Boo! Halloween and “Thriller” Entertainment
 Will Continue Tricking and Treating

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Features

Published on Monday, 30 October 2017 22:24

Written by Ellis Nassour

New York’s Grand Greenwich Village Halloween Extravaganza
Nothing comes close to beating the annual Halloween night tradition of the gigantic people’s Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. The 44th edition of the four-hour "Nation’s most wildly creative public participatory event" kicks off at 7 P.M. from Spring Street, and marches up Sixth Avenue to 16th Street. This year there’ll be a bit of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras spirit with the Grand Marshal’s float, where recording artist Anjelica will reign.

Stretching more than a mile, this icon of cultural events gives freedom of expression new definition. Long famous for skewering unpopular trends, personalities, and especially politicians, you can surely expect lots of DJT expository. The event draws 2,000,000 in-person spectators, with more than 60,000 wild ‘n wholly costumed participants, giant puppets, dancers, artists and circus performers, dozens of floats, 50 plus bands, and performing artists. Sponsors include the Village Voice, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Rudin Foundation, and parade-goers like you. Visit www.halloween-nyc.com for information on how to participate. Watch it live on NY1.

Broadway Fright
There’s nothing like a Broadway show for a Halloween treat. About the scariest thing currently on Broadway are the out-in-orbit pricing for Book of Mormon, Hamilton, Hello, Dolly!, and, Bruce Springsteen on Broadway -- the show which was supposed to make the Boss available to all. Soon, you can add Frozen and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two to the list. Then, there’s the ever-ballooning horror of resale ticket sites.
Season-themed show include a visit with that masked lovelorn fellow known as The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart’s Tony-winning blockbuster, which in early 2018 will celebrate 30 years as Broadway’s longest-running show; and Stephen Schwartz’s Tony-nominated Wicked, the tale of the Good and Bad witches of The Wizard of Oz fame, just entering it 15th record-breaking year.

Family-fare includes Disney’s The Lion King, which next month will celebrate its 20th Anniversary; the company’s colorful extravaganza Aladdin; and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. An adult treat that children aged seven and above will enjoy is Oscar winner Robert Lopez (Frozen), Jeff Marx, and Jeff Whitty’s witty Tony-winning Avenue Q, which just celebrated its ninth year Off Broadway (after six hit years on the Main Stem).


This Halloween Season the Place to Be: Off Broadway

All For One Theater’s is presenting the psychological horror play Squeamish, by and directed by Aaron Mark (Empanada Loca) and starring two-time Tony nominee Alison Fraser (The Secret Garden, First Daughter Suite),at Theatre Row’s Beckett Theatre. It’s the tale of an Upper West Side psychoanalyst, a long-time recovering alcoholic, “whose bloody quest for personal balance begins when she finds herself off her meds in South Texas, following the suicide of her nephew. Tickets for the limited engagement (through November 11) are $52.25 and available at www.telecharge.com or by calling (212) 239-6200.

Beginning performances November 16 at 59E59 for a limited engagement (through December 10) is Adjusted Realists’ production of Stephen Kaliski’s The Briefly Dead, which finally answers the question of whether you can bring the love of your life back from the dead. Bad news: in the tradition of ancient Greek theater, King Admetus of Thessaly learns that the unexpected resurrection of his wife, Queen Alcestis, who personified the devoted, selfless woman, leads to a really awkward breakfast. She has a big score to settle. Elizabeth Ostler directs a quirky mix of shadow puppets and actors: Mia Isabella Aguirre, Sofiya Cheyenne, Kristin Fulton, Paul Hinkes, Ben Kaufman, Katie Proulx, Sarah Wadsley, and Jenna Zafiropoulos. No performances November 22 and 23. Tickets are $25 ($20 for 59E59 members). To purchase, call Ticket Central (212) 279-4200 or visit www.59e59.org.


Ready for more Games of Thrones? Off Broadway has them. After rave reviews and sold out performances, GOT The Musical’s Off Broadway’s Game of Thrones: The Rock Musical - An Unauthorized Parody [of HBO’s smash hit fantasy series of dragons, dwarfs, and danger] is extending through December 30th at the Theater Center (210 West 50th Street). But there’s a change. The extension has a new title: Shame of Thrones. It has all the elements: evil prince, backstabbing siblings, a stalwart hero, a hysterical imp, the mother of all dragons – and, of course, a rock score “that’ll have heads rolling.” You can re-visit all your favorite characters and the ones you love to hate. For tickets ($57, $67, and VIP $123) and more information, visit www.ShameofThronesMusical.com. The new schedule includes naughty “after-dark” performances (code for more raunch, vulgarity, and adult-themed comedy) Fridays and Saturdays at 10:30 P.M. and a “Red-Wedding” matinee (with half priced Bloody Marys) Sundays at 1 P.M.

