James Dean

We all have favorite actors but one in particular made a very great
impression on me, and that was James Dean. In him I saw someone who
worked at his craft and had the guts and courage to stay true to
himself and not take crap from anyone. His favorite book, THE LITTLE
PRINCE, by Antoine de Saint Exupery, became one of mine, and as he did
I gave copies to special friends who would understand and appreciate
it. When I was a teenager my friend Doug Benson gave me a book he
found in a used bookstore, JAMES DEAN by William Bast. Bast was a good
friend of Dean, another aspiring actor in New York. They roomed
together to save costs in their early days, and this book was a tale
of their friendship. It spoke of their struggling for a toehold in the
acting business, going on auditions, minor successes and major
disappointments.

Dean's character came through very clearly in the book as an inquiring
mind constantly thinking about his craft and life in general. He had
courage and charisma. He had died in a car accident years before but
came very much alive in the pages of this book. The best part of the
book for me came when Bast attended a preview of Dean's first film
EAST OF EDEN. He knew his friend was a good actor, but as he says in
the book, he was unprepared for how good he really was. His
description of how he felt after seeing the film is one of the
strongest accounts I have ever read.

We all know creative people and when they do wondrous things, we,
closest to them, are often unprepared, even surprised by their
excellence. Seeing people we at Disada have nurtured grow into their
excellence is the most satisfying aspect of this business. Many times
I have thought of Bast's description of his reaction to Dean's film
debut when seeing something someone I know do especially well.

Some years ago I went to Fairmount Indiana, James Dean's hometown, not
too far away. Reading about Dean over the years had brought the town
to life, and now I were there. I visited the gravesite, with its
much-photographed headstone, and went to the museum dedicated to his
life and career. My co-worker did not know much about Dean so as we
went through the museum I was able to tell him stories behind many of
the exhibits. The curator of the museum heard me discussing Dean with
my friend, and commented on my knowledge.

Dean made only three films, was nominated after he died for a Best
Actor Oscar for two years running, and made a deep impression with the
quality of his work, and was a true original. His acting in EAST OF
EDEN is miraculous. Under the sure direction of director Elia Kazan,
it remains one of my favorite films.With his next two pictures,
excellent as he was, he was, I think, as I put it, starting to spoil.

I always thought he would have become a first-rate director with
experience and maturing, maybe a great one rather than remain an actor
alone and a better director than an actor.

Richard Thomas says it all when he expresses his regret at “all the
great things he would have done that I'm not going to get to see.”