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The lengthy shooting at Griffith Park led to boredom on the set and James often took his co-stars for a spin around the planterium parking lot in his new white Porsche Speedster. James also spent a lot of time with the crew and absorbed as much as he could. He also spent time reading, including Giant despite claims to the press that he prefered to concern himself with the script and not the source. Also with Giant in mind, James spent as much time as could out in the sun, to acheive the weather beaten look of Jett Rink. "In motion pictures, you can't fool the camera. If we were doing this on stage, we'd probably be able to gimmick it up- but not in a picture. Film fans are too critical these days." Because several scenes had to be reshot in color, and because several scenes were shot excessively, Rebel was running behind schedule. Money wasn't the factor as much as time. James was committed to start work on Giant in Texas, at the beginning of June. A fact which Nick Ray was constantly remined of. On May 6th James's last television broadcast The Unlighted Road aired on CBS's Schlitz Playhouse. Giant began shooting at the studio on May 21st, while James reamined working on Rebel. Finally on May 26th filming was completed. James and Nick were the last to leave the set "Never has any acting job taken so much out of me. I put everything I had into that one, and I'm pleased with the general result. Any writer, musician, painter or actor will tell you that when they look back on their work they know it could be improved. But in the end you have to say okay, that's it, it's finished-it stands or falls as it is. I now regard Natalie, Nick and Sal as co-workers;I regard them as friends...about the only friends I have in this town. And I hope we all work together again soon." Sal Mineo would be the only one to share a movie with Dean again. Mineo has a extremely small part in Giant though he never shares any screen time with James. " It was an incredible experience. Something happened during the making of Rebel for everybody. It wasn't just making a movie. It was as close to a spiritual experience as you can get. And Jimmy was the focus, the centre of it all.It all happened because of him." -Sal Mineo- During this time James began dating 19 year old actress Ursula Andress. It was a volatile, futile relationship. On May 28th and 29th, James races his speedster in Santa Barbara, California. He entered the under -1,500cc production event. He moved up to fourth place before his Porsche blew a piston. "Out on the track, I learn about people and myself. Racing is the only time I feel whole." "The odds were against his becoming a great racer. Dean was always too careful with other drivers. He didn't care about his own neck, but he wouldn't take any risks involving another driver. You can't win races that way. - Ken Miles" Finally on June 3rd James joined the cast of Giant, which had already moved to Marfa, Texas for location shots. When James arrived he was not in good spirits; he was also tired and sick. "I haven't slept for two days - no wait, three days, three nights, that's it." Soon after his arrival in Marfa, however, exhaustion gave way to exasperation. After working on the highly collaborative Rebel James was unprepared with being ignored by George Stevens. Worse, it quickly became apparent to James that his vision of the film differed from George Stevens vision. James was openly vocal about his disontent, which didn't endear him to the director or much of the cast. Part of the problem was that James hadn't previously starred in a purely Hollywood Picture. George Stevens, is in many ways the ultimate Hollywood director and his approach to Giant was to shoot every scene form virtually every angle. He was a visualist and was not an actor's director. James, on the other hand was an actor's actor, therefore conflict was inevitable. Natrually Stevens resneted James's audacity to question his vision and began to suspect that James was trying to sabotage his direction. One week into filming Stevens harshly reprimanded James before the entire Giant company. Their relationship and James's admiration for his director, never recovered from this incident. James began to be regarded by much of the cast and crew as an outcast. Elizabeth Taylor and Mercedes McCambridge went to his aid; most others kept their distance. "Stevens has been horrible. I sat there for three days, made-up and ready to work at nine o'clock every morning. By six o'clock I hadn't had a scene or a rehearsal. I sat there like a bump on a log watching that big lumpy Rock Hudson making love to Liz Taylor. I knew what Stevens was trying to do to me." Dean says. "I know I'm a much better actor than what's being done with me at the moment. I'm being inhibited, restricted, I'm not able to excercise the full capacity of my abilities." "It was really depressing to see the suffering that boy was going through. Giant was really draining him, and I hated watching it happen. - Nick Ray-"
