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From the set of East of Eden Dean stepped to that of Rebel Without a Cause. Marlon 'The Slob' Brando was shovelled up for the leading role, but thankfully, the thirty year old was ditched in favour of Dean. Director Nick Ray (whose brightest work so far had been Sorry, Wrong Number) would later cite Dean as the most stimulating actor he'd worked with, and readily acknowledged him as the co-director of the film.

Rebel Without a Cause (originally titled The Blind Run) was written by Dr. Robert Lidner as a factual case history of a teenage psychopath. The film was planned as a low-budget black and white 'downbeat' picture, but when the first few scenes had been shot, Warners were so impressed that they decided that the budget be raised and the film shot in colour.

Again, the film told of a strained father and son relationship. Jim Stark (Dean) is a teenager fighting for the moral support of his hen-pecked, befuddled father (Jim Backus). The father, who appears fumbling in a frilly apron, fails to provide his sensitive son with the strong masculine image which the boy needs. The film covers the events of one day as Stark attends his first day at a new school. Here Stark is attracted by Judy (Natalie Wood), who belongs to a progressive and hostile gang who decide to make life uncomfortable for the newcomer. Judy herself has parental problems. Her father can no longer cope with his daughter's open displays of affection towards him. possibly shielding himself, he calls her a 'dirty tramp'. Having had her harmless embraces construed as wanton strumpetry, Judy will later join Jim in their search for tenderness and support. At the school, Judy finds herself drawn towards Jim. However, Judy's boyfriend Buzz (Corey Allen) is not quite so enamoured, and invites the outsider to a fateful 'chicken-run' that very night. Stark, out to defend his male credentials, accepts the offer, not knowing exactly what a 'chicken-run' is. He is advised by a wandering loner named Plato (Sal Mineo) that the event would involve both Buzz and Jim riding in cars toward a cliffedge, and the first to jump from the doomed car would be labelled 'chicken'. Plato also has been rejected by his parents, and as a result is weak, friendless and insecure. On his school locker he hangs a picture of Alan Ladd, a man of no height, whom he considers the prototypical male. In the chicken-run scene, Judy speculates with cool indifference, whilst Plato, every inch a nervous Nellie, fears for Jim Stark and can't bear to watch. The tenseness of this scene comes to a height as Buzz over-runs the cliffedge and soars to his death, while Stark jumps free. The win rises Stark to heroism in Judy's eyes, but the rest of the gang, robbed of their leader, have something else in mind and hound both him and Judy.

The two are lead by the omnipresent Plato to a deserted old mansion (the same house which was used in Sunset Boulevard, and rented from its owner J. P. Getty to Warners for 200 dollars a week). The three, deprived of accepting parents, create their own family in the old mansion. It is never certain whether Plato's role in the scenario is that of hapless child or romantic contender as his slave-like devotion to Jim is emphasized throughout. Plato's idolation for Jim is never more apparent than when Jim gives the boy his red jacket as a symbol of their friendship. Plato sees it as much more and slobbers uncontrollably over the garment as if it were lined with gold.

Sal Mineo was sixteen, but looked much younger as he highlighted his underwhelming career with the strangely disturbed Plato. Off-camera, Mineo was not prepared to be impressed by the new paragon: "From what I'd seen of Jimmy on the set I didn't know what all the fuss was about. I didn't think he was very good. Then I saw the screening and, you know, he was great. He was sitting just behind me in the cinema and half a dozen times, when he was really terrific, I turned around to look at him. He was giving that grin of his, and almost blushing, looking down at the floor between his legs."

Rebel would be Natalie Wood's 20th film, and her first 'adult' role. Of her co-star she observed: "He didn't comb his hair. He had a safety-pin holding his pants together. He was introspective and very shy."

Dean had tried desperately to have the part of the whinging Plato offered to his new friend Jack Simmons. Maila Nurmi (another newly-acquired friend), who hostessed her own horror TV show under the homely guise of Vampira, claimed that the part of Plato had been specially written for Simmons. There is little evidence to prove this.

