James Dean was born February 8th, 1931, in Marion, Indiana, to Winton and Mildred Dean. His father, a dental technician, moved the family to Los Angeles when Jimmy was five. He returned to the Midwest after his mother passed away and was raised by his aunt and uncle on their Indiana farm. After graduating from high school, he returned to California where he attended Santa Monica Junior College and UCLA. James Dean began acting with James Whitmore's acting workshop, appeared in occasional television commercials, and played several roles in films and on stage. In the winter of 1951, he took Whitmore's advice and moved to New York to pursue a serious acting career at the Actors Studio. He appeared in seven television shows, in addition to earning his living as a busboy in the theater district, before he won a small part in a Broadway play entitled 'See The Jaguar'. His appearance on Broadway in'The Immoralist' (1954) resulted in a screen test at Warner Brothers for the part of Cal Trask in the screen adaptation John Steinbeck's novel 'East Of Eden'. He returned to Hollywood in 1955 when he won the role of Jim Stark in 'Rebel Without A Cause'. He celebrated his 'Eden' success by purchasing his first Porsche and entered the Palm Springs Road Races, amongst others. James Dean had one of the most spectacularly brief careers of any screen star. In just more than a year, and in only three films (made in just over a year's time), Dean became a widely admired screen personality, a personification of the restless American youth of the mid-50s, and an embodiment of the title of one of his film' Rebel Without A Cause'. En route to compete in a race in Salinas, James Dean was killed in a highway accident on September 30th, 1955. James Dean was nominated for two Academy Awards, for his performances in 'East Of Eden ' and 'Giant'. www.jamesdean.com |
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