Carroll Baker, co-star in Giant:
"Jimmy was Jimmy - maybe impossible to know really well. But wasn't
that part of his fascination after all?"
Bill Bast, friend of Dean's:
"It was his philosophy that an actor had to do everything, had to experiment
with everything, which certainly gave him license to do anything he wanted
to do."
Andy Brown, local resident of Mendocino:
"Jimmy played catch once with me and my friends the Silvas in Dr. Preston's
yard between 'shoots,' when he wasn't doing anything. He was good
at throwing a baseball around and was pretty patient with us kids."
Richard Davalos, co-star in East of Eden:
"Jimmy didn't know how to take hard criticism. He had no acting
persona that could soak it up and deal with it and not let it get through
to him too personally. It just bewildered him. Then he'd have
to sort himself out, before he could sort out what was wrong in the acting.
His acting style was dangerous, unpredictable. Just being in a scene
with him could be an unnerving experience. He had that instinct to
disturb.
We were so into those roles, me and Jimmy. We became so much like
the characters we were playing, it was frightening; working on that movie
affected all of us in it because of the depths we reached in the characterization.
In my case, it took me years to get over it."
Sammy Davis Jr., friend of Dean's:
"He did his number, and did it better than anyone in the world."
Ann Doran, co-star in Rebel Without a Cause:
"He liked to rehearse...at any time-one, two, or three o'clock in the
morning. Rather than disturb my family, he would come to my house
during the night, and we might discuss characterizations. He would
drink gallons of coffee and even smoked marijuana until I told him it was
making me sick. Sometimes he complained about people who tried to
intrude in his life or hoped to get someplace on his coattails. Though
I'm a great talker, I did a lot of listening. He widened my life."
Julie Harris, co-star in East of Eden:
"...You see, he was mercurial, unpredictable, always putting you on, which I didn't mind because he was very beguiling - there was something very sweet about him even though he was sort of a bad boy. He was like a Tom Sawyer to me ... he did manipulate people and he knew he was doing it."
"It's awful when somebody is taken away from you that young and when you're just thinking of all the wonderful things they're gonna do."
"I really loved him and I really loved working with him. It was
a unique experience in my life, I never worked with an actor again that
was quite that way."
Dennis Hopper, actor and director:
"I was just devastated by his death. I don't think I've ever gotten
over it. It blew my whole sense of destiny and how things operate
in this strange life that we're all involved in here on this planet.
But I just couldn't believe that somebody as talented as gifted and extraordinary
as James Dean die before his potential was fulfilled..."
Hedda Hopper, Hollywood Writer:
"I couldn't remember ever having seen a young man with such power, so
many facets of expression, so much sheer invention as this actor."
Rock Hudson, co-star in Giant:
"Dean was hard to be around...never smiled...had no manners. And he was rough to do a scene with...in the giving and the taking...he was just a taker."
"Before coming on the set he used to warm up like a fighter before a contest. He never stepped into camera range without first jumping into the air with his knees up under his chin, or running at full speed around the set shrieking like a bird of prey."
"I didn't particularly like him, personally. But that didn't matter.
Jimmy was certainly effective in the role, especially in the younger part.
Mind you, he only made three films. He was a little guy and he thought
little...He was brilliant as the young man, but he didn't know what to
do with the old man. As a matter of fact, he had a long monologue
in an empty banquet room that was cut down to the nub because he couldn't
sustain it...Also, Jimmy was dead before the picture was over, and his
dialogue had to be looped because Jimmy had played it too drunk and you
couldn't hear it. So they got another actor to do it. Nick
Adams."
Elia Kazan, Director of East of Eden:
"He was a heap of twisted legs and denim rags, looking resentful for no particular reason. I didn't like the expression on his face, so I kept him waiting. I also wanted to see how he'd react to that. It seemed that I'd outtoughed him, because when I called him in he'd dropped the belligerent pose. We tried to talk, but conversation was not his gift, so we sat looking at each other. He asked me if I wanted to ride on the back of his motorbike; I didn't enjoy the ride. He was showing off - a country boy not impressed with big-city traffic. When I got back to the office I called Paul and told him this kid actually was Cal Trask."