Whilst filming Rebel Dean began seeing a psychiatrist. But it was only on the race track with his motorcycle that he found his real therapy. Friends say that he took insane risks with his life. It was at this time that he bought his Porsche Spyder for an astounding 6,900 dollars, the car which, like his later legend, would swerve out of control. Journalists looked upon the grey Porsche as cunning and careful gimmickry, and that on buying the elite auto Dean was merely envisioning the next day's screaming tabloids who made an official report whenever the actor changed his shirt (which wasn't very often). Millions lived on a staple diet of Hedda Hopper, a columnist whose tittle-tattle was sacrosanct and ranked with Biblical admonitions. Hedda and others were paid for scandalizing Hollywood stars by exploring their private lives microscopically. James Dean fell victim to her pen many times. The honourable snoop disliked him throughout his three-picture career. It was not until his death that she revised her opinions and acclaimed him a great actor.

Dean was spending most of his free time with Jack Simmons and Maila Nurmi. The three would meet nightly at midnight and discuss the days events. Maila dabbled in black magic, and distraught fans would later accuse her of somehow causing his death. There was time off for Dean to appear in what would be his last television play, The Unlighted Road. Unsurprisingly, his role was that of a disturbed teenage psychopath. The actual film was damaged in the early 60's, but not before an LP record of it was released with a photograph of a haggard Dean slapped on the cover.

It had already been decided that Dean would play the part of Jett Rink in Giant. He left for Texas to begin work on the film immediately after the last scene in Rebel had been shot. Nick Ray recalled that last moment: "People had packed up and left the set. Jimmy and I were left alone on the lot at Warners; everyone but the gateman had gone home. We were wandering around under the lights making sure we hadn't left anything behind. We didn't really want to admit it was all over. I said, 'Let's go, we've got nothing more to do here.' "

In the closing scene of the film, after Plato had been shot in error by the police at the planetarium, a man is seen crossing the lawn carrying a briefcase. The man is Nick Ray making his own appearance.

Rebel Without a Cause would open at the Astor Theatre in New York on October 29th, 1955, a month after the death of its star.

6	Planned Obsolescence?

'Death is not a God'
Wilde

Alan Ladd and Richard Burton were on the short list for the part of Jett Rink in Giant. the part was given to Dean when Jane Deacy could ask twenty thousand dollars for a single TV appearance and get it. Ironically, his part in Giant was much smaller than in either previous films. And he would not get top billing. This was reserved for a well-corseted Rock Hudson, not miscast as a bigoted brute on a vast Texan cattle ranch. Amongst the cattle, Liz Taylor - all bust and behind, but very much the Queen of Hollywood. Proving that she was still the epitome of romance, the goddess gave birth seconds before the cameras rolled.

Adapted from Edna Ferber's 447 page novel, Giant would be one of Warner's biggest financial successes. It is a grand, sweeping western of epic proportions, in which Dean as Jett Rink is a ranch hand on the Reata Ranch. He is disliked for his surly attitudes by land owner Bick Benedict (Hudson), who runs the ranch with his sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge). When Luz dies and leaves a small patch of land to Rink, Bick is furious and tries to buy him out. But Rink stays, discovers oil on his land, and becomes a multi-millionaire. It was easy for Hudson to show intense animosity towards Dean. Hudson was always ready to pronounce sentence: "I didn't like Dean particularly. He was hard to be around. He hated George Stevens (the director), didn't think he was a good director, and he was always sulky and had no manners."

Hudson's distaste was possibly prompted by the common opinion that Dean had insolently upstaged the thirty-year-old actor in their scenes together. Although allocated only a handful of scenes, unquestionably Dean stole the film.

Liz Taylor (as Bick's new bride Leslie) was given a semi-royal reception on the Giant lot. She wore the highest heels in Hollywood, and to criticise her was almost a public offence. But Dean refused to play the polite admirer. She approached him in the friendliest manner, to which he stared at her over the rim of his glasses, mumbled something to himself, and strode off as though he hadn't seen her. She was terribly offended, yet thought she understood him, and his initial rebuff would not create any animosity between them.

