~
I had seen his first film,
East of Eden, and had been fascinated with him.
Rebel Without a Cause
had not yet been released but when it was, along with every teenager in
the nation, it cemented the symbol of him as youth in rebellion!
In 1977 a film with the title of the day of Dean's death was released; it was originally titled
9/30/55, but was changed to
September 30, 1955 because the studio’s marketing department found the title confusing (WTF?). The
vinyl LP album of the soundtrack for the film uses the original title.
The film chronicles the reactions of an
Arkansas college town to the news. The plot in a nutshell: in
Conway,
Arkansas, college student Jimmy J. (
Richard Thomas) has become fixated with the actor
James Dean, on the evening of September 30, 1955, he watches the film
East of Eden for the umteenth time. The next day at football practice, he hears that Dean, has been killed in a road accident in
California
around the same time that he was viewing the film. In anguish, he runs to the local
radio station to learn the details and the story evolves (or
devolves) with strange twists and turns into tragedy and ruin (
link to complete plot below).
The cast of the film would later appear in some pretty unusual and in some cases, weird movies.
Susan Tyrrell was in
Andy Warhol's Bad,
Forbidden Zone and
Big Top Pee-wee.
Lisa Blount was in
An Officer and a Gentleman,
Radioactive Dreams and
Prince of Darkness.
Tom Hulce would appear as
Mozart in the
Miloš Forman film
Amadeus and in the 1986 film,
Echo Park, directed by
Robert Dornhelm and featured a cameo role by
Pillow, aka She-Beast (
link below).
Dennis Quaid starred in the 1984 American
dark science-fiction adventure horror film,
Dreamscape, which featured music by
Maurice Jarre and portrayed
Jerry Lee Lewis in the film
Great Balls of Fire!.
Dennis Christopher was in the 1981 film,
Chariots of Fire, which featured a score by
Vangelis.
Collin Wilcox was in the 1962 film
To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1997 film
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (
link to cast below).
There have been doubts as to whether or not Dean actually did die on that day (links below).
This has been generated by many conflicting
accounts of the incident; where and when he ate before the crash; where
the crash actually occurred; and a nurse on the scene testified that
she could detect a pulse until he
was taken in an ambulance to the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, however, he was declared dead on arrival. There are two notable discrepancies between sources. The first oddity: while most sources say the nurse was able to find a weak pulse (indicating Dean died during transport to the hospital), other sources indicated “death appeared to have been instantaneous”.
photographer unknown
Another fact called into question is whether or not Dean was speeding, an officer present at the scene of the crime claimed the position of Dean’s body and the type of wreckage present indicated James had likely been moving about fifty-five miles per hour, not the reported eighty-five miles per hour. Recently a doctor purports Dean should have survived the crash, especially since he was said to have been alive when emergency services arrived at the scene. This doctor, however, was not part of the investigation and only lends his opinion as someone with a medical degree.
The most prevalent conspiracy theory of James Dean’s death is a favorite among celebrity death conspiracies in general: the death was faked.
It wasn’t long after James Dean was buried when people began to wonder if, perhaps, the actor had faked his death to escape the spotlight. The theory resurged in 2019 on Reddit when a car crash in
Alberta,
Canada led to the death of a ninety-five-year-old man and the injury of an elderly female passenger, however, Dean would only have been eighty-seven.
Warren Beath is the author of the seminal book on the last days of James Dean, The Death of James Dean, which was published by Grove Press in 1986.
Beath was the first to extensively use public records--court files, police reports, even coroner's notes in recreating the actor's fatal crash on September 30, 1955 and the only Dean biographer to have actually met Donald Turnupseed, the driver who crashed into Dean's car (link below).
Warren Beath - The Death of James Dean
Beath
was the first to extensively use public records--court files, police
reports, even coroner's notes in recreating the actor's fatal crash on
September 30, 1955 and the only Dean biographer to have actually met
Donald Turnupseed, the driver who crashed into Dean's car (link
below).
date & photographer unknown
Another conflict in the episode: it was rumored that after the crash
Sanford Roth took photos of
Dean's shattered body. Roth had been a still photographer on
Giant and
was accompanying Dean in another car to the race in
Salinas. He was
quoted in
Life magazine as saying he did but later denied it. But
stunt driver Bill Hickman who was also on the trip told Beath he had taken such pictures.
In 2001, a film produced for television was made of the life of Dean. Entitled,
James Dean (um, Duh!),
James Franco plays the title role of Dean and does a pretty good job of it; he won the
Golden Globes award for it in 2002 (
link below). The score for the film was written by
John Frizzell. The film can be seen on YouTube (
link below) but even though it is in
English, it has subtitles in
Czech, if that doesn't bother you, it's well worth watching.
Each and every second of
East of Eden
is riveting but there are key scenes that are complete knock-outs! I've
linked to three of my favorites on YouTube as well as all the clips from
it (
links below).
Mark Lesseraux did a
slow, hard-rock almost verging on progressive piece based on the
James Dean crash (
link below).
Tracklist:
Side 1:
A1 Newscast, September 30, 1955 0:36
A2a Main Title - Theme From "9-30-55" (East Of Eden) 2:19
A2b Narration By Richard Thomas
On The Way To Criss Cross Meadow (2:55)
A3a A. Stolen Liquor And State Police
A3b B. In The Jailhouse Now, Vocals – Webb Pierce
A3c Prayer By The River
A4 Hasty Retreat From Criss Cross Meadow 2:10
A5 James Dean And Eden Revisited, Orchestrated By Leonard Rosenman 9:39
Side 2:
B1 Theme From "9-30-55" (East Of Eden), Orchestrated By Billy Byers 3:19
The Ghoulish Syndrome (2:24)
B2a A. Assault On The Cemetery
B2b B. Making Believe, Vocals – Kitty Wells
B2c C. Tragedy Befalls Billie Jean
Life Imitates Art (9:19)
B3a A. Jimmy J. Visits Billie Jean / Narration By Richard Thomas
B3b B. Billie Jean's Disenchantment
B3c C. Jimmy J. Smashes The Mirrors
B4 A New Rebel In Search Of A Cause 3:13
Companies, etc.
Phonographic Copyright (p) – MCA Records, Inc.
Copyright (c) – Universal City Studios, Inc.
Produced For – MCA Records
Recorded At – Filmways/Heider Recording
Remixed At – Filmways/Heider Recording
Edited At – MCA Recording Studios
Mastered At – MCA Recording Studios
Credits:
Edited By [Editorial And Final Assembly] – Terry Brown (9)
Engineer [2nd] – Ira Leslie, Mike Carber
Liner Notes – James Bridges (4)
Mastered By – Larry Boden
Music By, Composed By, Conductor – Leonard Rosenman
Orchestrated By – Ralph Ferraro (tracks: A1 to A4, B2 to B4)
Producer – Sonny Burke
Recorded By, Remix – Grover Helsley
Notes:
Recorded and remixed at Filmways/Heider Studios, Hollywood.
Editorial and final assembly at MCA Recording Studio, Universal City.
Mastered at MCA Recording Studio, Universal City.
Leonard Rosenman – Richard Thomas 9/30/55 (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Label: MCA Records – MCA-2313
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1977
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Soundtrack
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Daily Mail UK ~ Photographs of James Dean's fatal 1955 car crash September 30, 1955 ~ music links (1977)
September 30, 1955 ~ video links (1977)
September 30, 1955 Movie Trailer (1977)
James Dean (complete film w/Czech subtitles) (2001) East of Eden ~
“The only greatness for man is immortality.”
~ James Dean
Styrous® ~ Wednesday, September 30, 2020
