James was a complex young man – a seemingly moody character, a deep thinker who was complicated and emotional, and totally dedicated to his craft. He worked hard and paid his dues in all manner of acting roles on television and theatre, but in spite of that he actually only had three major films to his credit, the first being East of Eden, which he began shooting in April 1954. This film was a big success, and landed James Dean an Academy Award nomination for best actor. Unfortunately by this time the actor had already passed away and in the end the award went to Ernest Borgnine for his performance in Marty.
Dean’s next movie was perhaps his most famous, and is still frequently broadcast on television nearly sixty years after its release: Rebel Without a Cause was the movie that really seemed to give teenagers a name and introduced the world to their angst and problems – particularly problems related to their relationship with their parents. Young people around the world identified with Dean’s character, Jim Stark. They had their hair cut like his and took to wearing white T-shirts and blue jeans just like their hero. The film gave Dean a huge degree of success, and it would be fair to say that, without it, there perhaps would not have been the amount of publicity surrounding the actor that we still witness today.
Next came the movie Giant, which saw Dean playing Jett Rink, an outcast who strikes oil and becomes a baron – a very different character to those he had played in Rebel and East of Eden. The film saw Dean cast alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, and he grew very fond of Taylor during filming, so much so that it is rumoured he once told her that he had been molested as a child by a local minister. However, since neither person is around in order to substantiate this story, it is impossible to say if this really happened or is just a product of hearsay and gossip.
Regardless of whether he ever admitted such a thing, the two actors did become close friends and Taylor presented Dean with a cat that he called Marcus and who lived with him until his untimely death. When a reporter telephoned Elizabeth after Dean died, she was shocked and unable to find any words. “I can’t believe it; I’m just stunned,” was all she managed to say, before breaking down.
Giant was not entirely finished at the time of James’s death and still needed to be edited and polished. With this in mind, Nick Adams, an actor from Rebel and Dean’s friend, took on the task of dubbing some of Dean’s lines during this process. Still, the fact that the film had not been edited or seen before his death did nothing to diminish its likeability, and in 1956 he was given his second Academy Award nomination, though he lost out to Yul Brynner for his portrayal of the King in The King and I. While he may not have won the award, James did manage to become something of a record breaker when he became the only actor ever to receive two posthumous and consecutive nominations for acting.
Away from his career, James Dean was a keen racing driver and had a deep love for motorbikes and cars. Friends worried about his hobby, however, as he would often take his interest off the race track and instead go pelting down the highways with seemingly no regard for his personal safety whatsoever. Warner Brothers were concerned enough by this to ban Dean from all racing during the making of Giant, which he did not appreciate at all.
He did, somewhat ironically, manage to record a “Public Service Announcement” during the making of the film, warning young people of the dangers of speeding on the highway, during which he shared his thoughts: “I used to fly around quite a bit and took a lot of unnecessary chances on the highways,” he explained. “Then I started racing and now when I drive on the highway I’m extra cautious because no one knows what they’re doing.” He then urged the youngsters to take care when driving because, “the life you save might be mine”.
On 21 September 1955, just after filming on Giant had ended, Dean invested in a new Porsche 550 Spyder and christened it “Little Bastard”, though the inspiration behind such a name remains unclear. Some say it was a direct dig at Jack Warner who had once apparently called Dean such a name, while others insist it was a nickname given to him by a friend. But whatever the reason behind the moniker, there were several people who had an uneasy feeling about the vehicle, including British actor Alec Guinness, who met Dean just seven days before his death. The young actor showed Guinness his car and asked him what he thought, to which he reportedly replied, “If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week.” The macabre Dean no doubt thought this comment somewhat amusing, and instead of avoiding the car as Guinness suggested, decided to enter it into the Salinas Road Race which was to take place on 1–2 October 1955.
James Dean had something of an obsession with death and was once even photographed sitting inside a coffin. He confessed to friends that he did not expect to live long, that he wanted to do everything quickly because he knew that time was running out for him. “He was an extreme individualist,” said an unnamed friend, just days after his death. “A nonconformist who believed in acting and living as he pleased.”
On 30 September 1955, Dean climbed into his Porsche, together with friend and mechanic Rolf Wütherich, and they set off for Salinas, followed by friend Bill Hickman and photographer Sanford H. Roth who had photographed Dean shortly before they left. Those beautifully candid shots of the actor, with the customary cigarette hanging from his mouth, were the last to be taken of him.
