JAMES DEAN of HOLLYWOOD

      Hollywood actor James Dean Drawn by my maternal uncle S M Hadjirin, who was an English teacher and a talented artist.Mr Hadjirin was born in Matale, the "Historical City" of Sri Lanka.
      On September 30, 1955, actor James Dean was driving his new Porsche 550 Spyder to an auto rally in Salinas, California when he was involved in a head-on collision with a 1950 Ford Tutor. James Dean, only 24 years old, died in the crash. Although already famous for his role in East of Eden, his death and the release of Rebel Without a Cause caused James Dean to soar to cult status. James Dean, forever frozen as the talented, misunderstood, rebellious youth, remains the symbol of teenage angst.James Dean had acted only in three films.He was born in 1931 in Fairmount Indiana.Immediately after grade school,he moved to New York to pursue his dream of acting. He received rave rewiews for his work as the blackmailing Arab boy in the New York production of Gide's "The Immoralist", good enough to earn him a trip to Hollywood.
James Dean had appeared in a number of television shows before getting his "big break" in 1954 when he was chosen to play Cal Trask, the leading male role in the film East of Eden (1955). (This was the only one of Dean's films that was released before his death.)

Quickly following East of Eden, James Dean was signed to play Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause(1955), the film for which Dean is best remembered. Immediately following the filming for Rebel Without a Cause, Dean played the lead role in Giant (1956). (Both of these films were released after Dean's death.)

M Rezvie Omerdeen
36/19, Harrison Jone's Road
Matale
Sri Lanka
5th January 2014