James Dean

by Darwin Porter

  For a while, he lived with Winton, who, upon his arrival in California, greeted him rather coldly at the door. Ethel, his stepmother, wasn’t at all welcoming. Winton had married Ethel Case in 1945, right after his discharge from the military.

  Jimmy and Ethel took an instant dislike to each other.

  Even though he tried to get close to Winton, he never could. The years had made his father even more distant than before. When Jimmy confided that he wanted to become an actor, Winton dismissed the dream, defining all actors as “faggots. At least you’ll get your cock sucked frequently if you go into the movie racket. That’s how handsome young actors break into the business, or so I heard.”

  During his stay with Winton and Ethel, Jimmy enrolled in the nearby Santa Monica City College, a two-year junior college. But he wasn’t happy there, and didn’t fit in.

  When he transferred to the campus at UCLA, he moved out of Winton’s house and found lodging at the Sigma Nu fraternity residence, where he was a pledge. After a few weeks, he was kicked out.

  He would never return to Winton’s home, and his father never welcomed him back. Jimmy grew increasingly uncomfortable during his infrequent reunions, which usually lasted less than an hour.

  When he played his roles in East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, he claimed, “I’ve lived these parts. I know about father-son alienation.”

  Fixed Bayonets

  JIMMY MAKES AN INGLORIOUS MOVIE DEBUT “DOLING OUT DEATH TO LITTLE YELLOW MEN”

  At a chance meeting at a Hollywood cocktail party, Rogers Brackett spoke to an acquaintance, Isabelle Draesmer, an agent who booked actors into movie roles. Privately, he contemptuously referred to her as “small fry,” but she was willing to take on new, untested actors and often found bit parts for them in films.

  She had known Brackett casually for several years, and trusted his judgment, based on his far-flung experience within the film colony. He claimed, “James Dean is the hottest undiscovered male star in Hollywood.”

  “It sounds like you’re in love with him,” she said with a smirk.

  “Perhaps I am.”

  The following day, a spruced-up Jimmy arrived at Draesmer’s modest office at 8272 Sunset Boulevard. She, too, was impressed with him, and by that afternoon, following a lunch, she signed him as a client of her agency.

  She said, “He had some hidden talent. Of that, I wasn’t sure, what it was, exactly, but it was something. I was aware that his farm boy diction, technique, and posture needed to be vastly improved. Yet I sensed he was a possible new Monty Clift, whom I’d first seen perform on the stage in New York.”

  She telephoned a photographer friend of hers, Wilson Millar, who agreed to take publicity shots of Jimmy for her to send out to casting directors.

  The next day, Jimmy arrived at Millar’s studio at 2060 North Highland Avenue, where, as he later claimed to Brackett, “I got the once over of my life. I didn’t strip for him, but I felt he has X-ray vision.”

  “Dean was a handsome boy,” Millar later said. “Not your typical Hollywood pretty boy of the ‘50s. In profile, he looked better. Full frontal, he was just another good-looking kid, of which there were thousands hounding casting offices. Frankly, I thought his eyes were too close together. He was nearsighted and tended to squint.”

  “I thought he might find a minor role or two as a juvenile. His mouth intrigued me, as he had perfect lips. I asked him what kind of movie star he’d like to be. He surprised me when he claimed he wanted to be turned into a male Marilyn Monroe. Later, I heard he’d used that line on others. To say it again, his sex appeal definitely stemmed for the movement of that succulent mouth.”

  Draesemer went to work “hustling Rogers’ boyfriend,” as she phrased it. Within a week, she managed to land him a very small part in Fixed Bayonets!, a 1951 war drama directed by Samuel Fuller for 20th Century Fox. Coincidentally, Fuller was a friend of Brackett’s.

  The movie was set during the first brutal winter of the Korean War (1950-1953), just after that country’s invasion by Red China. The grimy tale involved the fate of a lone forty-eight man platoon. The picture starred Richard Basehart and Gene Evans.

  Jimmy avoided the actual draft, but ended up as a foot soldier on screen in Fixed Bayonets! His helmeted face appeared for about a minute.