"I doubt that Jimmy would ever have got through East of Eden except for an angel on our set. Her name was Julie Harris, and she was goodness itself with Dean, kind and patient and everlastingly sympathetic."
"He was never more than a limited actor, and he was a highly neurotic young man-obviously sick, and he got more so. His face was very poetic-wonderful, and very painful, full of desolation. There are moments when you say, "Oh, God, he's so handsome-what's being lost here? What goodness is being lost here?" Directing him was like directing the faithful Lassie. I either lectured him or terrorized him, flattered him furiously, tapped him on the shoulder, or kicked his backside. He was so instinctive and so stupid in many ways-and most of all I had the impression of someone who was a cripple inside. He was not like Brando. People compared them, but there was no similarity. He was a far, far sicker kid, and Brando's not sick, he's just troubled."
"Dean was impossible, he was always cutting in on his lines, saying the wrong lines...[Raymond] Massey had learned the script exactly...he would say to me 'He's not saying the lines.' I say, 'All right, I'll get him to say the lines.'..I was tricky, I let Jimmy do it the way he wanted because it irritated him [Raymond Massey]."
"Do you think I would do anything to stop that antagonism? No,
I increased it, I let it go...because it was the central thing that I photographed.
I didn't photograph them enjoying those damn lines, although the lines
were good. But what I photographed was their relationship to each
other. The absolute hatred that Ray Massey felt for Jimmy Dean, and
the hatred Jimmy Dean felt for Ray Massey. That's precious man, you
can't get that, no director can get that!"
Martin Landau, actor and friend of Dean's:
"He was the fellow who all teenagers of this country and all of the
young people in their twenties said, Yes, that's how I felt. Yes,
that's me, I understand that person...We always watched grown-ups in movies.
We had never really seen a true portrayal or a representation of the turmoil
that was being felt by most young people."
Toni Lemos, local resident of Mendocino:
"He was young, full of vim and vigor and dressed like a showoff.
He wasn't that great at the time. He was just starting out and was
trying to hold his own with actors like Raymond Massey. But Jimmy
worked at it, only to become famous after he died."
Leonard Maltin, movie critic:
"I can't think of another actor who acquired stardom so quickly, who
held it for such a short time, and then kept it for such a long time.
James Dean became a star in one calendar year, and then he left us.
But he's still being talked about, he's still being revered, he's still
being iconized forty years later. I don't think there's another example
like it in the entire history of movies."
Raymond Massey, co-star who endured Dean during East of Eden:
"Simple technicalities such as moving on cue and finding his marks were beneath his consideration."
"You never know what he's going to do. Make him read the lines the way they're written!"
"So Gadge (Kazan) endured the slouchings, the eye-poppings, the mutterings
and all the willful eccentricities...he said to me one morning...'Bear
with me Ray, I'm getting solid gold!'"
Sal Mineo, co-star in Rebel Without a Cause, tells about the last time he saw Jimmy:
"Just outside the commissary, a little old man with a mustache passed
by. I didn't know him, but, as he passed, I caught him smiling.
That grim gave him away. It was Jimmy - with a mustache, hair pushed
back, shoulders hunched, still in the part of an old man."
Nicholas Ray, Director of Rebel Without a Cause:
"I've never met anyone with the ability of Dean. He cannot be compared with any actor, present or past. I'm sure he'll bring performances to the screen the likes of which haven't yet been thought of."
"To work with him...meant exploring his nature, trying to understand
it; without this, his powers of expression were frozen."
Leonard Rosenman, friend of Jimmy's and music composer for East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause:
"I really think Jimmy had no idea in the world who or what he was.
Obviously he identified with the three movie roles he had, but I think
they were given to him because he was those roles, or in some ways they
were created for him - and it all had to do with confusion!"
