Rebel Without Applause

© Jonathan Pinnock, 2005

"Jeez! He's still alive?" remarked one of my colleagues when I told them who I was interviewing. And it's true that as far as most of the world's concerned, the septuagenarian sitting in front of me might as well be dead. Truly, James Byron Dean - or "Jim" as he likes to be called these days - is the forgotten man of American cinema. It wasn't always thus: a brief glance in the index of Halliwell reveals that he actually starred in upwards of two dozen films in a career spanning several decades. But, then again, who really remembers "Honey, I'm a Zombie!", "Monkey Pie" or "A Weekend with Uncle Spume"?

To be frank, it's only his first few early films that command respect. It's films like "East of Eden", "Rebel Without a Cause", "Giant" and "Sayonara" that Jim Dean should be remembered for, not the terrible C movies that he was forced to do in later years to pay the bills. In fact, this month sees a lavish DVD re-release of "Rebel Without a Cause", and that's why I'm sitting here in Jim's clapboard bungalow in Marion, Indiana, trying to follow all the twists and turns of what is, by any stretch of the imagination, an extraordinary life.

Jim's front room is tiny, littered with empty bottles and odd bits of memorabilia. He seems almost embarrassed by the state of the place, and at first he's reluctant to talk at all. There's a guitar leaning against the side of my chair, and I remark to him that I didn't realise that he played. He shakes his head.

"Nah, that's one of Charles'. Charles Holley, that is. We were big buddies back in the early sixties."

Must be worth a few dollars, I say. He shrugs. So when did you first meet him?

"Well, we were filming in Iowa in - when was it? - must have been early '59. What was the film? Snow something?"

"Snowblind?"

"Yeah, that was it, 'Snowblind'. Jeez, it was cold. I remember the cameras kept freezing up. Anyway, Charles was performing with some other guys nearby in Clear Lake, and he heard we were filming, so they all stayed the night and came over to meet us the next day. Charles ended up with a cameo role as a farmhand, I seem to remember. Terrible actor, mind you Ð couldn't see a thing without his glasses. Thing was, they were all enjoying themselves so much that they completely forgot they had another date to get to that night. Believe me, there was hell to pay about that, I can tell you."

Wasn't he known as Buddy in those days?

"Yeah, that's right. Used to like the sort of stuff he did a lot. Can't say I managed to follow what he did with his music after that. Y'know, all the psychedelic stuff, and the collaborations with that German guy..."

Stockhausen?

"Yeah, that's the one. Sometimes wish he'd go back to the stuff he used to do with the Crickets, don't you? Tell you what, though, there used to be a great English tribute band who did their stuff to a tee. Called themselves - what was it? - the Beetles?"

I say that I've never heard of them. I notice that Jim seems more eager to talk about other people than he does about himself. Maybe it's modesty, or maybe it's just a sense that he frittered away a major talent somewhere along the line.

"During the 'Snowblind' shoot, my nickname was 'Snowblind drunk'," he remarks, ruefully. "You can't imagine the pressure I was under. I was still 28, and I'd worked non-stop since I was 21. I was burning out fast. I managed to hold out for a few more years, but, man, the quality of my work was heading due south."

In the end, of course, it wasn't the drink but the driving that first brought his career to a halt. Jim had always been obsessed with speed, and by the mid-sixties he had built up an impressive collection of high-performance sports cars, which - when he wasn't racing them - he used to drive around the freeways of the USA with little or no regard for his personal safety or, indeed, that of anyone who happened to cross his path. One day, you're going to kill someone, they used to say. Sure enough, on April 3rd, 1968, at a junction near Memphis, Tennessee, he jumped a red light and crashed into the side of a pickup truck. Dean was thrown clear and escaped with two broken legs and the loss of an eye. However, the driver of the pickup, a small-time criminal called James Earl Ray, was less fortunate, and he died three days later of his injuries, without recovering consciousness.

"And that was the end of my career as a matinee idol," quips Dean, ruefully, gently stroking the scar across his right eye. He shakes his head sadly.

In the wake of the accident, the seventies were Dean's lost decade, when he all but vanished altogether. In fact, it wasn't until 1980, at the start of President King's second term in office, that he accepted the role of a UN Goodwill Ambassador, working in Africa during the heady days of the Jackson Plan.

"They were probably the happiest times of my life," says Dean. "Working with Martin and Jesse and people like Biko and Mandela - well, they were an inspiration. What those guys have done to turn Africa around is nothing short of a miracle. Let's face it: at the start of '77, they still had apartheid in South Africa!"

For a moment, his eyes light up at the memory. However, like so many things in Dean's career, the UN job didn't last. Two years in, he couldn't resist taking time off for the Paris - Dakar rally, during the course of which he very nearly lost his life in another accident near the border between Mali and Algeria. He was only saved by the apparently heroic intervention of the son of the British Prime Minister, although the incident is still the subject of some controversy.

"Pah! I saved that schmuck's life," comments Dean. "The idiot was completely lost until he came across me. I would've survived without him."

Whatever the truth of the matter, Dean was invalided home again, and then began the long spiral into drink, drugs and terrible films that blighted his later years. Mark Thatcher, of course, came home to a hero's welcome, bagged a safe Tory seat in parliament, and became the first son ever to follow his mother into No 10 Downing Street.

"Well, I guess he made good, didn't he?" remarks Dean, caustically.

There's one question I still have to ask him before I go. Does he still see Marilyn?

He snorts, and shakes his head. "Does anyone see Marilyn these days?"

But surely she's gone on record to say that you saved her life? If you hadn't been there for her, she claims that she would have killed herself.

"Hah!" Dean smiles wistfully. "Well, it was a pretty terrible film we were working on together."

That would have been the Macbeth musical? "Darned Spot"?

"Yep, that's the one," he replies, laughing at the memory. "My idea, I'm afraid. I wanted to do something different, and I was still pretty bankable at the time. But Marilyn?" He pauses. "I was nothing to her. Remember - she was five years older than me. I was just her - whatdyacallit? - her toyboy. Anyway," he sighs, "It was all a long long time ago, and I'm just a tired old guy now."

Before I go, I ask him what he thinks his legacy is. He shrugs, then gives a typically modest reply.

"Maybe I made one or two films that somehow touched people. Maybe I didn't. Maybe I did some useful work in Africa. Maybe I didn't. Apart from that, well, Jim Dean might as well not have existed, my friend, for all the effect I've had on this world."

(1340 words)