  Cast in the uncredited role of “Doggie,” a sentry, Jimmy appears only briefly, near the end of the film. His brief role was later whacked a bit, but he still made the final cut. In the original sequence, he runs up to Lieutenant Gibbs (Craig Hill) and squats beside him. “Lieutenant,” he says. “I think I hear them coming. Could it be the rear guard, huh?” He then cocked his rifle.

  Many sources claim that Jimmy‘s appearance was completely cut, and it’s true that many movies were later edited (i.e., “shortened”) for release on television. Jimmy may not have been recognizable, since the film was shot at night, his face was blackened, and he wore a helmet.

  After his scenes were filmed and completed, through the interventions of Brackett, who used his link to Fuller, Jimmy lingered on the set for three extra days with the hope that the director might need him in another scene.

  When Brackett came on set to visit him, he introduced Jimmy to the film’s star, Richard Basehart, who agreed to accompany them to lunch in the studio’s commissary. Basehart had been cast as the sensitive Corporal Denno, who had an innate aversion for taking responsibility for the lives of his men. His character says, “I can take an order, but I can’t give one.”

  Previously, Basehart had starred with Valentina Cortese in The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) and had married her. He told Jimmy and Brackett that he and his new wife wanted to play the leads in an upcoming production of Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending.

  “I’m willing to take off my boxer shorts for Tennessee if he’ll give us the roles. Valentina claims I have Grade A government-inspected meat.”

  Jimmy was surprised at the actor’s frankness, and suspected that perhaps he was joking. Later, Jimmy would learn that many actors often spoke that provocatively during unguarded moments.

  After lunch, Brackett brought Jimmy over to meet Fuller, who was a cult director, hoping he might have a future role for his protégé. After they chatted a bit, Jules Buck, an influential producer, arrived on the scene. He, too, was introduced to both Brackett and Jimmy.

  Among other achievements, Buck had been the cameraman for John Huston, shooting film for some of Huston’s wartime documentaries, including The Battle of San Pietro (1944).

  But instead of focusing on Jimmy, Buck told them that he had opted to relocate to Paris. In time, he would launch his own film production enterprise, Keep Films, in England with his “exciting new star,” Peter O’Toole. Eventually, Keep Films turned out entertainment that included O’Toole performing in Becket (1964), Lord Jim (1965), and Woody Allen’s What’s New, Pussycat? (also 1965).

  For his movie debut, Jimmy was paid $44. The check was sent to Draesemer, who deducted her ten percent. He later told friends, “I played Doggie, doling out death to little yellow men.”

  When the movie was released, the cantankerous critic, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, wrote: Fixed Bayonets! was a tribute to the U.S. Infantry, but it is something less than inspired.”

  During his first dinner with Draesmer, Jimmy told her he’d had to face two hard choices. “I wanted to do what was best for my career. I could marry Joan Davis’ daughter (Beverly Wills), or I could move in with Rogers, our chicken hawk. Joan hated me, and Beverly could do nothing for me. But Rogers is a producer, if only a minor one, but he knows everyone who’s ever farted in Tinseltown.”

  “But with Rogers, it’ll be a sing-for-your supper deal,” Draesmer said.

  “I can keep him at bay if he comes at me with his tongue hanging out,” he said. “Besides, there’s a second bedroom.”

  Let’s be honest with each other,” she said. “I’ve been to his apartment for a party. There’s only one bedroom with a double bed.”<
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  “So be it,” he answered. “Let’s change the subject. That wasn’t much of a part in Fixed Bayonets!. What juicy part have you got in store for me next?”

  His agent later recalled, “No one ever denied that Jimmy was anything but an opportunist. In that regard, he had something in common with a female star, Marilyn Monroe. I predicted those two would eventually make movies together and create box office magic. What a pair! Alas, their candles gave off a magic glow that would not last the night.”

  ***

  Jimmy’s next role was not for the big screen, but for what was called at the time “the little black box”: Television.

  Draesemer sent him over to meet with Frank Woodruff, the writer, director, and producer of a TV drama for the Bigelow Theater Series. He spent only ten minutes with Jimmy before casting him in an uncredited role for which he would be paid $45 for a day’s work.

