An excerpt from Joan Collins' book Past Imperfect. Collins discussed her brief encounter with Dean:
Jimmy Dean was a fascinating
young man who had become a giant star with his first movie, East of
Eden. He played to perfection being the brooding troubled boy
in competition with his more favored brother, and questing for the truth
about his relationship with his mother. The young people of the fifties
immediately adopted him as their symbol, and his star ascended rapidly.
He made Rebel Without a Cause, which was written by Arthur's cousin,
Stewart Stern, and immediately after that was completed, starred in the
mammoth production of Giant.
It was during the
filming of Giant that I first met him. It was a brief meeting
at a small dinner party in the Valley. I was particularly mesmerized
by his eyes, which were a deep, piercing blue and could change instantly
from a look of sullen brooding to an expression of extreme mischievousness.
He was quite short for a film actor and had longish, blond wavy hair.
He seemed terribly shy and clutched the hand of his girlfriend, a gorgeous
Swiss starlet under contract to Paramount called Ursula Andress.
She had a fabulous body and the shortest haircut I had ever seen.
They made a striking couple, both wearing white T-shirts and Levi's.
We often saw him at the
house of Oscar Levant. On one occasion Oscar remarked after viewing
me in a rather low-cut blouse (I was still wearing those bangs that almost
covered my eyes), "I have now seen every part of Joan's anatomy except
her forehead!"
James Dean and Oscar Levant,
although total opposites, got along famously. Each relished the other's
unusualness. Arthur and I would drop by the Levants' after dinner
and sit until the early hours talking and laughing with them.
A group of us had dinner
one night at Don the Beachcomber's, a Polynesian restaurant in Hollywood
noted for its incredibly strong rum-based drinks. After three or
four Navy Grogs I was feeling daring, so when Jimmy asked who would like
a drive in his brand-new silver Porsche I cheerfully volunteered.
Arthur, who usually indulged most of my whims with good grace, pulled me
aside and told me not to drive with Jimmy. "He drived like a maniac,"
he said earnestly. "And after four of those Zombies, or whatever
the hell it was we've been drinking, it's too dangerous."
"Oh don't be such a stick-in-the-mud,"
I giggled. "Come on, Jimmy. Let's race them to Oscar's house."
We jumped into his shiny new Porsche. The interior was cramped and
it smelled of new leather, but it was indeed a beauty. Jimmy threw
the shift into first gear and with the gearbox protesting violently we
screeched into the Hollywood Boulevard traffic. During the ten minutes
it took us to get to Beverly Hills, I sobered up rapidly. He certainly
did drive fast, even recklessly, but with the summer wind blowing through
the open windows and the radio blaring, it was exhilarating.
"Don't you think we should
slow down?" I said nervously, as we sped down the Strip at about seventy
miles an hour, dodging in and out of the after-dinner traffic. He
gave me one of his mischievous, brooding looks. "Chicken?" he asked.
"What, me? Oh, no. I'd just like to live to be twenty-one."
I gulped nervously, hoping a cop car would miraculously appear. "The
thing about these cars is that they're fail-safe," he said, expertly overtaking
a bleached blonde in a Cadillac and sliding in just a car's length behind
a slow-moving Ford. "These cars are made like tanks. They have
the best engine and the best transmission, they're totally safe."
He talked on about the merits
of his baby until we screeched to a stop in front of the Levants'.
"Well, thanks a lot, Jimmy," I said descending on trembling legs.
"If I ever need a quick ride to the airport, I'll call on you."
"Do that." He lit
up a cigarette and smiled at me sleepily, amused by my timorousness.
"Let's go see Oscar." I followed him into the house, making a mental
note never to get in a moving vehicle with him again. When Arthur
arrived fifteen minutes later, I told him he was right about Jimmy's driving.
"He's going to kill himself one of these days if he continues to drive
like that!" he said.
A couple of months later
I was in New York at the Plaza Hotel for promotions on Virgin Queen.
The doorbell rang insistently and woke me up. It was only eight o'clock,
and I grumpily trundled to the door. "It's me Arthur," said a strained
voice. I opened up. Ashen-faced, he handed me The New York
Times and then sat down heavily on the sofa. I read unbelievingly:
"James Dean dies in automobile accident." He was killed in the silver
Porsche. He was twenty-four.