Liz Taylor: "One felt that he was a boy one had to take care of, but even that was probably his joke. I don't think he needed anybody or anything - except his acting." Towards the end of filming, Taylor would give Dean a gift of a kitten, for which he symbolized his appreciation by passing the creature on to a temporary friend, Jeanette Mille.

Director George Stevens was not happy with Dean's now famous unpredictable antics during rehearsals. Dean gave rise to too many mistakes which the director found difficult to take. "I sometimes underestimated him," said Stevens, "and sometimes he overestimated the effects he thought he was getting. 'It's tough on you', he'd seem to imply, 'but I've just got to do it this way'. From the director's angle, this isn't the most delightful sort of fellow to work with."

In editing Giant, Stevens became so dissatisfied with Dean's disjointed reading of Rink's last speech that he brought in another actor to dub the final cut. But Liz Taylor saw something else: "When I was not on camera, I would watch George watching Jimmy. George would smile, but he didn't ever let Jimmy know he was fond of him." Much later, Stevens would be less disturbed by the actor: "I can see him now, blinking behind his glasses after having been guilty of some preposterous bit of behaviour, and revealing by his very cast of defiance that he felt some sense of unworthiness." But Dean's stroppy behaviour aggravated many of the technicians working on Giant who would refuse to speak to him. "Maybe I ought to go to the moon," Dean snapped one day. "We'll help you pack," came one of the camera men. Their reaction would hurt Dean more than he would ever confess.

As Jordan Benedict, Dennis Hopper would be Dean's only real companion on the set. Hopper had been a member of Buzz's gang in Rebel, and he would never lose his admiration for Dean.

Dennis Hopper: "Jimmy and I found we were a bit neurotic and had to justify our neurosis by creating, getting the pain out and sharing it."

Hopper would even approve of Dean's performance during a press reception for the Giant cast, for which the sultry star arrived unshaven, unsmiling, and unwilling to pose for any photographs. The Hollywood columnists would not judge with any mercy. James Dean was a sad spectacle, yet irritatingly fascinating.

During the filming, Dean dated 20 year-old Swiss star Ursula Andress. Maila Nurmi claimed that his interest in Andress, who was almost incapable of fluent English, was purely for physical reasons. The affair was brief, and eventually Andress ditched Dean in favour of actor John Derek. Jimmy would haunt both of them in a fit of rage. He would telephone Andress at odd hours, and spy on her and Derek.

"Jimmy just couldn't believe that anyone could leave him for another man." said Maila Nurmi, "he was stunned."

Jane Deacy had already decided that Dean's next role would be that of Morgan Evans in a television production of Emlyn Williams' The Corn is Green. But Dean planned first and foremost to attend a road race scheduled for the weekend of October 1st in Salinas. He had become friends with 28-year-old mechanic Rolf Weutherich who would accompany Dean in his Porsche to Salinas.

The filming of Giant had ended and Dean began disappearing by himself, presumably as friends thought, to prepare for the race. But the night before the trip, Jimmy is said to have attended a gay party in Malibu Colony and got himself involved in a terrible scene with one of his lovers who demanded that Jimmy 'come out' once and for all and stop pretending to be interested in women, except, as the friend snapped 'for publicity purpose'.

On the day of his journey to Salinas, Jimmy wore his usual outfit: light blue pants, white shirt, red nylon jacket. He and Rolf set off in the Porsche, whilst photographer Standford Roth and Bill Hackman followed in a station wagon. Mid-way through the journey, Jimmy pulled a ring from his finger and handed it to Rolf.

"Why?" asked Rolf.

"I want to give you something to show we're friends" replied Dean.The Porsche was low and grey and difficult to see when driven at the high speed in which Dean drove. "I'm going to keep this baby a long time" he would say, as he drove to his death.

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