James Dean In His Own Words

Combines a collection of photographs of the brilliant young actor working on and off the movie set with his own views of his life and ambitions.

In the decades following his death, many of those who knew James Dean best––actors, directors, friends, lovers (both men and women), photographers, and Hollywood columnists––shared stories of their first-person experiences with him in interviews and in the articles and autobiographies they wrote. Their recollections of Dean became lost in fragile back issues of movie magazines and newspapers and in out-of-print books that are extremely hard to find. Until now. The Real James Dean is the first book of its kind: a rich collection spanning six decades of writing in which many of the people whose lives were touched by Dean recall their indelible experiences with him in their own words. Here are the memorable personal accounts of Dean from his high school and college drama teachers; the girl he almost married; costars like Rock Hudson, Natalie Wood, Jim Backus, and Raymond Massey; directors Elia Kazan, Nicholas Ray, and George Stevens; entertainer Eartha Kitt; gossip queen Hedda Hopper; the passenger who accompanied Dean on his final, fatal road trip; and a host of his other friends and colleagues.

There have been many books written on the Hollywood legend, James Dean, but never before have we had a chance to hear from the real Jimmy Dean. Now, for the first time, Dean speaks in his own words as he is channeled through Patricia A. Leone, a long-time admirer of the motion picture star and metaphysical practitioner. James Dean/ The Lost Memoirs is an incredibly realistic look into Dean's life, transporting the reader to another place and time. As you read each entry in his journal you become closer than ever before to the man behind the legend. Five decades ago this farm boy took the world by storm, and the fascination with Dean continues to this very day. Now, through this book, we are privy not only to this legendary actor's own words, but also his own most private and innermost thoughts. He writes with intensity about his insecurity concerning acting, his stormy relationship with Pier Angeli, his broken heart over the death of his mother, his constant flirtation with death, and encounters with Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe, Shelly Winters, Rock Hudson, Martin Landau, Elizabeth Taylor and Sal Mineo. He also divulges intimate details about others who had the opportunity to be called his friends. The author, in a remarkable series of channeled sessions with Dean that were conducted over the course of several months, was able to break through to the other side and give Dean this opportunity on the 50th anniversary of his death to share with us his own epilogue to his life. It is the real and intimate side of Jimmy Dean, one that has never been presented to the public before. This remarkable book is must reading for Dean fans. It is written in journal form just as the star, himself, might have written it, and it includes his thoughts, memories, and and opinions beginning with the death of his mother at age nine until the day just before his fatal automobile accident on September 30, 1955.

This is the book that restarted the James Dean cult by celebrating him as the cool, defiant visionary of pop culture who made adolescence seem heroic instead of awkward and who defined the style of rock ’n’ roll’s politics of delinquency. The only book to fully show how deliberately and carefully Dean crafted his own image and performances, and the product of still unequalled research, vivid writing, intimate photographs, and profound meditation, James Dean: The Mutant King has become almost as legendary as its subject.

With extensive research, this account of the Hollywood star and his legion of fans offers “the best narrative yet of Dean’s final ten hours” (San Francisco Examiner). Just before sunset on September 20, 1955, James Byron Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder collided with Donald Gene Turnupseed’s Ford Tudor on California Highway 46. At age twenty-four, America’s newest screen idol was dead. But what really happened? Drawing on original documents, including the coroner’s inquest and other previously unpublished material, author Warren Newton Beath provides a painstakingly accurate reconstruction of Dean’s final hours and tragic death. In addition, Beath explores Dean’s life and his enduring status as a cultural icon, including Elvis Presley’s worship of him; Hitchcock’s use of Highway 46 in the famous crop-dusting scene in North by Northwest; death threats against Giant director George Stevens if he dared excise a single frame of Deans’ final performance; and many more fascinating facts about the enigmatic screen legend. Beath’s definitive account concludes with a memorable portrait of the James Dean cult, a strangely moving record of his posthumous life in the hearts of his adoring fans.