what is it about James Dean?


he's a phenomenon.. like capri pants. the guy only starred in three films, where he was good but sort of mimicking brando, his idol, said most people around him then. he was a troublemaker, he was egotistical, he was tortured.. he had the weirdest death.. he was crazy about racing cars and was said to be a great driver, winning three trophies even though he'd never raced before - and then on a lost highway in the middle of nowhere he zooms down with a mechanic friend and an intersecting street has another car who sits, doesn't go, but sits there at the stop sign, aware of dean, and then as dean approaches closer the other car creeps out into a left turn.. dean collides into him and is killed almost instantly, the other two walk away. what? this was not suicide, though i suspected at first. this was a ridiculous little event that happened to change everything. and now girls have his poster on their walls, his calendars sell out, his picture is in a frame in the women's bathroom at enzian.. he is this mysterious cult icon of rebellion and beauty.. it's hard to wrap my head around. why are we still talking about him? why am i so interested in him? i'm finishing my third book on him so far, and they've all been very telling.. by people who knew him and made love to him and all that. he was said to be gay by a lot of people.. but he wasn't really, he loved a few girls very much, one of them wrote a book about their love, liz sheridan, who plays jerry seinfeld's mother. i know. but he slept with a few guys too, his early mentor who was more of a predator than a friend, a few people to get up in the business, (he seemed to only care about getting ahead in the industry, he used just about everyone, they didn't hate him, they got what they wanted, he got what he wanted), this friend of his for a while in '53, two years before he died, who wrote a book about it, which i'm reading now.. but that wasn't for the industry or pressure or anything, james even suggested it.. he thought it was like going to the extent of a friendship, or going right beyond, having a moment with a person without really being a homosexual.. it was experimentation that came in waves.. never really talked about between them, there would just be this rush of energy between them and it would happen. the guy is happily married now.. i don't know what to say about that. and i don't know what to say about james. everyone who knew him called him jimmy but i can't stop calling him james. james is a very beautiful name, the more i think about it. he was only 5'8. he was nuts about bullfighting. he spent his entire $21,000 salary from Giant to buy his death car, a porsche spyder. his name became famous only a few months before his death.. two of his only three films weren't even released when he died. the first was rereleased, it having suffered horribly at the box office after first opening.. it was East of Eden, still my favorite. he's great in it. all three Rebel Without a Cause stars died mysteriously.. Natalie Woods' pallbearers were Rock Hudson, Elia Kazan (director of Eden, On the Waterfront, and A Streetcar Named Desire), Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, and a two other huge names i've forgotten. how bizarre. she had a huge crush on james but he treated her like a little girl (which he called liz sheridan) so she had a simultaneous affair with the director, nicholas ray, and then unknown talent, dennis hopper, who was in two of james' major films and wrote a very interesting introduction about him in the second book i read called James Dean: Behind the Scenes, a book mainly of pictures and old western union messages, production notes, telling me interesting details like Elizabeth Taylor got $175,000 for Giant.. that was the $20 million salary of yesteryear.

but it still blows my mind that james has woven himself so completely into our culture after having done so little.. is it just something we award anyone who dies young? i don't know, but i don't think we can shake him.