It’s a Thriller Season for Frankenstein(s)  
Write Act Repertory and Tamra Pica are presenting the world premiere of Eric B. Sirota’s Frankenstein: The Musical, based on Mary Shelley's novel “about the human need for love and companionship.”  WAR producing artistic director John Lant (production manager, Carnegie Hall) describes the show as “two-act sweeping, romantic musical that honors its source material.” Clint Hromsco directs Danny Bristoll, Jonathan Cobrda, Amy Londyn, Charles Baran, Benjamin M. Haupt, Cait Kiley, and Gabriella Marzetta. Music direction and arrangements are by Anessa Marie. Performances are Mondays at 7:30 P.M., through December 18, at St. Luke's Theatre (308 West 46th Street, between Eight and Ninth Avenues, Restaurant Row).


St. Luke’s is NYC’s busiest rep house. Among productions onstage are the family-friendly The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Saturdays at 11 A.M., adapted by le Clanché du Rand from the C.S. Lewis’ classic novel. Tuesdays at 7 P.M. (through December 31), there’s Michael Antin’s direct-from-Los Angeles [where it won several awards] love musical Lili Marlene, the story of cabaret chanteuse Rosie Penn and Count Hans Wilhelm van Kleister Graff, set at the end of the Weimar German Republic and beginning of the Third Reich. Amy Londyn headlines the 14-member cast. Direction and choreography are by Mark Blowers, with musical direction by Rocco Vitacco. Five times weekly, there’s Lynn Shore Entertainment and Medium Face Entertainment’s  production of  Friends: The Musical – The Unauthorized Parody of the Hit TV Show,  by Bob and Tobly McSmith (Saved by the Bell, Full House parodies) and Assaf Gleizner and directed and choreographed by Paul Stancato.

Tickets for these shows are $39.50 - $69.50 and available through www.telecharge.com or by calling (212) 239-6200.  For performance schedules, check www.stlukestheatre.com.




Vital Theatre Company (recipient of Off-Broadway Alliance Awards) presents Peter Charles Morris (co-author, co-lyricist, Howard Crabtree's Whoop-Dee- Doo!) and David Mallamud’s new, family-friendly (but not so much from Mary Shelley’s source material) Kid Frankenstein, for ages seven and up – but not too far up. It's Halloween and something strange is going on at Frankie Steiner's house, where the boy genius works on his entry for his school’s robotics competition. But what he creates is more than he expected - and more than he can handle. That last part, a unique and certainly unexpected twist, is what makes this not exceedingly deep show fun (and will garner laughs from accompanying parents). The cast – Nicholas Carroll, Amber Dickenson, Seth Hatch, Matthew Krob, Jocelyn Lonquist,  and, as Frankie, a spirited Stephen Wagner – gives their all, but the over-amplified canned music, sadly all sounding the same, does them in. However, without giving anything away, be advised to keep a keen eye on Dickenson, who has some tricks and treats up her sleeve: and beguiling Lonquist, it would seem, is destined for bigger things. Performances at the Theater at Blessed Sacrament (152 West 71st Street, east of Broadway) are Fridays at 7 P.M., Saturdays and Sundays at 3 and 7 P.M. through November 5th. Purchase tickets, $25.00 to $59.50, at www.vitaltheatre.org or call (212) 579-0528.


Also playing at Blessed Sacrament are: Pinkalicious: The Musical, about  a gal who just can’t say no to eating pink cupcakes, despite parental warnings – a habit that lands her in hospital with Pinkititis, an affliction that turns her pink from head to toe. In addition, there’s the one-hour adaptation (from London’s Royal Shakespeare Company) of Arlen and Harburg’s The Wizard of Oz, courtesy of L. Frank Baum, tailored for audiences two – seven. Check above website for schedules and tickets.

Wait! There’s More Frankenstein to Come
Too bad Mary Shelley's not around to bask in her royalties. Ensemble for the Romantic Century will present Frankenstein December 21 – January 7 at the Pershing Square Signature Center/Irene Diamond Stage (480 West 42nd Street). 
Starring will be, get this!, Tony-nominee Robert Fairchild (An American in 
Paris), who’ll also choreograph. Donald Sanders will direct. The site, www.romanticcentury.org, will, hopefully, have ticket information up soon.

Remembering James Dean, Part Two: The Rebellious Spirit

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Features

Published on Monday, 09 October 2017 01:48

Written by Ellis Nassour

See part one HERE.

“Acting is the most logical way for people’s neuroses to manifest themselves, in the great need we all have to express ourselves,” James Dean replied when asked why he turned to acting. “An actor’s course is set before he’s out of the cradle.” 
 
