
anything wrong with it. I'm hoping to keep his memory
going. It's a tribute."
...David
Loehr (Dean Archivist, The James Dean Gallery, Fairmount,
Indiana)
"When I worked with him on TV, I found
him to be an intelligent young actor who seemed to live
only for his work. He was completely dedicated, and
although a shy person, he could hold a good conversation
on many wide-ranging subjects."
...Ronald
Reagan
"[Stewart Sutcliffe] was really our
leader, and he was really into the James Dean thing. He
idolized him. Stewart died young before we made the big
time, but I suppose you could say that without Jimmy
Dean, The Beatles would have never existed."
...John
Lennon (A few weeks before the group recorded its first
hit record, "LOVE ME DO," in 1962, fifth member
Stewart Sutcliffe died at the age of 21.)
"When he was interested and
participating, his energy was powerful. He had the
greatest of intellectual qualities – curiosity about
everything."
...Roy
Schatt, photographer
"He said, 'We both have to get married
and have families. That's what we both want; that's what
we both need.' He never talked to me like a man that was
worried about cutting it [life] short or having it cut
short."
...Lew
Bracker
"I liken it to a kind of star or comet
that fell through the sky and everybody still talks about
it. They say, 'Ah, remember the night when you saw that
shooting star?"
...Julie
Harris, co-star in East of Eden
"He seemed to capture that moment of
youth, that moment where we're all desperately seeking to
find ourselves."
...Dennis
Hopper, co-star in Giant
"[James Dean] was spectacularly
talented, handsome in a fragile sort of way and
absolutely outrageous. He was an original. Impish,
compelling, magnetic, utterly winning one moment,
obnoxious the next. Definitely gifted."
...Edna
Ferber, author of best-selling novel "Giant";
from her autobiography "A Kind of Magic"
"Sometimes we'd just sit and talk, or
we'd listen to music for a couple of hours at a time
without saying a word. Sometimes he'd get up and dance.
He used to do modern, interpretive things. Jimmy had a
wonderful pantomimic gift - I couldn't compare him to
anyone else. He had a quality and style all his
own."
...Jane
Withers
"In Texas, one disgustingly hot night
during the filming of Giant, he and I ate a full jar of
peanut butter, a box of crackers and six Milky Ways, and
drank twelve Coca-Cola's!"
...Mercedes
McCambridge (Luz Benedict in Giant) from her
autobiography, "The Quality of Mercy"
"In front of the camera, he had an
instinct that was nearly uncanny. I don't recall ever
working with anyone who had such a gift. I recall one
scene, where he was in a shadow, and had to lift his head
to the light. We explained how it should go and he played
it exactly right, to the half-inch, the first time. He
just seemed to know how it should be, without rehearsal
or anything."
...William
C. Mellor, cinematographer
"Jamie and I were like brother and
sister. He told me in fact he thought of me as a sister.
Our relationship was strictly platonic and
spiritual."
...Eartha
Kitt
"Jimmy was a very close and good friend
of mine. I have fond memories of Jim, the days we spent
together in New York City as young actors -- walking the
streets and talking about the theater and wondering about
our next job, reading books and discussing them; seeing
plays, seeing films; working in acting workshops and
being serious young fellows about the thing we loved
most, which was acting in the theater and films."
...Martin
Landau
"Jim had a year away from Warner
Brothers. We had planned to use that time to get our
company started. We would have done both feature pictures
and a television series, which would have allowed Jim to
break in as a director. I think he would have been a
great director."
...Nicholas
Ray
"To the ranchers and the people around
there, he was just as nice as could be. Dean came to me
and said, 'Bob, I want to be a Texan twenty-four hours a
day. I'd like for you to work with me. I'll even pay you
out of my pocket.' So I got him some clothes and boots
and he starts talking like a Texan every day."
...Bob
Hinkle, on the filming of Giant
"We took a walk that first day, and
there was a building going up near Sixth Avenue, and we
virtually became sidewalk superintendents by barking
orders to people. And we proceeded to go over to
Rockefeller Center where there was a young girl skating,
and we applauded her and she did her command performance.
Our minds, our ability to fantasize, and our ability to
communicate was kind of an instant thing. I had an
amazingly instant rapport with him, and as a result we
became friends immediately. He used to come out to my
house, my parents' house in Queens, and my little nephews
adored him. [We had] Christmases and Thanksgivings
[together]. We were sort of a surrogate family."
...Martin
Landau, on their first meeting
"He turned out to be a fascinating and
intelligent young man who talked fluently about artists
in music. And he was surprisingly knowledgeable about
such recondite composers as Schönberg and Bartók."
...Oscar
Levant, concert pianist and film actor
"While we were making Giant, I think we
all knew that young Jimmy Dean was giving a performance
that not even the extreme adjectives of Hollywood could
adequately sum up. It's not often a unit gets a feeling
like that."
...William
C. Mellor, cinematographer
"What I remember most about him was the
little boy quality shining forth at you from behind those
thick glasses of his, tearing at your heart. He had that
extreme and touching idealism of youth which made you
wish that he would never have to be disillusioned. Now he
won't be."
...Louella
Parsons
"Jimmy Dean loved the feel of Indiana
soil under his feet and I think that was the source of
much of his strength."
...Adeline
Nall
"It
wasn't so much a matter of whom I was acting with, it was whom I
was watching… Marlon Brando, Maureen Stapleton, Geraldine
Page, Jimmy Dean … a pretty hotshot group."
...Paul
Newman, on his apprenticeship at the Actors Studio
"Actually, the person I related to was
James Dean. I grew up with the Dean thing. Rebel Without
A Cause had a very powerful effect on me."
...Al
Pacino
"The only time I ever worked with James
Dean was in a 1953 off-Broadway production called The
Scarecrow. He played the Scarecrow's reflection in the
mirror. He was an unknown then but he was jolly good in
every way. I knew then that he was born to become an
actor."
...Patricia
Neal
"Jimmy was not only an internal actor,
but an expressionist, which came partly from his studying
dance. He would physicalize actions, such as the way he
lifted himself up on the windmill in Giant, or
goose-stepped measuring off the land, or his sleight-of-
hand gesture as Jett Rink. He had the amazing capacity to
pick up and learn a new trick almost immediately, tossing
a rope and making a knot, a card trick from a magician,
coin tricks, racing a car..."
...Dennis
Hopper, co-star in Giant
"I have never seen an actor as
dedicated, with the extreme concentration and exceptional
imagination as James Dean. He could take the written
imaginary circumstance and make it his own by improvising
- lying on the ground in a fetal position playing with a
wound-up toy monkey beating its cymbals, giggling while
being searched in the police station because it tickled,
standing up in a drunken daze making the sound of sirens
with his arms outstretched, hitting his fists into the
sergeant's desk, jumping off a diving board into a
swimming pool with no water, or doing the voice of Mr.
Magoo throughout the movie (which was the voice of Jim
Backus, his father in Rebel) -- things that were
not written on the page, things that were invented by the
actor."
...Dennis
Hopper, co-star in Giant
East of Eden ~ Rebel Without A Cause ~ Giant |
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