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 JAMES DEAN LITTLE BASTARD    CRASH 

 JAMES DEAN TRIUMPH   MOTORCYCLE 

 

 James Dean Little   Bastard 
 130 TEE SHIRT 
 

 THE ICONIC JAMES DEAN 

 

james dean motorcycle
James Dean Rebel

 The Classic Red Baracuta   Harrington Jacket 

 

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James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was

an American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment

and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most

celebrated film,  Rebel Without a Cause  (1955), in which he starred

as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his

stardom were loner, Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly

ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956). Dean's enduring fame and

popularity rest on his performances in only these three films.

 

 Dean's premature death  in a car crash cemented his legendary

status. He became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy

Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have

had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film

Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age

of Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.

 

James Dean was born at the Seven Gables apartment house at the

corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the son

of Winton Dean and Mildred Marie Wilson. His parents were of

mostly  English ancestry,  with smaller amounts of Scottish, German,

Irish and Welsh. Six years after his father had left farming to become

a dental technician, Dean and his family moved to Santa Monica,

California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the

Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley

Elementary school. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, young Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael De Angelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him." In 1938, she was

suddenly struck with acute stomach pains and began to lose weight quickly. She died of uterine

cancer when Dean was just nine years old.

James Dean
James Dean James Franco

 

"TITTER YE NOT"

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Found out today the A-team actor I was trying to remember for ages is Dirk Benedict

It's great to be able to finally put a name to the Face.
 

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Dennis: "How many legs has a rooster got, Dean?"


Dean: "Two?"


Dennis: "Correct. How many ribs has a cat got?"


Dean: "I've got no idea."

 

Dennis: "So... You know all about cocks and nothing about pussy."

 

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Vin Diesel - American

actor or cheap French wine from Aldi?

 

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Do you think a male porno actor has ever thought

 

'Fuck this shit, I'm calling in work sick today?'

 

********************

 

Sean Connery is most famous for playing James Bond and was given a knighthood "for services to acting".

Roger Moore is most famous for playing James Bond and was given a knighthood for "services to charity".

Has there ever been a more polite way to tell someone they're a shit actor?

 

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Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his sister Ortense and her husband,

Marcus Winslow, on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in a Quaker household.

Winton served in World War II and later remarried. In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel

and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev.  James DeWeerd.  DeWeerd seemed to have

had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing,

and theatre. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which

began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years." Their alleged sexual

relationship was earlier suggested in the 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams,The Life, Times,

and Legend of James Dean by Paul Alexander. In 2011, it was reported that he once confided in

Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his

mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by

DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.

 

His overall performance in school was exceptional and he was also considered to be a popular student and having played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from  Fairmount  High School in May 1949, Dean moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester, and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.

 

Dean's first television appearance was in a  Pepsi Cola television commercial.  He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch.

 

Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies:

                                                                                              as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets!, as a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware, a Paramount comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and as a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? While struggling to get jobs in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay.

James Dean posing with a coffin1955

 Dean decided to eerily to pose inside 

 of a coffin at the local department 

 store in Fairmount. 

 

In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore's and his

mentor Rogers Brackett's advice, Dean moved to  New York City.  There he worked

as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for

allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several

CBS television series, The Web, Studio One and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining

admission to the legendary Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee

Strasberg. Proud of this accomplishment, Dean referred to the Studio in a 1952

letter to his family as "The greatest school of the theatre. It houses great people like

Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock. ... Very few get into it

... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to

belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, with whom

he would eventually star in Giant (1956).

 

Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s

television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The

United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theatre. One early role, for

the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying

the type of disaffected youth he would later immortalize in Rebel Without a Cause.

(This summer 1953 program was also notable for featuring the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature  rock and roll. ) Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as "Bachir", a pandering North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist, led to calls from Hollywood.

 

In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of ' Cal Trask ', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. The lengthy novel deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s. In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.

 

Before casting Cal,  Elia Kazan  said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested the relatively unknown young actor, James Dean. Dean met with Steinbeck who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.

 

Much of Dean's performance in the film is unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The most famous improvisation of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to  Raymond Massey  and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film. Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from a father figure.

 

For the 1956 Academy Awards, Dean received a  posthumous nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role  for his performance in East of Eden, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was unofficially nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.

James Dean Rebel Poster

 

Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American (Warner Color) drama film

about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers filmed

in  Cinema scope.  The film stars James Dean, Sal Mineo and Natalie

Wood.