September 30 marked what would have been his 85th birthday and 62 years since his, 1955, death. But time hasn’t diminished the cult resonance or seismic effect his raw performances etched on moviegoers.

Fascination with James Dean has never ended. He was a unique as he was difficult to work with. Sadly, even after only three starring roles, he was considered the bad boy of moviedom. Also, as a writer put it: “As enormously charismatic, gifted, and intelligent as he was, his ambition and belief that his instincts were always right undermined him.”
Dean’s rocky road through Hollywood was tainted with difficult romances.

Some felt Dean’s relationship with Pier Angeli was a publicity stunt. Dean biographer John Howlett and his and Dean’s friend Bill Bast’s opinion was that Angeli’s “fairy tale accounts of intense love read like wishful fantasies.” The only thing needed was a knight in shining armor on a white steed.

Kazan, in his autobiography, dismissed the notion that Dean had success with women: "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." However, he recalled Dean and Angeli “loudly making love in Jimmy's dressing room.”

When Warner and Dean had their talks – with Warner playing a page from Mayer’s playbook, he told Dean he thought of him as a son – even smoked imported Cuban cigars with him. He told him that he had a young star’s mother complaining that he was molesting her daughter. Warner explained that he wasn’t  ready for marriage – that soon he’d have the whole world, and countless women –at his feet and “Do you think America’s teenage girls will want to see you married?” Knowing Dean bull-headedness for doing the opposite of what he considered good, fatherly advice, Warner went a step further. He informed Dean that if he went through with marriage plans, he’d be out the door and looking for another studio.

MGM’s Louis B. Mayer was determined to keep Angeli pure -- if “Papa” only knew what his “daughter” was doing behind his back! He assigned publicist Esme Chandlee, who had kept the lid on her affair with Kirk Douglas, to keep the Dean trysts under wraps.
In October 1954, ignoring Mayer and Warner, the couple planned to elope. But at the last mind Dean bailed. According to those close, it was because of pressure from Angeli’s mother, the fact that Dean wasn’t Catholic, and planted gossip column mongering. Dean, just finished with East of Eden, headed East. Before boarding his plane, he and Angeli had a huge blowout: “Why are you leaving me?” she screamed. Angeli broke their secret engagement.

Then she dropped a bombshell – one that stunned everyone.
Her dreadful mother had engineered an engagement plot with Italian-American singer Vic Damon, who Angeli said she also loved. With Dean away, their  engagement was announced.

Breathing heavy sighs of relief were Mayer and Jack Warner, who had a beautiful star and a handsome bachelor star, respectively, soaring into the firmament. But some close friends of Dean found her to be “a manipulating bitch,” figuring she was either out for revenge, like the cosa nostra back in the old country would do, or as a way to get Dean to the altar.

Dean was devastated. Bast thought he might even do bodily harm, even attack the singer, who had strong “family” ties back East.
At the couple’s lavish pre-Thanksgiving wedding, numerous friends reported Dean cycled to the church and watched the bride’s arrival from across the street in pouring rain. He even gunned his engine during the ceremony and, as the couple exited, revved his motorcycle and sped off. Dean denied doing “anything so dumb."

Joe Hyams, in his 1992 Dean biography, claims that on a day he visited Dean not long after the wedding, Angeli was departing. He found Dean sobbing. The actor allegedly told him Angeli was pregnant -- and believed the child might be his.
Dean never stopped wearing a locket with a tress of Angeli’s hair.

Angeli made films in the U.S. and several in Italy, but her career never soared. She may never have gotten over what she had done that broke Dean’s heart – and hers.  Wedded bliss ended in divorce in December 1958. The couple had the one child.
Her second husband was Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli. They had one child. In 1971, at only 39, she died of a barbiturate overdose. Friends, even Trovajoli, claimed that Angeli never got over Dean – that he was the love of her life. Ironically, if Dean had lived another year and starred in a film Warner had him earmarked for, Angeli would have been cast as his wife.
In 1997, James Dean: Race with Destiny, a TV movie a.k.a James Dean: Live Fast, Die Young, aired as “the true-story account of the love affair between Dean and Pier Angeli.”



As troublesome as Dean was on East of Eden, WB knew they had hit box office gold, especially among adolescent audiences, and not just in the U.S. The film scored well in the U.K., France, and Germany.

In 1954, Dean became interested in becoming a regular on the car race circuit. After filming of Eden concluded, he purchased including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356.  Before filming commenced on Rebel Without a Cause, on March 26 and 27, 1955 he competed in his first professional competition at the Palm Springs Road Races – taking first place in the Novice Class, and second place in the main event. He raced again in April in Bakersfield, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean had dreams of competing at the Indianapolis 500, but his Rebel shooting schedule made it impossible. Not only that, but Warner was constantly on his back about how risky his motorcycling and
racing was – for the studio.