Roy Schatt, photographer and friend of Dean's:
"He could be sullen and childish...but he could also use his feelings
of outrage to create outlandish situations that often bordered on the dangerous."
Martin Sheen, actor:
"When I was a young actor in New York there was a saying that if Marlon
Brando changed the way actors acted, James Dean changed the way people
lived. I believe that."
Lois Smith, co-star in East of Eden:
"At that time, he was a kid. It was his first Hollywood
experience. Of course, there was no 'James Dean cult' in those days.
He was just another actor. I don't know, I just have no response
to the cult thing. I don't understand cult figures. I guess
the characters he played symbolized the postwar generation gap. Anyway,
he was awfully good in the film."
George Stevens, Director of Giant:
"He worked hard to get publicity and always had a photographer with
him. He had a fine concept of how Jimmy Dean could be made popular,
and he and his personally attached cameraman roamed around looking for
the right people to be photographed with. He did this with Elizabeth
Taylor, Edna Ferber and many others."
Elizabeth Taylor, co-star in Giant:
"Sometimes Jimmy and I would sit up until three in the morning talking
and he would tell me about his past life, his conflicts and some of his
loves and tragedies. And the next day it was almost as if he didn't
want to recognize me, or to remember that he had revealed so much of himself
the night before. And so he would pass me and ignore me, or just
give me a cursory nod of the head. And then it took a day or two
to become my friend again. I found all that hard to understand."
Casper Van Dien, actor:
"He defined my generation, he defined your generation, he defined it
all. I mean if you look at him, there's no way you can say that he
didn't impact your life in some way... you know he impacted your life,
he meant something to you..."
Andy Warhol, artist:
"James Dean made just three pictures, but even if he had made only one
he would still be the greatest male star of the '50s. The pictures
are East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Giant. Just the titles
evoke epic visions, and all three films live up to their titles, constituting
a three part heroic poem on atomic age youth, its beauties and its obsessions...James
Dean was the perfect embodiment of an eternal struggle. It might
be innocence struggling with experience, youth with age, or man with his
image. But in every aspect his struggle was a mirror to a generation
of rebels without a cause. His anguish was exquisitely genuine on
and off the screen; his moments of joy were rare and precious. He
is not our hero because he was perfect, but because he perfectly represented
the damaged but beautiful soul of our time..."
Jane Withers, co-star in Giant:
"Jimmy was very, very stern, and very concentrating on what he was doing - which was understandable. And I think they could've been real special friends (Rock Hudson and James Dean), if they had the time to be."
"In the beginning, I was naturally very interested in Jimmy as an actor
and as a person. I'd never ever met him and he stayed very much to
himself - and was very, very distant. So, I thought, okay, I will
respect that and his privacy. So, I stayed very distant, but he was
the only one I did [stay away from] because everybody else were like teddy
bears. You know and I love teddy bears. So, it took a while
for us to finally kind of share thoughts. But he didn't allow that,
if I would just say even 'Good Morning,' he'd say, 'Hi,' and sort of the
roll of the eyes and so on. But no real, nothing in the way of communication.
So finally I was taking pictures as I usually do of everybody and having
a wonderful time. And so he finally came up to me one day and he
said, 'You don't take any pictures of me.' And I said, 'Well, I wouldn't
think of it. You obviously enjoy being by yourself because you never
come around and mingle with us, especially me. I tried very hard
to respect people's wishes as best I can. I wouldn't dream of bothering
you in any way, shape, or form.' He said, 'Well, that's all right.
If you want to take some pictures of me, I don't mind.' I said, 'That
would be super. I'd love that.' So, that was the beginning,
that was the first step, and the steps came more regularly - and more often."
Natalie Wood, co-star in Rebel Without a Cause:
"He was incredibly encouraging and sweet."
"He was fascinated by the stories that were written on him. He
did all he could to find out how other people saw him and what they thought
about him."