Like Jett, James exuded contemptuous disrespect for authority. He began to ignore his call times and, frequently kept Stevens and the entire cast and crew waiting on the set. "I don't know why Stevens had it in for him so much except that Jimmy seemed to intimidate him, to cast a bad light on Stevens when they were working. But maybe Stevens was just responding to the way Jimmy rubbed some really sore spot in the man. - Dennis Hopper" During breaks in Marfa James spent much of his time with Bob Hinkle, the films' dialogue director. Hinkle taught James how to ride broncos, rope calves and execute rope tricks with the expertise of a rodeo performer. Some nights the two of them went out hunting. James also spent alot of time with Elizabeth Taylor, having many late night talks with her."We were the same age, just a year or so between us; like brother and sister really. Kidding all the time, whatever it was we were talking about. One felt he was a boy one had to take care of, but even that was probably his little joke. I don't think he needed anything or anyone - except his acting. -ElizaBeth Taylor - " James also spent time boxing, it kept him in physical shape and prepared him for his next picture, Somebody Up There Likes Me. "What a guy. One day when he was in the army, he got tired of it all and just got up - walked out - went over the hill. The army never forgave him...you've got to admire that kind of nerve." -talking about Rocky Graziano, which was to be his next part- James also spent much of his time behind the camera. He enjoyed filming his fellow co-stars and making his own small films. On July 10th most of the Giant company left Marfa by train. James stayed behind to shoot the oil sequences with the second camera unit directed by Fred Guiol. James finally left Marfa by plane on July 12th. Back on the set things between Stevens and James only worsened. James continued to be late and hold up the production. Things between the two culminated on July 23rd. When James failed to show up for his early morning call , one of Stevens assistants telephoned James at home. James answered the phone, said that he'd overslept and was tired but that he'd be right over. When hours passed and he still hadn't arrived, Stevens sent his assistant to retrieve James at his home. But there was no sight of James. In an fit of punishment to his director, James had decided to take the day off, to move into his new rented house in Sherman Oaks. "I don't even want to see the picture. That's not me, that's not where I want to go. Stevens isn't helping me mature the character of Jett Rink - not in the way the character should have matured and grown to become the character at the end of the picture that was needed" James attended a August 16th party at the Villa Capri for Frank Sinatra. On September 17th, in full Jett Rink wardrobe, James makes a 30 second commercial for National Highway Committee with Gig Young hosting."Remember drive safely, becuase the life you save might be mine." During the last few weeks of shooting Giant, James seemed to be in increasing spirits. Rebel Without A Cause was about to be released and advance word was highly favourable. His agent, Jane Deacy, was successfully negotiating his new contract at Warner Brothers, which was to increase his salary from $1,500 a week to $100,000 a picture. While James may have not been completely satisfied with Giant he already had several promising film projects lined up as well as some television work and was in the process of establishing his own production company. Several offers to return to Broadway were also coming his way, and he planned to return to New York for a year. Personally, while he had been dating Ursula Andress throught the Giant filming he was about to break it off. On September 21st, James traded in his Porsche Speedster for the Porsche Spyder 550. He already was planning to enter the October 2nd race in Salinas, California. The next day, James filmed his last scenes on GIANT. "Now it's all over and we don't have to bug each other no more. And I can go back to my motor racing." September 25th, James attended a party in his honor at Chateau Marmont. He then attended a preview of Rebel Without A Cause on September 27th. September 29th James had dinner at the Villa Capri and attended a party. He was excited about the upcoming race and seemed in good spirits. "If you're not afraid, if you take everything you are, everything worthwhile in you, and direct it at one goal, one ulitmate mark, you've got to get there. If you start accepting the world, let things happen to you, around you, things will happen like you never dreamed they'd happen. " Uncle Marcus and Aunt Ortense were visting Winton and Jimmy in California at this time. "He seemed very happy. He showed up the house he had in Shermon Oaks, the big hunting lodge kind of place with juse one room. We had dinner with him, and he visited with us at Winton's where we were staying . But we didn't stay too long, because it's a long drive back to Fairmount. He took Marcus for a ride in his Porsche. I didn't want to try it...it was so low." - Ortense Winslow - Friday September 30th, James, despite being out late the night before, woke up early. He threw on a pair of light blue slacks, a white t-shirt, a pair of shoes, a red windbreaker and a pair of sunglasses. He then loaded his Ford station wagon with clothes and other itmes he would need for the trip. He then locked up his house and headed to Competition Motors to pick up his Spyder. "I want to enter at Salinas, Willow Springs, Palm Springs, all the other places. Of course, I'll miss some of them because I have to do a TV spectacular in New York on October 18th. But maybe I can catch a race back there."