Warners purchased rights to psychiatrist Robert M. Lindner’s 1944 book, Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath, a groundbreaking attempt “to portray the moral decay of American youth, critique parental style, and explore the differences and conflicts between generations.” A full script was never done and the project was shelved. In 1946, WB producer Jerry Wald secured the rights and commissioned a script. One of the writers was Theodore Geisel – better known as Dr. Seuss.

Brando, on break in rehearsals for A Streetcar Named Desire, screen tested and was attached. Warner’s chief talent scout William Orr recalled: “'Brando just sat there tearing up an envelope into little pieces ... We figured he must be a genius, so we signed him.”

The script gathered dust until 1954 when director Nicholas Ray discovered it and began writing a treatment, The Blind Run. Ray, in his pre-black eye-patch [over his right eye due to an embolism-related injury] days, had a fascinating history – and seemed cut from the same cloth as Dean. Charismatic, intelligent, temperamental, unpredictable, a lover of the Bohemian lifestyle – and, if claims are correct, bisexual. He and the actor were a match made in heaven. Or hell.

Ray left University of Chicago after a year, but made such an impression on 
one of his professors – two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright/novelist Thornton Wilder (The Bridge of San Luis Rey; Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth), that he was recommended for a Tallesin Fellowship to apprentice with architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Ray noted he “learned the importance of space and geography – even my later love for [the widescreen process] CinemaScope.” Eventually, however, there was excessive drinking and political differences.

He made his way to New York, where he worked for the Federal Theatre Project, part of the WPA. He became friends with folklorist Alan Lomax. They traveled through rural America recording regional music. During the Depression, they produced a pioneering folk music radio program featuring Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Leadbelly, and Pete Seger. Even at the height of Hollywood’s “Red Scare” and blacklisting of actors and writers, Ray remained involved in Socialist and Communist movements.

Working with the Group Theatre, he met Elia Kazan – and, in 1944, served as his assistant on the screen adaptation of Betty Smith’s best-seller A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. He had two Broadway outings: acting in the Theatre of Action’s short-lived The Young Go First and directing the Duke Ellington and John La Touche’s musical Beggar’s Holiday, based on John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and starring Alfred Drake and Zero Mostel.

Ray went on to film and directed highly-received movies in the film noir genre, including They Live by Night, a Southern gothic [Mississippi] prison escape thriller, which starred Farley Granger; Knock on Any Door, starring Humphrey Bogart; and the deep-color camp Western Johnny Guitar [which still has a cult following] starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, and Mercedes McCambridge.

His Blind Run treatment had little to do with Dr. Lindner’s book. Rather it “offered 
social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments.” It became a story about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teens on a journey through a turbulent universe of violence and delinquency.”

The director claimed Romeo and Juliet as his inspiration, calling it "the best play written about juvenile delinquents. The only Lindner remnant was the 'chickie-run' where Jim/Dean and Buzz/Corey Allen in a dare race toward a cliff [originally, this was to be a race along L.A. transit’s Sepulveda incline, where the cars would crash into the tunnel in the Santa Monica mountains].

WB script writer and author Irving Shulman tackled Ray’s original story to create the screenplay; and Stewart Stern, recipient of a 1951 Oscar nomination for Teresa, about a troubled American soldier, was assigned to craft the final product. Stern was born into Hollywood royalty, the nephew of Paramount Pictures founder Adolph Zukor and a cousin to the powerful Loews, who controlled MGM and a cinema chain.

Stern met Dean at a party at Arthur Loew Jr.'s home. "Jimmy and I laughed at the same things,” he recalled in a newspaper interview, “and he'd try to shock me and vice-versa,  He was just one of those people you find irresistible, but he could also
 be quite mischievous."

[Stern went on to a long career in film. He “became known for the psychological depth of his screen-writing.” Paul Newman, who directed 1968’s Rachel, Rachel, which Stern wrote and which starred Newman’s wife Joanne Woodward, told the Seattle Times in 1996, "Stewart's words give an actor a kind of emotional depth that you can just ride on, like a wave. He certainly stacks up as one of the best in our business."]


He stated the key to his success with Rebel was “finding a personal connection to the story. It was a story about me, as everything I've ever done turned out to be." In a 2011 interview, he stated that Rebel “was a portrait of juvenile delinquents and the family dysfunction that marred their prospects for happiness.”
Even as respected as Stern was, Warner assigned second-in-command Steve Trilling to keep tabs on the budget and script. He went much further with voluminous typed notes, handwritten comments, and suggestions on Stern’s screenplay.