 

Directed by  Nicholas Ray,  it offered both social commentary and an

alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum

environments. Over the years, the film has achieved landmark status

for the acting of cultural icon James Dean, fresh from his Oscar

nominated role in East of Eden and who died before the film's release,

in his most celebrated role. This was the only film during Dean's

lifetime in which he received top billing. In 1990, Rebel Without a

Cause was added to Library of Congress's National Film Registry as

being deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant".

 

The film was a ground-breaking attempt to portray the moral decay of

American youth, critique parental style, and explore the differences

and conflicts between generations. The title was adopted from

psychiatrist Robert M. Lindner's  1944 book, Rebel Without a Cause 

The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath. The film itself, however,

does not reference Lindner's book in any way. Warner Bros. released

the film on October 27, 1955.

 

Giant, which was posthumously released in 1956, saw Dean play a

supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. This was due to

his desire to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal

Trask or Jim Stark. In the film, he plays  Jett Rink,  a Texan ranch hand

who strikes oil and becomes wealthy. His role was notable in that, in

order to portray an older version of his character in the film's later

scenes, Dean dyed his hair grey and shaved some of it off to give

himself a receding hairline.

 

 Giant would prove to be Dean's last film.  At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Dean mumbled so much due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited. Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.

 

Screenwriter  William Bast  was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, (1956), he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. Fifty years after Dean's death, he stated that their friendship had included some sexual intimacy.

 

While at UCLA, Dean dated  Beverly Wills,  an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love.":

                       They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function:

                                                                                                                                                                                               "Jimmy saw red. He grabbed the fellow by the collar and threatened to blacken both of his eyes,"

she said.:

              Dean had also remained in contact with his girlfriend in New York, Barbara Glenn, whom he dated for two years. Their love letters sold at auction in 2011 for $36,000.

 Rebel Without A Cause 

 is a film that sympathetically views rebellious, 

 American, restless, misunderstood, 

 middle-class youth. 

 

James Dean East Of Eden

 

Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's

public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of

young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent,  Dick 

 Clayton.  Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock

Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who has not yet

found the time to commit to a single woman:

                                                                      "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with

their marriage rehearsals."

 

Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress  Pier Angeli,  whom he

met while Angeli was shooting The Silver Chalice on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom

he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after

their relationship ended, described their times

together:

              We used to go together to the California coast and stay there secretly in a cottage on

a beach far away from prying eyes. We'd spend much of our time on the beach, sitting there

or fooling around, just like college kids. We would talk about ourselves and our problems,

about the movies and acting, about life and  life after death.  We had a complete

understanding of each other. We were like Romeo and Juliet, together and inseparable.

Sometimes on the beach we loved each other so much we just wanted to walk together into

the sea holding hands because we knew then that we would always be together.

 

In his autobiography, East of Eden, director Elia Kazan dismissed the notion that Dean could

possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing  Dean and 

 Angeli  loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan has been quoted saying about

Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends."

 

Actress Liz Sheridan details her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952. Speaking of the

relationship in 1996, she said that it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of

us." Sheridan published her memoir,  Dizzy & Jimmy  My Life with James Dean;  A Love Story in 2000. Dean also dated Swiss actress  Ursula Andress  "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in. At the time, Andress was also dating Marlon Brando.

 is about a wayward young man 

 while seeking his own identity, 

 vies for the affection of his 

 deeply religious father against 

 his favored brother.  

 

 

In 1954, Dean became interested in developing an auto racing career. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a  Triumph Tiger T110 motorcycle  and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made this dream impossible.

 

Dean's final race occurred in  Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955 . He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.

 

Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean was scheduled to compete at a racing event in Salinas, California on September 30, 1955. Accompanying the actor to the occasion was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder  LittleBastard 

car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m. Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.

 

As the group travelled to the event via U.S. Route 466, at approximately 5:15 p.m. a  1950 Ford Tudor  was passing through an intersection while turning, ahead of the Porsche. Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the driver's side of the Ford resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. The driver of the Ford, Donald Turnupseed, exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries. The accident was witnessed by a number of passers by who stopped to help. A woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.

 

Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States,  details of Dean's death  rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955 at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his mutilated corpse. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession.

 "Suedehead" Single by Morrissey from the 

 album Viva Hate. 

                                                                                                  An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the Paso                                                                                                              Robles City Hall, where a coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was                                                                                                      entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of                                                                                                        any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles                                                                                                          Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who                                                                                                    had been called to the scene,  Ron Nelson,  said the "wreckage and the                                                                                                    position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident                                                                                                        was more like 55 mph".