The group stopped for gas and Roth took more photos of James with his Spyder and then they were on their way once more. Back into East Of Eden country and where it had all started. The route the group was taking was the Ventura Freeway to Sepulveda Boulevard to Route 99 (which is now interstate 5)l at Castaic Junction, the group stopped at Tip's Diner before venturing back on the road. At about 3:30 pm James was stopped by a California highway patrolman for speeding (65mph in a 55mph zone); hot on his trail Roth and Hickman also received a ticket. "If you don't take it slower, you'll never reach Salinas alive."- Patrolman who gave James speeding ticket- Back on Route 99, James zipped through Bakersfield. In Wasco he got off Route 99 and onto Route 466 (now 46). At about 5:00 pm James pulled the Porsche into Blackwell's Corner, a combination gas stop/cafe then known as 'the world's largest parking lot' and located at the intersection of Route 466 and Highway 33. Inside James bought a Coke, back in the parking lot James met and talked with Lance Reventlow, the 21 year old son of heiress Barbara Hutton who was also en route to the Salinas races in a gray Mercedes. It is here that Roth took the infamous photo of James pulling on his gloves at the gas pumps beside the Spyder. "Before I can get in there and drive I've got to unlimber. I've got to be right for it." Dean continues"The Studio says I'm going to kill myself, can you figure that? What do you think? I think it's great...doing this article in Photoplay and it's got a picture of me sitting on the speedster and it says, 'The studio says this crazy kid's gonna kill himself." Back in the Porsche and back on the road, James looked ahead and liked what he saw; a large and looming sunset and naked stretch of highway that darted in and out of the California hills. For James this is what it was all about. "I never saw Jimmy as happy. He was singing and whistling and never stopped talking about the things he was going to do with that new car.". James may have had a passenger beside him, but for the moment it was just him,the wind ripping through his hair and at his face. "The only thought on Jimmy's mind was winning that race. There was no doubt of that; that's all he talked about." -Rolf Wutherich- Then, suddenly, from over a hill and seemingly out of nowhere, a black-topped, white-hooded Ford sedan came lumbering toward him. The driver of the Ford, 23 year old Donald Turnuoseed, was returning home to Fresno for the weekend. It was after 5:30pm closer to 6:00. At the intersection of US 466 and Highway 41 Turnupseed proceeded to make what became a fatal left turn into history. Then, at the last second, he finally spotted the oncoming sports car and attempted to straighten out. James made a desperate swerve to the right and fulfilled a date with destiny, the reverberations of which are still, over 49 years later, being felt all over the world. The two cars collided. It wasn't a fair fight. The Ford mauled the tiny Porsche Spyder, which crumpled like a wad of paper. The Porsche didn't flip or spin or explode. It merely hobbled ahead into a ditch. As for James Dean, the impact had thrown his head back, snapping his neck. His body had been tossed across to the right side of the car and lay slumped over the passenger door. His foot, however, was pinned in the wreckage, twisted around the clutch and brake. He was dying. Rolf Wutherich had been thrown from the Porsche and was sprawled out on the highway, seriously injured. Donald Turnuspeed suffered only cuts and bruises and stumbled about the scene in a state of shock. Eyewitnesses, ambulance attendents, highway patrolmen and Bill Hickman and Sanford Roth arrived promptly. Hickman cradled James' head in his arms, Roth took photographs, not because he wanted to exploit the situation but because it all he knew to do. James's body was released from the wreckage and raced via ambulance to the emergency room of the Paslo Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. According to medical evidence he died in the ambulance without ever regaining consciousness. A few minutes after the ambulance left the scene two police patrol cars arrived to start compiling an accident report. They had received their message over the police radio at 5:59, notification probably coming from the ambulance station at Cholame, a mile or so east of the intersection whhere the accident occured. It was estimated that around five minutes elapsed between the moment of the accident and the call for an ambulance, the time it took for some passing motorist to reach the nearest telephone. Another five