The writing credits were Stewart Stern (screenplay), Nicholas Ray (original story) and Irving Shulman (adaptation). In a 1999 interview, Stern claimed he never saw Ray’s treatment: “I was shocked when I learned that Ray wanted to take sole story credit, as there hadn’t been an actual story.” He admitted Ray and Shulman contributed to the story, and believed credit should have been divided between the three. And then there was Leon Uris (Battle Cry) who was brought in to punch up the script. He was responsible for the cliff top ‘chickie-run’ dare scenario “rather than having a suicidal rapture.” [The cliff was actually built on WB’s Stage 16, and Oscar-winning cinematographer Ernie Haller (Gone with the Wind) who gets kudos for making it look authentic by using various camera angles.]

Dean was Ray’s only choice to play Jim Stark, but Paul Newman, Tab Hunter, and Richard Beymer [later Tony in the screen adaptation of West Side Story] were considered. He was signed, sealed, and delivered on March 17. Natalie Wood was signed a week later, but no one knew the secret she and Ray carefully guarded.
Behind the scenes tales of the production sounded right out of Grace Metalious’ novel Peyton Place. There’d already been the scandal of Ray discovering his 
13-year-old son [with second wife Jean Evans] being seduced by his third wife, tempestuous actress Gloria Grahame. 

However, Ray wasn’t above scandalous behavior.

Wood, 16, had been in 20 films since she was five. Being cast as Judy would be her transition to adult roles. But being considered for lovelorn Judy were Debbie Reynolds and, amazingly, Jayne Mansfield. Wood went into action, campaigning relentlessly, rarely missing a chance to put herself in Ray’s orbit. Eventually, he responded; but not as she planned – or was it?

The scuttlebutt goes that after a meeting in the studio commissary, Ray, 44, asked her out. By the time she screen-tested, the duo were entangled in a potentially career-toppling affair. They discretely rendezvoused almost daily for several weeks at the Chateau Marmont. It didn’t work. Ray felt she was “too naïve, too Hollywood.”

Pillow talk may have intervened. Ray began to envision Judy less as a trashy teen and more as a confused, hurting kid like Wood herself. Convinced that Wood was having an affair with Dean, he boiled with rage. But it was Dennis Hopper the trysts were with. Hopper was cast in Rebel, but when Ray found out about the affair, he gave nearly all of his lines to another actor. [He and Hopper reconciled later, with Hopper helping Ray, who’d hit hard times in the 70s, get work as a college instructor.]

On a late, rainy night in February 1955, Wood, out carousing with Hopper, miraculously survived a head-on collision on L.A.’s twisty Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Ray visited her in hospital, and overheard her doctor call her “a goddamn juvenile delinquent." Wood yelled to Ray: "Did you hear what he called me, Nick? He called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent! Now, do I get the part?"

Ray wrote Jack Warner: "We just spent three days testing 32 kids. There is only one girl who has shown the capacity to play Judy, and she is Natalie Wood." Then began Ray’s Vertigo-like reinvention of her, which included speech and lesson in how to walk, padded hips, and a special push-up brassiere — still known, in the annals of Hollywood undergarments, as the ”Natalie Wood bra.”

Hopper, Billy Gray (Bud Anderson, Father Knows Best), and 17-year-old TV actor Jeff Silver auditioned for the role of Plato, the loner Jim Stark meets in juvenile hall, who looks to Jim as a father/big brother figure. According to biographer Hymans, Ray spotted 15-year-old Sal Mineo at a casting call for gang members. He saw a resemblance to his son: “slight, almost pretty, with large, sad eyes” – not exactly right for a gang member.

Mineo had been on Broadway opposite Maureen Stapleton [one of the candidates for the role of Jim Stark’s mother] in The Rose Tattoo, and was one of the older children in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I, as well as two films, including playing the younger version of Tony Curtis’ character in the crime noir Six Bridges to Cross.

Ray had him do improv Corey Allen, and, impressed, set up a reading with Dean, where he didn’t see much chemistry. He sent them out – where they talked about Mineo’s native Bronx and cars. The rapport was there. He got the role.
When casting was announced, rumors floated that Ray cast his three leads after sleeping with them. Though it was reported that he was bi-sexual in college, Ray vehemently denied the accusations.

At the end of March, Rebel Without a Cause began shooting, starting with a knife fight outside the Planetarium in Griffiths Park.
Studio chief Jack Warner was not in the habit of viewing daily rushes of his films,
following the opening grosses of East of Eden and critical acclaim for Dean, he was checking up on a commodity he was banking on. He came by twice. Pleased, especially with how it appeared Ray was getting Dean to toe the line, Warner issued a bulletin. Production was to stop. At once!

 Rebel without a Cause was quickly about to get a make-over and not only segue from a B-picture to a feast with all the cinematic trimmings, but also to “the boss’” pet project.

