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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 3, 1997)
just out ▼ January 3, 1997 ▼ 29 INTERVIEW n the final analysis he was an ordinary boy, and to canonize him is to crush him,” writes Donald Spoto on the last page of Rebel: The Life and Legend o f Janies Dean," cur Donald Spoto sheds light on the short life rently on bookshelves coast to coast. "Three feature films and a handful of television appear and long legend of icon James Dean ances remain the testimony to an emerging talent, ▼ but Dean ought not to be misshapen by a skewed by Daniel Vaillancourt vision of history, nor deformed by the glow of misplaced votive lights.” they believe. I suppose it’s that we’re dealing with fans and admirers. You know, "Jimmy is not a lot of these rumors, absolutely unsubstantiated, dead. Jimmy is still alive in an asylum some that have been published before about James where. Jimmy come out, I will take care of you.” Dean. Let me give you an example: A number of That sort of thing. writers have maintained vociferously that Jimmy To me, what needs to be celebrated is the was a gay hustler. Well, they maintain this with talent; what needs to be told is the truth of his life, Bom in Fairmount, Ind., on Feb. 8, 1931, out a shred of evidence. Not only documentary which is a very poignant one, a very moving one. James Byron Dean was raised the only child of evidence, but any personal evidence. This is one He was a confused and conflicted and unhappy Winton and Mildred Dean. When he was six his of the agendas that he’s been made to serve. I’m young man. father was transferred to California, and the fam not sure I understand how that places him in a high pantheon, but apparently, he’s been made to serve ily relocated to Los Angeles. On July 14,1940, his Why do you think Dean achieved such in mother succumbed to ovarian cancer. The next this sexual agenda. And I think that’s very unfor credible cult status after making only three day, Winton Dean summarily shipped his 9-year- tunate. He certainly never did any such thing. movies? old son back to Indiana to be cared for by his aunt Very simple. When he died, like the cowboy and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, who Why do you think we have so many fallacies of old, he had no attachments. He did not live with lived in Jonesboro, five minutes from Fairmount. about James Dean? a man or a woman. He did not have a home of his own. He rented little bungalows and shacks. He Determined to establish himself in theater and Because it’s much easier for people to make film, Dean returned to Los Angeles at age 18 in things up—and to tell a story that they want to had no stable life. He was driving up to Northern 1949. Following relatively modest successes on tell—rather than to do the hard work of research California. Crash. He dies. He becomes immedi ately a stained-glass window figure. The patron the sound stages of Hollywood and in front of the and travel and interviews to get at the truth. As footlights of New York City’s Broadway, Dean you know, the truth is al saint of the confused. emerged as a significant new talent when critics ways more fascinating Knowing nothing about than anything anybody and the public praised his performance as Cal him, people can turn him Trask in the spring 1955 Warner Bros, film East could make up. into anything they want o f Eden. Dean’s next movie. Rebel Without a him to be. And that, I Cause, opened to similar acclaim in New York on Y ou’re known for think, is largely respon Oct. 26 of that year. When his third motion your m eticulous re sible for this iconic sta search. How did you picture, Giant, was unveiled 12 months later, tus. He also had the good reviews were even more glowing. proceed on Rebel? fortune, in this regard, to Dean, however, never witnessed the adula Well, what you have to die young. You lose your tion. He was killed on Sept. 30, 1955, when his do, of course, always, is to icon status by the time silver Porsche 550 Spyder smashed into Donald begin with the family and you ’ re 30, certai nl y 35.... Tumupseed’s black-and-white sedan on North state and historic archives If you stay around too ern California’s State Road 466. His death at the and public records in Indi long, you lose your icon age of 24 immediately catapulted him into ever ana. So I went to Marion status because you’re ob- lastingness. County and Grant County. d viously a human being. “Fierce and lovable, wild and gentle, obdurate I went through the impor “ You’re aging. You get and pliant, gauche and graceful, straight and gay, tant papers, and immedi I married or divorced. You artless and calculating—he was and remains all ately turned up an abso & get sick. You get arrested. things to everyone,” concludes Spoto. The cel lutely critical factor in un |[L a u g h s ] You know, ebrated celebrity biographer—who has been openly derstanding his early life, f whatever otherthings that gay since the beginning of his career—is the author which has never been happen to people. So Donald Spoto of 13 books, including biographies of Alfred brought to light before: you’re no longer a leg Hitchcock,Tennessee Williams, Laurence Olivier, James Dean was conceived illegitimately. We’ve end. James Dean was blasted into eternal celeb Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe. In the been told for years that his parents were married in rity at the age of 24, when he was really going on midst of a national tour for Rebel, Spoto, 54, spoke 1929, and that a year and a half later, respectably, 17. He remains Peter Pan, always turning around to me about James Dean during a telephone con in February of 1931, he was bom. As it turns out, and saying to those kids after him, “Come fly with versation from his hotel room in Washington, D.C. his parents were forced into a shotgun wedding in me. We don’t need to have anything to do with the July of 1930 when [Mildred] was almost three world of reality or the world of adults.” Vaillancourt: What is the genesis of Rebell months pregnant. They were married entirely Spoto: When I was researching my biography against their will, especially against Mr. Dean’s Dean’s sexual orientation has long been of Elizabeth Taylor [ 1995’ s A Passion for Life], I will. This helps to explain why Winton Dean spent debated. To which conclusions did you come in did, of course, a great deal of work in the Warner almost 10 years trying to get away from his wife your studies? and child, even to the point of taking a job in Bros, archives, and I discovered an enormous When James Dean died he was not a thorough cache of material on James Dean that I had never Califomiaexpecting that his wife and son wouldn’t