Gone Too Soon: James Dean

When it comes to the topic of actors that died too young, one of the first people that comes to mind is James Dean. On September 30, 1955, Dean was killed in a car crash at the age of 24. Although he made only three films (East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant), Dean made a lasting impact during his short life, and he continues to influence many today. After I decided to write about James Dean for the Gone Too Soon blogathon hosted by Comet Over Hollywood, I began to think about the different ways that he has influenced pop culture and media, which is what I'll be discussing today.

Dean has been referenced of mentioned in dozens of popular songs, some of them being "A Young Man Is Gone" by The Beach Boys, "Electrolite" by R.E.M., "James Dean" by the Eagles, "Rockstar" by Nickelback, "Speechless" by Lady GaGa, "Blue Jeans" by Lana Del Ray, "These Days" by Bon Jovi and is one of several stars mentioned in "Vogue" by Madonna.

Dean is also recognized in several television shows and movies. On Happy Days, a picture of Dean is seen in Fonzie's closet,  another appears on Rizzo's wall in Grease. The show Queer as Folk compares him to music icons Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix ("They're all legends. They'll always be young, and they will always be beautiful"). Dean is also portrayed by actor James Franco in the biopic James Dean, released by TNT in 2001. I haven't seen the film myself, but I've heard several Dean fans praise Franco's performance and most of the film is said to be accurate compared to Dean's life.

Thanks to Comet Over Hollywood for hosting the Gone Too Soon blogathon. Please go check out the other contributions recognizing other actors whose lives ended prematurely.

Until next time...

Nicholas Ray Blogathon: Rebel Without a Cause

For my contribution to the Nicholas Ray Blogathon over at Cinema Viewfinder, I chose to be quite unoriginal and write about Ray's most seen and most remembered film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955)- just because it's probably my favorite and the one I've seen the most out of all of his films.

Rebel is an iconic film for quite a few reasons, the biggest probably being that it stars James Dean sporting red leather in his most popular role as Jim Stark, the new kid at Dawson High School who, along with Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, can't seem to fit in with anyone. Dean was the only one of the three that didn't receive an Academy Award for his performance, as he was nominated the same year for East of Eden (which I consider to be the best of his three film performances).

Another reason that this film is so widely remembered is the fact that all three of the main stars died young under unfortunate circumstances: In September 1955, just before the release of Rebel, James Dean was tragically killed in a car accident at the age of 24. In 1981, Natalie Wood drowned at 43, and in 1976, Sal Mineo was stabbed to death at 37. Edward Platt also committed suicide in 1974.

Rebel Without a Cause changed cinema history when released in 1955 and still continues to achieve landmark status to this day. It's a truly remarkable film, and one that I believe every classic film fan should see.

My Movie Character Personality Soup

A few weeks ago, I saw Brandie from True Classic's post  of movie characters she thought defined/described her, and that automatically had me thinking of who I would pick to define myself. I spent awhile and managed to come up with the top five movie characters that I feel relate to me the most:

Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) from Adam's Rib (1949, dir. George Cukor).

I've always been a feminist, so Amanda's personality and boldness hits close to home. And who wouldn't love to have those cheekbones?

Belle (Paige O'Hara) from Beauty and the Beast (1991, dir. Gary Trousdale).

She's a bookworm and people think she's strange. That's all too familiar...

Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) from The Wizard of Oz (1939, dir. Victor Fleming).

I'm originally from a small town, and, trust me, I know what it's like wanting to be "over the rainbow".

Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) in Spellbound (1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock).

My love for Bogie made me want to choose Ilsa Lund, but I ended up going with Constance since we share a strong interest in psychology.

Jim Stark (James Dean) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955, dir. Nicholas Ray).

I wouldn't call myself a rebel or a trouble-maker by any means. But, at times, I can't help but identify with certain aspects of Dean's character in a way that I've never understood. Back to the part where people think I'm strange.

Honestly, there are probably several- maybe even dozens- more film characters much like myself, but this is just what I felt resembled me the most. 

I hope you enjoyed this post! Until next time...

My Picks: The 50 Best Male Performances in Film

 Just like my previous post, I'll be listing my top fifty male performances. Again, I'm not limiting myself to one role per actor.

My top 50, in alphabetical order by film title:

Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut in The African Queen (1951, John Huston)

Harold Russell as Homer Parish in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William Wyler)

Cary Grant as Dudley The Bishop's Wife (1947, Henry Koster)

Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)

Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958, Richard Brooks)

Jack Lemmon as Joe Clay in Days of Wine and Roses (1962, Blake Edwards)

Sidney Poitier as Noah Cullen & 

Tony Curtis as John Jackson in The Defiant Ones (1958, Stanley Kramer)

Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)

James Dean as Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955, Elia Kazan)

Andy Griffith as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes in A Face In the Crowd (1957, Elia Kazan)

Burt Lancaster as Milton Warden,

Frank Sinatra as Angelo Maggio &

Montgomery Clift as Robert Prewitt in From Here to Eternity (1953, Fred Zinnemann)

Bing Crosby as Father Chuck O'Malley in Going My Way (1944, Leo McCarey)

Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming)

Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)

Spencer Tracy as Matt Drayton in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967, Stanley Kramer)

Henry Travers as Clarence &

James Stewart as George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)

Clark Gable as Peter Warne in It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra)

Gregory Peck as Father Francis Chisholm in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944, John Stahl)

Dana Andrews as Mark McPherson in Laura (1944, Otto Preminger)

Sidney Poitier as Homer Smith in Lilies of the Field (1963, Ralph Nelson)

Ray Milland as Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend (1945, Billy Wilder)

Peter O'Toole as King Henry II in The Lion in Winter (1968, Anthony Harvey)

Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gough in Lust for Life (1956, Vincent Minnelli)

Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)

Frank Sinatra as Frankie Machine in The Man With the Golden Arm (1955, Otto Preminger)

Ernest Borgnine as Marty Piletti in Marty (1955, Delbert Man)

Dick Van Dyke as Bert in Mary Poppins (1964, Robert Stevenson)

Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds in Mr. Deeds Comes to Town (1936, Frank Capra)

Cary Grant as T.R. Devlin in Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954, Elia Kazan)

Montgomery Clift as George Eastman in A Place in the Sun (1951, George Stevens)

Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees (1942, Sam Wood)

Leslie Howard as Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938, Anthony Asquith)

James Dean as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (155, Nicholas Ray)

Gregory Peck as Joe Bradley in Roman Holiday (1953, William Wyler)

Joseph Cotten as Charles Oakley in Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock)

Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood in Singin' In the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen)

Warren Beatty as Bud Stamper in Splendor In the Grass (1961, Eliz Kazan)

James Mason as Norman Maine in A Star Is Born (1954, George Cukor)

Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony in Strangers On a Train (1951, Alfred Hitchcock)

William Holden as Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd (1950, Billy Wilder)

Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch & Phillip Alford as Jim Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan)

James Stewart as John "Scottie" Ferguson in Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

Robert Taylor as Roy Cronin in Waterloo Bridge (1940, Mervyn LeRoy)

Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939, William Wyler)