END OF PART TWO

See part one HERE.

Remembering James Dean, Part One: 
From Method Actor to Screen Idol

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Features

Published on Friday, 29 September 2017 13:40

Written by Ellis Nassour

February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955

"Dream what you want to dream, go where you want to go, be what you want to be," James Dean has been quoted as saying. "Because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do." Another time, he stated, "The only success, the only greatness is immortality."
By that standard, Dean has achieved immortality. Long after his untimely death in 1955, the fascination with Dean lives on. It’s almost unthinkable, given the boldly handsome images we have of the actor, that on February 8, 2018, the forever young Dean would be turning 87.
Most tend to think Dean made only three films: Elia Kazan's production of Steinbeck's East of Eden, Nicholas Ray's Rebel without a Cause, and George Steven's production of Edna Ferber's Giant— all shot within 18 months from 1954-1955. But he'd long been paying his dues for quite a while.

Dean, an only child, was born in Marion, Indiana, but early on the family relocated to Los Angeles. Friends have noted how close he was to his mother. When she died of uterine cancer, he became a lost child. His father sent him to live on the Fairmont, Indiana farm of his Quaker aunt and uncle. Sources close to the family reported that Dean “came under the influence of a Methodist minister and became engaged in a sexual relationship for several years.”

He was active in high school sports, was in a drama class, and competed in debate. Following graduation, he returned to California and enrolled in college with a major in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA, changing his major to drama. Dean acted in college, but dropped out after a semester. He did readings, workshops, and made the rounds auditioning. Friends said he “always stood out as someone uniquely different” and casting directors didn’t know what to think of him “because of intensity.”
He worked countless jobs, including being a parking attendant, until he finally got a break doing commercials. His first speaking role was in a TV Easter special where he played a disciple; then, was cast to play Malcolm in Macbeth. This led to an invite to join James Whitmore’s acting workshop.

From 1951-1953, he had uncredited roles in five features. In 1951, Dean became bi-coastal. In New York, he was a hit with the Bohemian crowd in Greenwich Village, where he frequented the coffee houses and jazz clubs. He hung with actors at Rockefeller Center’s long-gone Cromwell’s drug store who were auditioning for NBC Television. He secured a behind-the-scenes job in TV, but was soon in front of the camera. In the age of live TV dramas, he co-starred in over 20 programs and a made-for-TV movie.

Constantly told he was “unique” and “different,” Dean became convinced that the Actors Studio was the one place he'd fit in. He began showing up and, according to the late Eli Wallach, hung around so much that he was granted membership. 


Dean wrote to his father Winton and aunt and uncle that "It's the greatest school of the theater. It houses people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, and Mildred Dunnock." He noted that "very few get into it" and that "It is the best thing that can happen to an actor." He was one of the youngest to be accepted.

He performed with Brando, future co-stars Harris and Carroll Baker [respectively, East of Eden and Giant], Herbert Berghof, and became not only quite close to but also quite attracted to Montgomery Clift, and mesmerized by a young Marilyn Monroe.
Wallach knew something of method acting. He studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner before becoming a charter member of the Studio at its founding in the late 40s by Kazan [later joined by Lee Strasberg. He spoke in glowing terms about Dean: "We knew we were in the presence of a blithe spirit, someone unique."

Martin Landau, who met Dean there, said, "As young actors, we walked the streets, talking about theater and wondering about our next job; reading books and discussing them; seeing plays and films; doing workshops; and being serious about the thing we loved: acting. Jimmy and I had an amazingly instant rapport … We became part of a sort of a surrogate family."
Colleagues were in awe of Dean’s "uniqueness, extreme concentration, and exceptional imagination." Dean, however, was in awe of Brando. 

The techniques he learned at the Studio enabled him to make even minor roles his own.  Dean made his Off-Broadway debut in 1953, in the short-lived The Scarecrow (seven performances) at the Theater de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel) in a cast that included Wallach, Anne Jackson (Mrs. Wallach), 22-year-old Bradford Dillman, Albert Salmi, and Tony winner Patricia Neal. Directing was Frank Corsaro, later an esteemed opera director [who was the original director of Broadway’s Jesus Christ Superstar, until sidelined by an automobile accident].

In an interview, Neal said, "Jimmy was an unknown, but was jolly good in every way — such a refreshing presence. We immediately bonded at the first reading. I knew he was born to become an actor. But I also quickly learned you never knew what to expect from him. Playing opposite him wasn’t always easy." 

In fact, he soon became a director’s nightmare – thinking his instincts and insight into character were better than theirs. Usually, he was right.