The idea had been for all four men to travel in a station wagon with the Porsche strapped to the back, but moments before they left, Dean had a change of heart and decided it would be better if he drove the sports car in order to break it in for the race ahead. It was a decision that unfortunately would cost the actor his life.
As Dean tore down the highway with Wütherich, they were pulled over by California Highway Patrolman O. V. Hunter, who warned the actor that he was driving sixty-five miles an hour instead of the legal fifty-five. Hickman, driving behind, was also ticketed, and after the episode the party continued on their way, stopping briefly at Blackwell Corners for refreshments before heading towards Paso Robles in order to meet up with friends for dinner later that evening.
Shortly before 6 p.m., at about nineteen miles east of Paso Robles, Dean’s car was involved in a head-on collision at the intersection of Highways 41 and 466. The crash happened quickly and came when a Ford coupé being driven by a young man called Donald Turnupseed suddenly turned in front of Dean’s car. The force of the collision was so violent and at such velocity that Dean’s car flew up into the air, while the Ford slid almost forty feet down the highway.
Both Turnupseed and Wütherich were injured in the crash, with the mechanic suffering a fractured jaw and hip, and numerous other injuries. On being taken to the hospital, he was described as being in a “moderately serious condition” while Turnupseed’s car was a write-off. Its owner got away with fairly minor injuries; so much so, in fact, that when officers arrived on the scene, they interviewed the young man and then – quite bizarrely – told him to leave his destroyed vehicle at the roadside and hitchhike his way home to Tulare. He did as he was asked, and despite having just been involved in a head-on collision and all the shock that brings with it, found his way home in the dark, thanks to the kindness of strangers.
But while the two men were obviously shocked and physically hurt, they did manage to get out of the crash alive. The same cannot be said for James Dean, sadly, who suffered a broken neck, other broken bones and lacerations all over his body. His foot had been crushed between the pedals and he had internal injuries, too, so that by the time Hickman and Roth arrived on the scene ten minutes later, he was all but gone.
The two men were stunned to see the wreckage before them and Hickman spent time getting his friend out of the wreckage in order to try and help him, while Roth snapped some photographs of the mangled car, some of which can be seen on websites that have sprung up over the years. While the photographs are not pleasant to look at, they do show the extent to which the vehicle was destroyed on impact and what a mystery it was that anyone got out alive at all.
An
ambulance finally arrived on the scene and rushed James Dean to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead immediately. Later reports would surface that Dean’s last words were, “That guy’s got to stop, he’ll see us”, in reference to Turnupseed’s vehicle, but this seems unlikely, especially as the crash happened so quickly.Wütherich later admitted that he was sneezing at the time of impact, and was therefore in no fit state to see or hear much at all.
Several weeks after the crash that killed the world’s most famous up-and-coming young actor, a coroner’s inquest was held to determine what exactly had happened. During the proceedings, witnesses Tom Fredericks and his brother-in-law Tom Dooley shocked everyone by claiming that it wasn’t Dean driving the car at the moment of impact, but actually his mechanic, Wütherich. This raised eyebrows around the room, but was categorically denied by the mechanic himself, who was still in hospital, recovering from the impact of the crash.
According to him, he was very definitely just the passenger of the vehicle, but nearly sixty years later, rumours abound that he was the driver. He wasn’t, but he never fully got over the crash, suffering depression and staying in hospital for eighteen months immediately after the accident. A tragic twist occurred in 1981 when Wütherich really was driving a car that was involved in a crash – he lost control and headed straight into a house, becoming mangled in the wreckage to such a degree that special equipment was needed in order to free him. Like James Dean more than twenty-five years earlier,Wütherich tragically passed away at the scene; he had escaped one major collision in his life, but he could not survive another.
Turnupseed, meanwhile, spoke very briefly to a reporter after the accident and then never mentioned it again, deciding that he needed to concentrate on the future rather than the past. He swore that at the moment of impact, he had not seen Dean’s small Porsche, and spent the rest of his life fending off reporters, authors, fans and passers-by determined to dish the dirt on the death of James Dean and Turnupseed’s part in it. So intrusive was the attention, in fact, that people would often trudge their way up his garden path in the hope of being granted an interview. They were never lucky, however, and instead of being able to talk to the man at the centre of the scandal, they were instead met by furious family members and quickly sent on their way. The poor man lived under the shadow of the actor’s death until his own eventual passing in 1995.