  The drama was entitled T.K.O. (Technical Knock Out), scheduled for release in the autumn of 1951.

  Its plot focused on a teenage boy, played by Martin Milner, a young actor who would go on to greater fame thanks to his pivotal role in the hit TV series, Route 66. In T.K.O., he portrayed a boxer fixated on paying for an expensive operation his father desperately needed.

  Hanging out on the set, Jimmy talked with Milner. He had seen him in the 1947 classic, Life With Father, a film that starred William Powell and Irene Dunne.

  Jimmy didn’t appreciate Powell or Dunne’s acting style at all, but he was intrigued by one of the film’s young co-stars, Elizabeth Taylor. He boasted to Milner, “One day I’m going to fuck that beautiful little wench.”

  Also cast was Regis Toomey, who, although he was not Jimmy’s type of actor, impressed him with a contest he had won. In 1941, when he starred in You’re In the Army Now, he scored the record for the longest screen kiss in cinematic history, an osculation that lasted three minutes and five seconds. The female object of his affection was Jane Wyman, who had recently divorced Ronald Reagan.

  Even though his role in T.K.O was minor, Jimmy alerted The Fairmount News back in Indiana that he was in the show. His family and friends tuned in. The role was so small that some TV viewers in Fairmount didn’t even notice when Jimmy appeared on the small screen.

  He never saw the completed film. By the time it aired as a TV show in Los Angeles, Jimmy had already left the city.

  Lauren Bacall

  BOGIE GETS VIOLENT WITH JIMMY

  Months after Jimmy died in 1955 and right before his own death in 1957, Bogie told his closest friend, Spencer Tracy, “Did you know I once made a movie [it was released in 1952] with that little prick, James Dean? Deadline—USA.”

  Fresh from his triumph in The African Queen (1951), with Katharine Hepburn, Bogie signed for the story of a crusading newspaper editor. Deadline—U.S.A. had been written by Richard Brooks, who was also the director, and set for release by 20th Century Fox. Brooks hired Jimmy for a bit part.

  Bogie’s leading lady in the film—hardly anyone’s romantic interest—was Ethel Barrymore, the grande dame of the American theater. Bogie had once starred with her brother, Lionel Barrymore, in Key Largo (1948).

  Jimmy followed his bit part in Fixed Bayonets! with an even smaller role in Deadline—U.S.A. Others in the cast, each a well-known name, included Kim Hunter, Ed Begley, Martin Gable, Paul Stewart, and Jim Backus, who would later play Jimmy’s father in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

  Jimmy had a nonspeaking role, appearing only briefly in a scene set in a busy press room as one of the newspaper workers. The scene was filmed in the press room of the New York Daily News. Deadline—U.S.A. has since been praised as one of the best films about the newspaper industry ever made.

  Some sources claim that Jimmy never appeared in Deadline. However, when Fox digitalized and re-released the picture, its promoters hired Humphrey Bogart’s biographer, Darwin Porter, the co-author of this book, to narrate the behind-the-scenes events of the film as an added bonus included on the CD. Porter specifically points out the footage within the film devoted to pre-fame Jimmy, whose face was immediately recognizable.

  Humphrey Bogart with Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not, the film that made them famous as a screen team. Their subsequent marriage would not be as idyllic as their onscreen romance.

  Jimmy was never formally introduced to Bogie on the set, and he was awe struck by the veteran actor, secretly admiring his talent and envying his great fame. He closely observed Bogie from a distance. Jimmy’s custom of hanging out on a movie set after the completion of his brief footage had by now become a tradition.

  He was there the afternoon that Bogie lashed out at Brooks. Bogie had just learned than upon orders from Darryl F. Zanuck, Brooks had first offered his role as a crusading newspaper editor to Richard Widmark, who had rejected it. Then, Brooks offered the part to Gregory Peck, who had also rejected it.

  “Here I am, a fucking Oscar winner, and I’m given sloppy seconds,” Bogie shouted before storming off the set.

  After his departure, Jimmy overheard Brooks talking to Ed Begley and Martin Gabel.