Next, came Broadway. His debut was in N. Richard Nash's 1952 play See the Jaguar at the Cort Theatre – co-starring with Arthur Kennedy, Constance Ford, and Cameron Prud'homme.  The play closed after five performances. Playwright Nash was later famous for The Rainmaker and the musical Wildcat.

Betsy Palmer, stage/screen/TV actress, acted in live TV with Dean. Not only that, but she revealed they had an eight month affair – she even lived with him -- before her 1954 marriage. “Jimmy was very mercurial,” said Miss Palmer, who passed in 2015 at 88. “He could be very high and he could be very, very low. He could be very sweet and he could be very, very funny. And he could be very nasty. He was all of those things and you never were quite sure just how the lay of the land was going to be.  On set, Jimmy took so much time to do all these nuances, and only he seemed to know what they meant. The viewing audience may have caught it and might not. He had an inner story going on. That’s what made Jimmy the most fascinating performer he was.”   

Dean was back to TV in 1954. On the General Electric Theatre, hosted by future California Governor and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, he performed live opposite Mr. Reagan in Dark, Dark Days. “Jimmy was an intelligent young actor who seemed to live only for his work,” Mr. Reagan recalled. “He was completely dedicated and although a shy person, he could hold a good conversation on many wide-ranging subjects. He was at the top of his game. You always knew you were with a formidable presence.”

Mr. Reagan was instrumental in bringing Dean back on the program to star in I’m a Fool opposite Eddie Albert, Roy Glenn [an early African-American on TV shows and later a long-working character actor] and 16-year-old Natalie Wood, with whom he was to spend a lot more time with.

The same year, onstage, Dean was cast in The Immoralist, directed by Daniel Mann; and adapted from the French Nobel Prize winner Andrè Gide’s 1902 controversial autobiographical novel [set in Normandy and North Africa] by Augustus and Ruth Goetz (The Heiress). Producing was none other than Billy Rose. Dean appeared opposite suave French idol Louis Jourdan, making his Broadway debut, and Geraldine Page, in her second Broadway outing. They portrayed a couple honeymooning in Tunis, as the husband recuperates from tuberculosis.

While Dean and Page hit it off immediately, Jourdan complained to Mann that Dean, ever exasperating, “ignored his blocking and was a distraction moving about the stage a lot and upstaging me.” He may have been peeved that Dean, in the role of an as a "pandering an Arab houseboy and prostitute, got better reviews. Mann spoke to Dean, but it did little good. The Frenchman and the rebel only spoke onstage. It wasn’t an ideal situation because Jourdan’s character becomes romantically obsessed with him – and his obsession with Dean was in a whole other direction.

Frustrated, Dean gave notice after two weeks. The play, way ahead of its time, didn’t attract audiences. It folded after 96 performances.
Dean’s timing was fortuitous. Back at the Actor's Studio, Kazan was about to set off for California to cast East of Eden, as adapted and sanitized for the screen, a sort of Cain and Abel allegory loosely based on the second half of John Steinbeck’s 1952 best-seller, and told the screenwriter and Broadway playwright Paul Osborn that he was looking for "another Brando" to play moody, insecure Cal Trask. Osborn responded, “You have someone exactly like that right under your nose here at the Studio.”

"It was perfect casting," stated Wallach, who recalled Kazan's notes on Cal. "He said, 'Everything this kid does should be delightfully anarchistic, odd, original, imaginative, eccentric, full of longing, and with sudden mood alterations. He is the unexpected personified. He goes directly to the heart of the matter.' That was Jimmy, always reaching out."

Kazan went with his instincts. "I had this intuition about Dean,” said the director. “He had a real sense of himself. He wasn’t polite. He didn’t try to butter me up. When I discussed the role with him, he found it difficult to talk. His auditions were filled with bold choices, which really attracted me. I saw his as this twisted, extremely grotesque figure.”

When Dean got the job, added Kazan, “He invited me for a ride on his motorbike. That was his way of thanking me.”
When the director and Steinbeck met to discuss the arc of the script, the author whom didn't care for Dean, after hearing Kazan describe Dean, shift the focus of the onscreen story to Cal instead of Adam [the stern, religious father]. He wrote Kazan: "Cal is the character [whom] the audience has got to know and understand. This moody, complex young man is perfect for the part."




Dean and co-star Harris bonded quickly. Their scene on the Ferris wheel is one of the most poignant in moviedom as Dean, classically serious, digs deep for the heartfelt emotion he shows her.

 In an interview, Harris, who plays Abra [Aron’s love interest who falls for Cal], stated, “Jimmy was very exciting – not only enormously charismatic, sweet, and kind but also a very intelligent, gifted actor. He reminded me from the very beginning of Tom Sawyer, a guy who’d always get you to paint the fence and get you in terrible scrapes. It’s was all ‘What’s life for?’ It’s not just to go plodding in the same places. It’s an adventure.