to seven minutes passed before James was extracted from the wreck. Who knows what the outcome of the accident would have been if emergency crews had arrived sooner or if today's techonolgies and medical training had existed back in 1955. Perhaps we would have been rewarded with more of the brillance that was apparently obvious in James Dean. James Dean's body was officially identified by his fater at a morgue in Paso Robles later that same night. The news filtered through Hollywood during the evening. The cast of Giant were in the viewing room watching some rushes when the phone rang with the news of James's death. "Suddenly the phone rang and I heard George say 'No my God, when? are you sure?' and he kind of grunted a couple of times and hung up the phone. He stopped the film and turned on the lights, stood up and said to the room, 'I've just been the news that Jimmy Dean has been killed.' There was an intake of breath. No one said anything. I couldn't believe it;none of us could. So several of us started calling newspapers, hospitals, police. The news was not general at that time. After maybe two hours it was confirmed." -Elizabeth Taylor- Elizabeth Taylor would later collapse, from shock and was taken to hospital. Natalie Wood was in New York, where she had been working on promotion for Rebel. "The night he was killed I was having dinner with a lot of his friends - Sal Mineo, Nick Adams, Dick Davalos. We were talking about Jimmy's lifestyle and Nick ventured the opinion that Jimmy wouldn't live to thirty. We pooh-poohed the idea. But he said Jimmy was attracted to a lot of dangerous sports, motor racing, motor bikes, bullfighting, rodeos. Later when we finished eating Nick and Sal walked me to my hotel. I was still under age then, with a studio chaperone; and it was she who heard the news. She told Nick and Sal and asked them not to say anything to me because I had an early call next day and she wanted me to sleep. Next morning the chaperone had to tell me, because down in the lobby the newspapers had it on headlines. I didn't believe it. I think I stood at the window staring out for a long time." -Natalie Wood- James's body was flown to Indiana on the tuesday after the accident, October 4th. He was buried back home in Fairmount on the following saturday October 8th. The funeral service was held in the Friends Back Creek Church, the congregation inside and outside the curch far outnumbering the populaltion of the small town. Henry Ginsberg (producer on Giant), Steve Brooks (Warner Brothers) and Stewart Stern (script writer on Rebel) were the only three representatives from Hollywood. The service was taken by the Pastor Xen Harvey and by Dean's old friend the methodist minister, Rev James De Weere who flew in specially from a previous commitment in Cincinatti. Xen Harvey concluded the eulogy with these words: "The career of James Dean has not ended. It has just begun. And God Himself is directing the production." On October 11th the Coroner's inquest into the accident was held in San Luis Obispo. The witnesses who testified were Donald Turnuspeed, Paul Moreno, Ernie Tripke, Tom Fredrick, O.V.Hunter, Clifford Hord, Ron Nelson and Don Dooley. James passenger in the Porshce Rolf Wutherich had previously given his deposition at the hospital. The deposition of Dr. Robert Bossert was also admitted as evidence. Also present were Turnupseed's parents; his attorney, Peter Andre; the district attorney, Herbert Grundell; the assistant districk attorney, Harry Murphy; the coroner, Paul Merrick; and the court reporter Judith Rooney. After hearing all the testimony, the 12 jurors deliberated for 20 minutes before they issued their verdict. "We find the deceased was named James Dean and that he came to his death on the 30th day of September 1955 at Cholame in the County of San Luis Obispo, State of California by injuries received in an accident at the intersection of highways 41 and 466, according to the evidence presented, in a two car collision. We find no indication that James Dean met death through any criminal act of another, and that he died of a fractured neck and other injuries received." The consensus of the jury seemed to be that James Dean had been speeding, and that, added to other circumstances such as the make and color of his car (low-slung and silver) the time of day (sunset), etc, was the probable cause of the accident. No charges were pressed. "Death. It's the only thing left to respect. It's the only one immutable, undeniable truth. Everything else can be questioned. But death is truth. In it lies the only nobility for man, and beyond it the only hope."