bred anything. He responded to affection and come with him. She, of course, was a great movie seen anywhere. It seemed to contradict an awful encouragement and learning from any kind of lot about the James Dean of rumor and legend. buff and insisted on trailing along. When she died source: from a man he respected, or a woman he That got me started. Once I had done the research when Jimmy was 9, the next day, his father put little respected. Certainly, in his lifelong quest to please on Elizabeth, and that book was put to bed, I Jimmy on the train with the coffin containing his father (which he could never do), to have a thought, "You know, I really want to go back and mama’s body, and said, “Well, good luck, kid. relationship with his father (which he never did; talk to some more people, and do some more Bury her back in [Indiana]. Have a good life!” And his father outlived him by 40 years, dying just last spade work on this matter of James Dean.” So I that helps to explain a great deal in his maturing year), James Dean was certainly open to warm read everything that had been written about him, years, his teen years and his early 20s. relations with older men. Sometimes that became I compared it with what I was learning, and I sexual. Hello! I mean, as I said on the Today show, realized that we had been fed a ton of rubbish How did your interest in Dean first de “What’s the big deal?” In the case of his relation about James Dean. The facts of his life are far velop? Had you been a fan from way back? ship with Rogers Brackett, we’re not talking more interesting than the tissue of fiction that has I wasn’t a fan from way back, but I certainly about an exploitative relationship or a prostitut been served up to us for the last 40 years. ing relationship. We’re talking about two people admired him in East o f Eden, and I had seen some who really fulfilled needs for one another, and of his television shows in the Museum of Televi What makes yours the definitive treatment? who obviously cared for one another as long as it sion and Radio in New York. Having been 14 lasted.... Similarly, James Dean certainly was years old in 1955, when he died, I was part of that Well, whether it’s a definitive treatment or attracted to intelligent, stylish, classy, artistic audience of Rebel Without a Cause, and I also not, I suppose, is up to my readers to determine. women. Elizabeth “Dizzy” Sheridan, as she’s remember the shock of his death. So I’d sort of Certainly HarperCollins is publicizing your called, prime and primary among them.... followed, over the years, what was written about book as the last word. him, but not with a consuming interest. What I think it’s very clear that James Dean was Well, they’re very supportive, and that’s what struck me was the lunacy of his most demented caused enormous inner conflict by the fact that he I T he B oy W ho W ould B e S aint had feelings for men and for women, because, after all, it was the 1950s, and the only worse thing than being gay was being communist.... But it did not stunt his experimentation. To answer your question about his orientation, 1 would say that James Dean was oriented toward people who cared for him, and who would encour age and comfort him. That was the standard. More than that, I don’t think that he had discovered an essential orientation one way or the other at the time of his death. He was extremely immature. What was the most interesting discovery you made about James Dean in writing Rebell I can’t tell you that there was one. There were several. Some related to his professional life, some to his personal life. Certainly I think it’s terribly important to see that his parents were forced to marry against their will. And the discov eries that I made about his childhood— his terrible illness, the result of lead paint—those are terrifi cally important. The details about his time in Los Angeles as a child until he was 9 years old—this is very, very rich. To see how his mother taught him the tall tales and the country myths and legends, and how, from earliest childhood, he was obsessed with Billy the Kid. That lasted right up to the time of his death. These are fascinating, because the obsessions, the concerns, the interests that we have, tell a great deal about our inner life. His concern for Billy the Kid and Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince and the other little prince, Hamlet, tells us a great deal about James Dean’s attitude about his own identity. As far as his professional life was concerned, I think one of the most astonishing and remarkable things was to discover how utterly lacking in discipline he was. And that illuminates the fact that his talent, raw though it was, was certainly very real. He operated out of complete instinct. I mean, this was a person who went away and kept to himself and studied the part, and then came onto the sound stage and did remarkable things that evoked everyone’s admiration—even as he drove them out of their minds because he was unso ciable. He was unpleasant. He could be rude. He could be sweet and dear, and within 30 seconds, be the crudest and most impossible person to be with. So we see here a person of great conflict who with one side of his mouth says, “Please love me. Please love me. I am so needy,” and [with the other] says, “Don’t you dare try to love me. I will remain remote from you forever.” This is not an easy person to be with. Had he lived, what path do you think his career would have taken? It’s very difficult to answer the subjunctive. Certainly, he would have had to grow emotionally. Certainly he would have had to develop some social skills. He certainly would have had to de velop some discipline because so many like him, of course, simply became casualties of the drug cul ture of the ’60s. Had he plunged headlong into nothing but a life of self-indulgence, he would have been burned out before he was 40. So it’s impos sible to say. One hopes he would have developed a real talent. He wanted to be a director. But that’s very amusing, because to be a director you’ve got to be the most disciplined and prepared of all. What would you hope he would think of Rebell Well, that’s a double subjunctive, isn’t it? I mean, the only people, I think, who can read about themselves and be objective are people of real maturity. I hope to have given him, in death, a fair treatment, an empathetic and an understanding treatment, without fudging on the truth, without hedging, without fabricating. I see him as a person who tried to be honest, who tried to be sincere. In light of that, I hope he would nod and say, “Hey, man, it’s cool!”—or whatever they said in 1955. Rebel by Donald Spoto. HarperCollins, 1996; $25, cloth.
