People who personally knew the now iconic actor James Dean called him Jimmy. But as you can see, there is some area for confusion with another Jimmy with a like surname - a Jimmy who we have to admit is a bit better known to the general populace.
But not for what he was originally famous for. Say "Jimmy Dean" and people think of sausage and other country chow downs. But it was Jimmy's original fame that made him such an effective pitchman for his comestibles. To learn about that Jimmy and his well merited fame, just click here.
But James Dean was the moody actor who starred in three hit movies of the 50's: East of Eden, Giant, and especially Rebel Without a Cause. In Rebel James played Jim - Jim Stark, that is. Jim was a "juvenile delinquent" whose parents spend most of their time yelling at him and at each other. If James looked a little elderly playing a teenager it's because he was actually 24. Sal Mineo - who played "Plato" - was sixteen and Natalie Wood - "Judy" - was seventeen.
The most famous scene in the movie was the "chickie run" - which truth to tell is an activity that few 1950's teenagers indulged in. Having to come up with two cars to run off a cliff is not in the wherewithal of many adolescents. Nor did sporting a duck-tailed automatically turn you into an airhead. But the scriptwriter had read a newspaper story about a real run that occurred on the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles. Supposedly one of the "delinquents" did fail to jump out of the car in time like in the movie.
And of course, probably what's most famous about James Dean is his death in an automobile accident on September 30, 1955. Supposedly Alec Guiness - better known as Obi-Wan Kenobi from the first Star Wars film - met the young actor and warned James that if he got into the car he would be dead in a week. However, the prediction wasn't reported until 30 years later and so you would expect it to be accurate.
James had been slated to play Rocky Barbella - yes, Rocky Barbella - in Somebody Up There Likes Me. This movie was based on the life of Rocky Graziano (whose real name was indeed Barbella). For his part the real Rocky Graziano/Barbella had a small part in the Frank Sinatra movie Tony Rome, which is a surprisingly good movie.
James had also been sought out to play the part of a former boxer named Ad Francis in a television adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Battler". In the original story, though, the main character wasn't Ad, but a young man named Nick Adams who was bumming his way around the country. While riding the rails, Nick gets thrown off a freight train by a brakeman, and lands by the side of the track bruised and with a black eye but otherwise OK.
Continuing on foot Nick finds two men camping by the side of the track. One was Ad Francis, once rich and famous, but now a broken down punch drunk bum and subject to fits of irrational behavior ("I'm crazy," he tells Nick). Traveling with Ad was a black man named Bugs, and they invited Nick to join them for their dinner of ham and egg sandwiches.
As Bugs cooks dinner, a seemingly non-incident about Nick's knife sends Ad off into a frenzy where he challenges Nick to a fight. To protect Nick, Bugs sneaks up and knocks Ad out with a blackjack. He then politely asks Nick to move on since seeing Nick might send Ad into another frenzy. The story ends with Nick walking down the track.
To make a five page story into a one hour television play, the scriptwriter, Aaron Edward Hotchner, had to expand the plot and so he had Nick bumming around before he came across Ad and Bugs. Since the real star of the show was to be James, there were flashbacks of Ad's early life telling the story that led to his current pitiable state. Arthur Penn (who in ensuing years would sit in the chair for Bonnie and Clyde and Alice's Restaurant) directed the show.
Paul Newman
The Star
But when James Dean was killed in the car wreck just a week before the filming, the only thing to do was to recast the actor who was playing Nick Adams into the lead role of Ad Francis. That was the young Paul Newman.
At the time Paul only had one screen credit to his name, but he played the part of the fighter so well that he was immediately offered the lead in Somebody Up There Likes Me. The movie was a hit, and Paul became a star.
References
James Dean, Joe Hyams, Warner Books, 1992.
"Friends of James Dean Remember Iconic Star", Today, Associated Press, February 8, 2005.
Rebel Without a Cause: Approaches to a Maverick Masterwork, J. David Slocum, State University of New York, 2005.
Blessings in Disguise, Alec Guinness, Random House, 1985.
Papa Hemingway, A. E. Hotchner, Random House, 1966.
"Advertising", Qi, Stephen Fry (Presenter), Alan Davies (Regular Panelist), Gyles Brandreth (Guest Panelist), Rob Brydon (Guest Panelist), Rich Hall (Guest Panelist), BBC, October 2, 2003, Internet Movie Data Base.
"The Battler", Paul Newman (Actor), Dewey Martin (Actor), Frederick O'Neal (Actor), Arthur Penn (Director), A. E. Hotchner (Scriptwriter), Sidney Carroll (Scriptwriter), Ernest Hemingway (Story), Playhouse 56, October 18, 1955, Internet Movie Data Base.