Crowds flock to Rebel Dean's birthplace
Up to 100,000 people, including Hollywood stars Martin Sheen and Dennis Hopper, are converging on the birthplace of James Dean today for a festival marking the 50th anniversary of the screen idol’s death.
The three-day James Dean Fest in Marion, Indiana, features outdoor screenings of East Of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause and Giant on a huge screen at the local airport.
Dean’s three films, recently digitally restored, will be shown, one each night, on a 100ft screen at the Marion Municipal Airport. A new documentary on his life, James Dean: Forever Young, will be shown before Rebel Without A Cause tonight.
The event also will include rock concerts, car shows, appearances by celebrities and tours of Dean-related sites, including Park Cemetery, where he is buried, the farm where he lived from the age of nine to 18, and Fairmount High School, where he performed in school plays.
Fans also can visit the Fairmount Historical Museum, filled with hundreds of artefacts from his life, including his baby clothes, letters he wrote, his artwork, and prized bongo and conga drums.
The nearby James Dean Gallery along Interstate 69 between Marion and Fairmount also contains what is said to be the world’s largest collection of Dean memorabilia.
Red lipstick kisses are sun-baked into James Dean’s pink granite gravestone, testifying to the enduring allure of the man who, 50 years after his death, remains a symbol of rebellious, misunderstood youth.
Frozen in time by death – forever handsome, sullen and projecting a cool nonchalance – Dean is winning new fans with his legacy of cinematic magic, sex appeal and tragedy.
His three big films have been digitally restored and were released on Tuesday as a DVD box set.
The former Indiana farm boy’s lasting appeal stems in part from the era in which he made his big, but brief, splash, said San Francisco-based film historian David Thomson.
Dean arrived on the silver screen as teenagers were searching for unorthodox heroes in the conformist Eisenhower era.
His acting style, fresh and filled with angst, was new and revealed a deep talent, Thomson said.
And by dying young – at 24 – Dean never experienced the ravages of age and weight gain like peers Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley.
“Dean is absolutely at his peak – forever. He was already immortal before most of us saw him and that’s part of the fascination,” Thomson said. “Everyone’s got their own notion of what would have happened to James Dean if he had not died.”
Dean was nine and living with his parents in California when his mother died of cancer in 1940. His father sent him to live with an aunt and uncle on their farm in Fairmount, about 50 miles north east of Indianapolis.
Dean’s cousin, 61-year-old Marcus Winslow, said the man he regarded as an older brother grew up in a loving Quaker home but was moody at times, haunted by his mother’s death. He loved working on and racing motorcycles and was artistic, with a talent for painting, sculpting and acting in high school plays.
By the time he left Fairmount, Dean was confident in his acting abilities, Winslow said.
“He wanted to reach the top of his field just a fast as he possibly could. And he did, through a lot of hard work,” said Winslow, Dean’s primary heir.
After graduating from Fairmount High School in 1949, Dean headed west to California, attending UCLA before moving to New York, where he was accepted into the prestigious Actors Studio.
He had several roles on television and on Broadway before landing his first starring film role, in East Of Eden.
“Rebel” followed and filming for Giant had just wrapped when an estate car collided with Dean’s silver Porsche Spyder near rural Cholame, California, on September 30, 1955. He died instantly and Fairmount was soon besieged by a wave of grieving fans.
They still come to the town of 3,000, which has several sites, stores and a museum dedicated to its favourite son. Businesses there flourish during an annual autumn festival that features a Dean look-alike contest and a classic car show.
But his legacy extends well beyond Indiana. Last year Forbes magazine listed the actor 15th among 22 dead celebrities who earned more than $5m (€4.07m) in 2003.