  According to Brooks, as transmitted through Begley, “Deadline probably marks the beginning of the end for Bogie. He looks like shit. He’s not the same man we loved. He’s arrogant and grumpy, and he shows up without knowing his lines. He’s very sarcastic to other actors, all except to Miss Barrymore, whom he treats with the respect she deserves.”

  It wasn’t until months later that Jimmy was actually introduced to Bogie. Their first “official” encounter was both explosive and disastrous.

  On the set of East of Eden, Merv Griffin arrived at around noon for a reunion with Jimmy, whom he had always been attracted to ever since they’d lived in adjoining apartments at the seedy Commodore Arms Hotel in Los Angeles. After Jimmy’s patron, Rogers Brackett, was transferred to Chicago, Jimmy moved in with Nick Adams, a fellow actor dreaming of stardom but down on his luck. Brackett left Jimmy no money, and Nick was out of work, so Nick suggested that both of them turn to hustling.

  As a gay young man himself, although with more money than either Jimmy or Nick, Griffin was “a buyer in the meat market,” as Jimmy rather crudely described it. “Flash a twenty-dollar bill at either Nick or me, and we get a hardon.”

  Griffin, on the set of East of Eden, was hoping for some repeat action, but he quickly found that Jimmy was no longer in a position where he needed to hustle. Playing the lead in East of Eden, Jimmy, by then, had already—after a long struggle—achieved stardom.

  Merv Griffin in 1945 as a sports announcer and radio personality

  Griffin sat with Jimmy for about fifteen minutes, gossiping and smoking during the lunch break.

  Looking up, Griffith spotted two figures approaching them. One was Bogart, the other Solly Biano, head of casting at Warner Brothers. Under his breath, Griffith whispered, “I hope Solly does more for your movie career than he did for mine.”

  Ignoring Griffin, Solly introduced Bogie to Warners’ rising young star, although Jimmy avoided making eye contact with Bogie. Solly had thought that Bogie and Jimmy might hit if off because both of them were graduates of the “I Don’t Give a Fuck” school of acting.

  During part of his time on the set that morning, Bogie had stood on the sidelines, concealing himself and watching Jimmy perform in a scene.

  “I hear you’re the hot new rebel of Hollywood,” Bogie said. “I remember when they said the same thing about me. Welcome to the Rebel Club.”

  Jimmy took the extended hand of the screen legend, still refusing to make eye contact.

  Bogie complimented him on his technique, but Jimmy continued to stare at his feet, still not speaking.

  “They tell me you’re great, kid,” Bogie said to him.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said. “So they say, whoever the fuck they are. As if I give a god damn rooster’s asshole what people think of me.”

  That was too much for Bogie. He grabbed Jimmy by the lapels of his jacket and yanked him around. “Look me in th
e eye, you little cocksucker! When I talk to you, show me some respect. You’re just another stupid punk with skid marks on your underwear. Another Brando clone. Just what Hollywood doesn’t need. In two fucking years from now, you’ll be gone and forgotten.” He shoved Jimmy back, nearly knocking him down.

  Looking perplexed, Griffin stood with Solly as Bogie stormed off the set.

  Jimmy watched him go, with contempt on his face, even though he had always admired Bogie. Perhaps it had all been an act on his part to conceal his idol worship. “I never saw Casablanca, and I never intend to.” Actually, he’d seen the film three times, and it had always been his favorite.

  “I hear that Mr. Bogart plays a queer who ends up with Claude Rains in the final reel, not Ingrid Bergman.”

  Then Jimmy turned and walked away. Griffin would never see him again. But Jimmy would suffer through two more unfortunate encounters with Bogie.

  ***

  [When stardom came, Jimmy no longer patronized his former hangout, Googies and instead, became a client of the chic Villa Capri, where the stars dined. One evening, he arrived at the restaurant accompanied by Lili Kardell, a nineteen-year-old Swedish actress.

  Sitting two tables away were Bogie and Frank Sinatra with three male companions. To razz Jimmy, Sinatra called the waiter over and ordered him to deliver milk and crackers to “Baby Jimmy.”

  Bogie quickly scribbled a note: “Dear Punk, next time try combing your hair with an actual comb, not a dishrag!”

  Jimmy would have a final run-in with Bogie, one even more violent than first introduction.]

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