James Dean
From RoyalWeb
(→Death) |
(→Death) |
||
| Line 57: | Line 57: | ||
Dean was driving west on U.S. Route 466 (later California State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a black-and-white 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe, driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, attempted to take the fork onto State Route 41 and crossed into Dean's lane without seeing him. The two cars hit almost head on. According to a story in the 1 Oct 2005 edition of the ''Los Angeles Times'',(Chawkins, Steve, "[http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dean1oct01,1,5288772.story Remembering a 'Giant']".) California Highway Patrol officer Ron Nelson and his partner had been finishing a coffee break in Paso Robles when they were called to the scene of the accident, where they saw a heavily-breathing Dean being placed into an ambulance. Wütherich had been thrown from the car, but survived with a broken jaw and other injuries. Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:59 p.m. His last known words, uttered right before impact, were said to have been "That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us."(Frascella, L., Weisel, A. ''Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause", p.233, New York: Touchstone, 2005) | Dean was driving west on U.S. Route 466 (later California State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a black-and-white 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe, driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, attempted to take the fork onto State Route 41 and crossed into Dean's lane without seeing him. The two cars hit almost head on. According to a story in the 1 Oct 2005 edition of the ''Los Angeles Times'',(Chawkins, Steve, "[http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dean1oct01,1,5288772.story Remembering a 'Giant']".) California Highway Patrol officer Ron Nelson and his partner had been finishing a coffee break in Paso Robles when they were called to the scene of the accident, where they saw a heavily-breathing Dean being placed into an ambulance. Wütherich had been thrown from the car, but survived with a broken jaw and other injuries. Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:59 p.m. His last known words, uttered right before impact, were said to have been "That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us."(Frascella, L., Weisel, A. ''Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause", p.233, New York: Touchstone, 2005) | ||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | + | Contrary to reports of Dean's speeding, which persisted decades after his death, Nelson said "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed was more like 55 mph (88 km/h)." Turnupseed received a gashed forehead and bruised nose and was not cited by police for the accident. Rolf Wütherich would die in a road accident in Germany in 1981 after surviving several suicide attempts. | |
| − | William Bast identifies a potentially bipolar depression in James Dean's erratic behavior and mood swings. | + | While completing ''Giant'', and to promote ''Rebel Without a Cause'', Dean filmed a short interview with actor Gig Young for an episode of ''Warner Bros. Presents''([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047786/ see here]) in which Dean, instead of saying the popular phrase "The life you save may be your own" instead ad-libbed "The lives you might save might be ''mine'' ."[sic]([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm26GYvSEzU&mode=related&search= Youtube video) Dean's sudden death prompted the studio to re-film the section, and the piece was never aired - though in the past several sources have referred to the footage, mistakenly identifying it as a public service announcement. (The segment can, however, be viewed on both the 2001 VHS and 2005 DVD editions of ''[[Rebel Without a Cause]]''). |
| + | |||
| + | William Bast identifies a potentially bipolar depression in James Dean's erratic behavior and mood swings.(William Bast, ''Surviving James Dean'', Barricade 2006, p. 301) In his description of their relationship, Dean emerges as a character very much torn apart between wanting to reach out (to Bast) and needing protection against possible rejections or wanting to hide any supposed weakness. Shortly before his death, Dean also gave away his pet kitten Marcus, saying: "I figured, I might go out some night and just never come home."(William Bast, ''Surviving James Dean'', Barricade 2006, p. 230-231) Bast also repeatedly observed Dean's heavy use of alcohol and drugs during the filming of ''Rebel Without a Cause''.(William Bast, ''Surviving James Dean'', Barricade 2006, p. 207, p.210-211) | ||
==Memorial== | ==Memorial== | ||