“I likened him to a star or a comet that fell through the sky,” she continued, “one everybody still talks about it. Ahhh! Remember that night when you say that shooting star! He had enormous appeal and magic.”

She spoke of a moment in their screen test where he questioned her about a hand movement. “I wanted to say “You son-of-a-bitch,’ but I didn’t. From then on, it got into my head that things like that were a device to keep you off guard so that everything was alive.”

Miss Harris and co-stars Burl Ives and Albert Dekker reported that Dean often surprised everyone by doing the unexpected, which led to some rough going. Raymond Massey [Adam], an Oscar nominee and one of movies most acclaimed actors, was quite disciplined and had little patience with Dean, who found him stern and inflexible. Massey complained he was throwing him off by changing lines and doing them as he felt. He called Dean “shameless” and told him “I can’t stand your Actors Studio mentality” – which didn’t faze Dean one bit. Time and again, he flummoxed Massey. You can see one particular and intense moment in a take that crafty Kazan left in the film.

In the scene, Dean pulled what Massey called “one of your sudden mood alterations.” Dean/Cal has amassed a large amount of money in a slick business move and goes to present it to his father in hopes that Adam will love him more than favored son Aron. But Adam accuses him of stealing the money.

As Massey pleads with him to be a good son, Dean contorts, turns away, and crumbles into a ball. Waving the money, he approaches Massey and, in an unscripted moment, lunges at him, jabbing him into a wall. He begins sobbing, throws his arms around Massey in a tight bear hug. 

Massey, fuming, exclaims “Cal! Cal!” but Dean doesn’t let go. The camera caught the shock on Massey’s face. 

“I’m sure Jimmy respected Raymond Massey,” said Miss Harris in an interview, “but he was always trying to make him feel upset and flustered. Just for the fun of it.”

Dean, however, was totally unapologetic. Massey threatened to walk. He  complained to Warner Bros. studio chief Jack Warner, who advised Kazan to tame Dean. When Kazan addressed the matter, however, he told Dean, “Raymond’s getting really irritated. Keep it up! That’s what I want.” [Whether Massey changed his opinion of Dean isn’t known, but at the New York premiere, as he’s interviewed upon arriving, he highly praised him.]

Lois Smith, who was making her feature debut at 24, had the role of Anne, a shy bordello worker. Dean insisted on screen-testing with her. She has her own complex memories of him. "When Jimmy looked at you with those gorgeous blue eyes, you melted like ice cream sitting in the sun. He was a sweet, rustic person. I used to imagine him sitting on the porch at the family farm back in Indiana. On the other hand, there was this suspicious, taunt, guarded young man. Both seemed always present. There was this thrilling tension within him. Jimmy brought a new sensibility to acting.”

Kazan, viewing the daily rushes, saw “Dean’s star power exploding” and “jumping off the screen.” Dean’s performance overshadowed his co-stars, especially the soft-spoken, delicate Harris, and Richard Davalos, playing his brother. It even came close to overshadowing Jo Van Fleet, in a fierce role as his morphine-addicted mother Kate, a madam, whom his father said was dead. [The role won her a Supporting Oscar.] Though cold to Dean at first, they began to bond. She told friends that she felt Dean saw her as a mother figure.

On location in Mendocino, California, in the Salinas Valley on the Pacific coast near Fort Bragg, Dean, in his first starring role in a major motion picture, often acted as if he was already one of Hollywood’s greatest stars. With his moving about sets, he drove Oscar-nominated cameraman Ted McCord, already beset with problems of shooting in the new wide-screen CinemaScope, crazy. He thought nothing of going off on his motorcycle, holding up production for hours. Search parties would be sent to get him back to the set. He’d be found bonding with young townspeople. Kazan later admitted, “Dean was quite a handful.”

In an interview, Julie Harris spoke of Dean’s emotion on the last day of shooting: “I wasn’t certain I’d be able to attend the wrap party, I went over to Jimmy’s trailer to say goodbye. He was crying. I tried to comfort him and asked why he was so upset. He said, ‘The production is over.’ It was his first starring role, and all, but there was already so much talk and publicity about him that I knew this wouldn’t be the end.”

Dean’s “date” for the star-studded and televised New York premiere of East of Eden at the long-gone Astor Theatre [taken over by the Marriott Marquis Hotel] was supposed to be Marilyn Monroe – but she didn’t even show. However, for reasons unknown, neither did Dean, which so angered WB studio chief Jack Warner, already “fed up with his antics and all the trouble-shooting during filming, who stood outside the theatre on the red carpet awaiting his arrival. Warner was so angry it almost cost Dean the lead in Rebel without a Cause.


End of Part One