 

                                                                                                  American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when James Dean's major films                                                                                                      were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that                                                                                                    of Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a                                                                                                    typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers,                                                                                                        can understand him.  Joe Hyams  says that Dean was "one of the rare                                                                                                        stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and                                                                                                            women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the                                                                                                              undefinable extra something that makes a star." Dean's iconic appeal                                                                                                        has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the                                                                                                      disenfranchised youth of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he                                                                                                          projected on screen.                                                                                                          

                                                                                                  Dean's "loving tenderness towards the besotted Sal Mineo in Rebel                                                                                                            Without a Cause continues to touch and excite gay audiences by its                                                                                                            honesty. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the male gay                                                                                                          icon of all time." His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year,                                                                                                                according to Forbes Magazine.​ Morrissey is a big fan of James Dean. In his youth, Morrissey was drawn to the lonesome and rebellious nature of James Dean. In 1983, he wrote a book entitled James Dean is Not Dead about  Dean's career.

 

Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his "experimental" take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. There have been several claims that Dean had sexual relationships with both men and women. When questioned about his sexual orientation, he is reported to have said, " No, I am not a homosexual.  But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back." By the 21st century, Dean was considered by many to have been gay. In 2005, Germaine Greer wrote, "Looking back over half a century to the meteoric career of James Dean, the one thing that now seems obvious is that the boy was as queer as a coot." She based her opinion partly on the then-new revelations of William Bast, one of Dean's closest friends.

James Dean Giant Poster

                                                                                      William Bast, Dean's first biographer with James Dean:

                                                                                                                                                                             A Biography (1956),                                                                                                subsequently published a revealing update of this book, in after years of                                                                                                    successfully dodging the question as to whether he and Dean were sexually                                                                                              involved, he finally stated that they experimented. In his second book, Surviving                                                                                        James Dean (2006), Bast describes the difficult circumstances of their                                                                                                        involvement and also deals frankly with some of Dean's other reported gay                                                                                                relationships, notably the actor's friendship with  Rogers Brackett,  the influential                                                                                        producer of radio dramas who encouraged Dean in his career and provided him                                                                                        with useful professional contacts. Bast also documents knowledge Dean had of                                                                                        gay bars and customs.

 

                                                                                      Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon include an entry on James Dean in their                                                                                        book on gay and lesbian history, while journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any                                                                                          gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears or have been strictly "for                                                                                        trade", as a means of advancing his career. Val Holley notes that according to                                                                                            Hollywood biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, gay Hollywood columnist Mike                                                                                                    Connolly "would put the make on the most prominent young actors, including                                                                                            Robert Francis, Guy Madison, Anthony Perkins, Nick Adams and James Dean."                                                                                        However, the " trade only " notion is debated by Bast and other Dean                                                                                                          biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean,

                                                                                      Dean's fellow biker and "Night Watch" member John Gilmore claims he and                                                                                              Dean "experimented" with gay acts on one occasion in New York, and it is                                                                                                  difficult to see how Dean, then already in his twenties, would have viewed this                                                                                            as a "trade" means of advancing his career. James Bellah the son of James                                                                                              Warner Bellah who was a friend of James Dean "Dean was a user. I don't think                                                                                          he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act..."

 

                                                                                      Screenwriter  Gavin Lambert,  himself gay and part of the Hollywood gay circles                                                                                        of the 1950s and 1960s, described Dean as being gay. Rebel director Nicholas                                                                                          Ray is on record as saying that Dean was gay, while author John Howlett                                                                                                  believes that Dean was "certainly bisexual". George Perry's biography reduces                                                                                          these reported aspects of Dean's sexuality to "experimentation". In 2005, Giant                                                                                          was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". 

 

Halloween’s a good time to tell some scary stories. The scariest car story out there is

the story of  James Dean’s Little Bastard 550,  the Porsche550 in which his ticket

was eternally punched on September 30th, 1955. It leaves behind a trail of wreckage

much longer than just Dean himself. 

 

The story begins on September 23, 1955, just a week before Dean’s fatal crash. He’d

purchased a  Porsche 550 Spyder  and brought to customizer and legendary George

Barris to have it personalized. He chose tartan seats, the number 130 emblazoned

on the hood, and the name “Little Bastard” painted just under the Porsche emblem

on the engine cover.

 

On September 23, 1955, while driving the car around Los Angeles, he met up with

British actor  Alec Guinness  outside a restaurant. He showed the deeply

superstitious Guinness the new Porsche. In Guinness’s unpublished diaries and

letters, he wrote:

                          "The sports car looked sinister to me. . .Exhausted, hungry, feeling a

little ill- tempered in spite of Dean’s kindness, I heard myself saying in a voice I could

hardly recognise as my own:

                                             Please never get in it. . . if you get in that car you will be

found dead in it by this time next week.' Dean laughed."

