Rebel Without A Cause

During the mid 80's while abroad I came across a group of teens crowded around a stall which sold T-shirs and Audio Cassettes, out of curiousity i stopped by to look around and saw these kids grabbing in twos and three's T's with a black and white pic of a guy in rugged jeans and a sexy smirk...he looked like a model out of a Marlboro Ad. Some wore them over the T's they were already wearing...I wondered what that was all about...but there was something about this guy...and i wondered whether he was a rock star...too embarrassed to ask, i asked the man how much it cost...you wouldnt beleive it...i went home with a "T" for which i paid 3$!! and I didnt even know who this guy was! Next day afternoon I was in this bookshop, when this old guy at the desk pointed at ma "T" and said... "Whoah, fan of him? great guy!" when asked who he was, came the reply..."James Dean". I returned home with a poster of him and had it in ma room throughout my teenage. He was my first teen crush (till then my crush was Tom from the famed, "Tom and Jerry").

Even now after watching the De Niroes, Al Pacino's...none of them can beat James Dean for me...It was years after that i went to see this old martinee "Rebel without a cause" with a boy friend, while studying abroad. The man, moving and acting was totally a different person from the one i saw on posters and T-shirts. I was totally awed by this man and his charm..my facination for him began. recently I came across this old movie reviews on TV and caught a couple of snaps of him and I just had to write about him. You have to see his movies to know him. :D

James Dean and Elvis were the spokesmen for an entire generation. There was a saying that if Marlon Brando changed the way people acted, then James Dean changed the way people lived. He was the greatest actor who ever lived. He was simply a genius. He was spectacularly talented, handsome in a fragile sort of way and absolutely outrageous. He was an original. Impish, compelling, magnetic, utterly winning one moment, obnoxious the next. It was said that, James studied German so that he can fight with [girlfriend] Ursula Andress in two languages!! :D When told he was too short to be an actor, He was heard saying, "How can you measure acting in inches?!?" (James Dean's actual height was 5'8!) :0 and I'm 5'11!!

A few weeks before the group recorded its first hit record, "LOVE ME DO," in 1962, fifth member Stuart Sutcliffe died at the age of 21. Years later, John Lennon is quoted as saying: "[Stuart Sutcliffe] was really our leader, and he was really into the James Dean thing. He idolized him. Stuart died young before we made the big time, but I suppose you could say that without James Dean, The Beatles would have never existed." (I got this information from the net, to think that many Beatles fans or James Dean fans did'nt know about this!)

He was the resteless, searching rebel in all of us. And after half a century, he still burns bright in the hearts of millions. In the 4 decades since his death, The James Dean phenomenon has been characterized by an unprecedented level of fan devotion. Over the span of 18 months, and 3 motion pictures, James Dean was able to change the way we think about films, and more importantly, ourselves.

September 17th: Dean makes 30-second commercial for the National Highway Safety Committee with actor Gig Young. He signs off with: "Take it easy driving. The life you might save might be mine." On September 30, He was on his way to a car race, and his Porche collided with a Ford and died within minutes. :(

Released just weeks after his death, Rebel Without A Cause, etched Jim Starks personality onto our memory of James Dean. Dean's name has become synonymous with the brooding teen torn apart by violence and his out-of-touch parents.
On June, 24 1996, US postal Service honored Dean with a stamp in the legends of hollywood series.

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."- James Dean