James Dean life

As you alredy know, James Dean was the protagonist of the film "Rebel Without a Cause" and died several years ago in a car accident. Despite of the years that have passed, James Dean is still having an important influence in a lot of people all over the world. If you do not know this actor here is his biography with the most important details of his short but well lived life.

James Dean

(1931-1955)

James Dean was born in February 8^th, 1931 in Marion, Indiana in The United States. In his early childhood he moved to the state of California, he settled in Los Angeles with his family. When he was 9 his mother died and he was send to Indiana where he lived with his uncle and aunt during some years until he returned to California to study Interpretation in the University of UCLA.

James Dean appeared in the early 50’s in series of television and advertisings, also he was part of some plays in Broadway. While he was in New York he continued studying in Actors studio. He started to participate in films in the early 50’s with secondary roles in the movies: “Fixed bayonets” (1951) by Sam Fuller and “Has anybody seen my gal?” (1952) directed by Douglas Sirk among others.

In 1955 he participated in the movie of the Warner Bros “At the east of the Eden”. His amazing performance surprised the audience and his colleagues and that’s why he was nominated to an Oscar. The same year Dean participate in another movie called “Rebel without a cause” (1955), an amazing film directed by Nicholas Ray that turned him definitely in an icon of the American youth. Because of his great success with only two movies Warner Bros included him in the plot of the movie “Giant” (1956) with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson in which he had to be a strange and shy young man, this movie gave him a new nomination to the Oscar.

This nomination was very important because just after his nomination the young actor James Dean died in a car accident in Paso Robles, California with his Porsche Spider while he was driving to a car race.

James Dean died in September 30^th, 1955 when he was only 24 years old. His death became him in one of the most important idols and icons of the 20^th century.

If you want to join to James Dean Fan Club you can find information in: JamesDean.com


This Information was adapted from:

• JamesDean.com
• IMDB.com
• Freeinfosociety.com

This picture was taken from:

• JamesDean.com
  

Nicholas Ray Filmography

These are some of the movies Nicholas Ray directed through his life. Eventhough we know he became an alcoholic, lost all his fortune in a couple of years and had a lot of problems with The Justice, his movies were always something interesting to see because he always tried to portrait the truth of the time he lived through his point of view and camera.

• Knock on Any Door (1949)
• A Woman's Secret (1949)
• They Live by Night (1949)
• In a Lonely Place (1950)
• On Dangerous Ground (1951)
• Born To Be Bad (1949)
• Flying Leathernecks (1951)
• The Lusty Men (1952)
• Macao (1952)
  
• Johnny Guitar (1954)
• Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
• Bigger Than Life (1956)
• Amère Victoire [Bitter Victory] (1957)
• Wind Across the Everglades (1958)
• Party Girl (1958)
• The Savage Innocents (1960)
• King of Kings (1961)
• 55 Days at Peking (1963)
• 
  

This information was taken from: Wikipedia.org

Rebel Without a Cause Official Trailer 1955

This is the official trailer which was released few days before The World Premiere in 1955.
Check it out.

This video was taken from: Youtube.com

Background of the film

In order to understand in a better way the movie we would like to give some information about the historical context in which was made.

The movie “Rebel without a cause” was made in United States in 1955 during times of conflicts with the soviet union among other countries, this period of conflict is known as “The Cold War “

Unites states had been involved in the Civil war II and during a long time was involve in conflicts with countries such as China and Cuba among others.

On the other hand during the decade of the 50’s the great director Charles Chaplin had to left the country after the debut of “The Dictator”, this meant that the cinema industry had been taking part of the economical and political conflicts of that time , it was a way to express and criticize the social issues of that time,too.

Within this context the director Nicholas Ray, who had been hired by the Warner Bros industry, shot the movie “Rebel without a cause” in which we can see how the principal actor James Dean is a rebel young man who is always involve in problems and who’s a brave man who tries to defend his honor in front of a bunch of young men. James Dean was an icon of the youth of that time and a huge number of people felt identified with the stereotype of this actor.

1) Image taken from: Sun3.lib.uci.edu

2) Cold War Alliances Image taken from: Encarta.msn.com