February 18th 1956, James was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Actor category for East Of Eden. This would be the first time a posthumous nomination in the Best Actor category would happen in the Oscars history. The actors he was up against were, Ernest Borgnine, James Cagney, Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy, which was pretty good company to be in. Also competing at that years Oscars was several nominations for Rebel Without A Cause, including Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. The winners were announced on March 21,1956 at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Jerry Lewis was the host. Hedda Hopper launched a campaign to force the academy to present James with a special, honorary Oscar. "I wonder if members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will give him the Oscar as the Best Actor of the year. Knowing how fickle some of out people are, I'm asking the committee of the Academy to grant a special award in memory of one of the most sensitive, talented boys it's ever been my privilege to know." -Hedda Hopper The Academy, however, pointed at its rule book, which dictated that nominees were not allowed to win honorary awards. The only honorary award presented that year was for Samurai, The Legend of Musashi a Japanese picture deemed the year's Best Foreign Language Film (this was before the academy had established a seperate category for foreign films). Ernest Borgnine took home the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the film Marty. In 1957 James was again considered a candidate for his work in Giant. There was, however, some debate as to whether his work should have been designated in the Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor category. Actually his work in Giant was a supporting performance. But because he received star billing, and because Warner Brothers was dertermined to make the most of his posthumous popularity, he was put into the Best Actor category. When nominations were announed on February 18th 1957, they included: Yul Brynner, Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson and Laurence Olivier. This time James didn't have a chance. The competition was between Yul Brynner and Kirk Douglas. Further, there wasn't much excitement over his nomination, although Hedda Hopper once again continued her campaign to coerce the academy into presenting him an honorary Oscar. Yul Brynner won the Best actor oscar and had James been nominated in the Best Supporting category he would have surely had his Oscar. Giant premiered in New York on October 17th 1956 and then opened nationally to the public on November 24th. Robert Altman's documentary, The James Dean Story premiered in Indiana on August 13th 1957. "You could feel the loneliness beating out of him, and it hit you like a wave. You can forgive a lot of things for talent and Jimmy was bursting with it. -Mercedes McCambridge-." "You've got to live fast, death comes early -James Dean-" "In those final days racing was what he cared about most, I had been teaching him things like how to put a car in a four wheel drift, but he had plenty of skill of his own. If he had lived he might have become a champion driver. We had a running joke. I'd call him 'Little Bastard' and he'd call me 'Big Bastard' I never stop thinking of those memories. -Bill Hickman-" Natalie Wood "I think he loved life. I think he may have grabbed to strongly at life, but I don't think he had a death wish. " "He gave off a feeling that is inexplicable. James' popularity went deep into you. And that is what is frightening, and that's why people were saying he's running around on these motorcycles trying to kill himself. Other people have said to me he's wanting to kill himself, it's what he's after with the racing, why he's racing, but funny...I never thought so at first.- Eartha Kitt -" "I'm a serious minded, intense little devil, terribly gauche and so tense I don't see how people stay in the same room as me. I know I wouldn't tolerate myself. The trouble with me is that I'm just dog tired. Everybody hates me and thinks I'm a heel. They say I've gone Hollywood, but honestly I'm just the same as when I didn't have a dime. I'm tired. I went into Giant immediately after a long hard schedule in Rebel. Maybe I'd just better go away. " | ||||||||
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