 

A week later, on September 30th, Dean and  Rolf Wütherich a former Luftwaffe

pilot and factory-trained Porsche mechanicwere at Competition Motors in

Hollywood preparing The Little Bastard for racing that weekend at Salinas. The intent

was for Dean to trailer the car to Salinas behind his 1955 Ford Country Squire, along

with a photographer and stuntman  Bill Hickman,  stunt coordinator on the movie

Bullitt, most famously. But the car needed some break-in miles on it, and Wütherich

suggested driving the car to Salinas to not only break in the engine, but so that Dean could familiarize himself with the car that he had just purchased. Wütherich went along for the ride.

James Dean Nomination For A Oscar

 James Dean was nominated for an Oscar 

 for “Best Actor in a Leading Role”  

 for two consecutive years 

 (East of Eden,1955 & Giant 1956). 

 

At  Blackwells Corner on Route 466,  the caravan stopped for drinks,

and met up with Lance Reventlow and Bruce Kessler, also competing

in the Salinas road races in Reventlow’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SL

coupe.

 

At approximately 5:15 pm, Dean and Hickman drove west toward

Paso Robles. A half hour later, a black and white 1950 Ford Tudor

coupe was headed east on 466, driven by a 23-year-old Cal Poly

student with unlikely name of  Donald Turnupseed.  Turnupseed made

a left on Route 41. As he crossed the centreline, Dean, who was

estimated to be traveling at 85 mph, tried to avoid the Ford, and the

two cars met head- on. The Ford coupe slid 39 feet down Route 466

in the westbound lane.

 

Soon afterward, an unconscious and  dying Dean  was placed into an ambulance. Wütherich, who had been thrown from the Spyder, and was lying on the shoulder of the road next to the Little Bastard, was transported in the same ambulance to the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital almost 30 miles away. Dean was pronounced dead on arrival at 6:20 pm. Turnupseed walked away with a scratch on his nose.

 

George Barris purchased the wrecked Porsche for $2,500 (with the likely intent to sell tickets to look at it) and transported the car back to his shop. The car slipped off the trailer and broke the leg of a mechanic. Barris sold the engine and drive train to Troy McHenry and  William Eschrid.  The two used parts to build cars of their own, and were racing against each other with those parts in place. Henry lost control and slammed into a tree, the impact killing him instantly. Eschrid was driving his car, and the wheels suddenly locked up for no apparent reason, sending the car rolling over in a turn. Eschrid was seriously injured in the crash.

 

Two tires from the Little Bastard were in  George 

 Barris’s garage,  untouched since the accident that

claimed Dean’s life. He sold the tires, and both of

them exploded simultaneously, causing the driver

to run off the road.

 

In a piece that appeared on  Jalopnik,  (Jalopnik is

a weblog covering cars and car culture,) the curse

apparently continued even further:

                                                      “Due to all the

incidents involving “ Little Bastard,  Barris decided

to hide the car but was convinced by the California

Highway Patrol to lend the cursed heap to a

highway safety exhibit. The first exhibit was

unsuccessful as the garage that housed the car

caught fire and burned to the ground.

 

"Mysteriously the car suffered virtually no damage

from the fire. The next exhibition at a local high

school ended abruptly when the car fell off its

display and broke a nearby student’s hip.” Later,

 George Barkuis,  was hauling the wreckage of the

Spyder on a flatbed truck and was killed instantly

when the Porsche fell on him after he was thrown

from his truck in an accident. Mishap after mishap

continued until 1960, when the twisted debris was on loan to a safety exhibit in Miami. Following the exhibit, the wreckage and the truck that was hauling it mysteriously vanished on the way back to Los Angeles.

 

 Neither have been seen since. 

Mangled Wreckage Of Little Bastard

 THE MANGLED WRECKAGE OF James Deans 

 THE PORCHE SPYDER 

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James Dean Banner
James Dean Glasses
Moody James Dean
James Dean Racing
James Dean Headstone
James Dean With Cigarette
James Dean 1 Dollar Bill
James Dean Trailer
James Dean And His Mechanic
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 The material on this site does not necessarily reflect the views of What If? Tees. 

 The Images and Text are not meant to offend but to Promote Positive Open Debate and Free Speech. 

 The material on this site does not reflect the views of What If? Tees. 

 The Images and Text are not meant to offend but to Promote Positive Open Debate and Free Speech. 

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