When the inquest into James Dean’s death was complete, his death was ruled an accident and the case closed. Meanwhile, the actor’s funeral was handled by his father, Winton, who travelled to Paso Robles after the death in order to oversee his son’s body returned to Fairmount, Indiana. The funeral itself was held at Fairmount Friends Church on 8 October 1955 and was attended by 3,000 people – a staggering number and said to be more than the entire population of his hometown at that time. His pall-bearers were his friends from school and he was buried in Fairmount’s Park Cemetery later that day.
This should, of course, have been the end of the story, but actually it was far from it. The headstone that was chosen for the plot went on to have rather a chequered story of its own when in 1983 the simple marker was stolen three times from the cemetery. It was returned twice and then disappeared for good. It has not been seen since; if someone stole it as a ghoulish memento, they have certainly kept very quiet about it.
Another headstone was placed in the spot shortly after the first was stolen for good, only to go missing in 1998. This time, however, it managed to find its way back when a sheriff found it after it had been dumped on a country road some sixty miles away. It was returned to the cemetery, and two metal rods secured it into the ground to prevent further theft. This has still not stopped macabre memorabilia hunters, however, who have come to the grave over the years to chip away pieces of stone for their creepy collections. They do this, they say, because they are fans, though what Dean’s friends and family think of this unsavoury and hugely disrespectful ritual is something else entirely.
A more appropriate way of remembering the tragic young actor was undertaken in 2005 on the fiftieth anniversary of James Dean’s death. Despite the original accident intersection being restructured and moved over the years (though the original road can still be seen nearby), the new layout was named the James Dean Memorial Junction and a small plaque is situated at the spot where the accident occured. Now everyone who drives down that particular stretch of road is reminded of the man who lost his life there, and perhaps they drive a little more slowly too. As James Dean once said, “the life you save might be mine”.
32
The Mysterious Death of Lana Turner’s Boyfriend
In terms of Hollywood actresses, you do not get much bigger than blonde bombshell Lana Turner. A star in every sense of the word, Lana exuded glamour, sophistication and sex appeal, but when her boyfriend Johnny Stompanato was killed in her Beverly Hills mansion, Turner’s career and reputation looked as though they would be tarnished forever.
Born in Wallace, Idaho, on 8 February 1921, Julia Jean Turner, the woman who would grow up to be known as Lana, was raised for the most part in California; first in San Francisco and then, later, Los Angeles. Her childhood was not the happiest of starts and at an early age she lost her father after he was mugged and murdered on his way home from a “craps” game. The crime was never solved and as a result of having no father, the family were impoverished and often split apart while Lana’s mother, Mildred, worked all the hours she could just to put food on the table.
During times such as those, Lana would move in with friends until her mother was able to have her back in the family home, but it was often a gruesome few months, particularly when some of the families she lived with treated her as their own personal servant and dogsbody. Lana herself later wrote that “servant” was too good a word for how she was treated in the homes where she stayed, and described her life as like “a cheap Cinderella” but with no hope of a pumpkin. There were also times when she was beaten so badly that she bled, leading her mother into despair when she eventually found out what was going on.
As she entered her teens, Lana and her mother moved to Los Angeles where they hoped to live a better life. Things did indeed look up while they were there, and Lana enrolled at Hollywood High School while Mildred gained employment as a beautician, though the hours were awful – often eighty a week. This meant that the child became something of a latchkey kid, letting herself into the house after school and fending for herself until her mother came home from work.
Depending on whom you believe, Lana Turner was either discovered at the soda fountain at Schwab’s drugstore or in the Top Hat Café. It ultimately does not matter where the location was, of course – the most important fact being that the sixteen-year-old was spotted by William F. Wilkerson, the publisher of the Hollywood Reporter and a successful talent scout. He asked if she would like to be an actress, to which she replied, “I’ll have to ask my mother.” She did; it was fine; and Wilkerson put her in touch with producer and director Mervyn LeRoy who cast her in a small role in his next movie, They Won’t Forget (1937).
Although only on the screen for a matter of minutes, Turner made a big impression, particularly because of the way her breasts bounced in her sweater as she walked down the street. After that columnists began calling the young woman “The Sweater Girl”, though this was a tag that Lana hated and, if truth be known, the part in They Won’t Forget was not one of her personal favourites, branding it embarrassing after seeing herself on screen.
Lana worked hard on her career after she became “The Sweater Girl” and gained many parts, moving to MGM and signing her first contract just months after her debut movie role. However, her popularity reached a new level during World War II when she starred in such films as Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Slightly Dangerous (1943).
She worked with Clark Gable on several occasions and their chemistry was such that Mrs Gable – Carole Lombard – did not particularly like the pairing and would often visit the set to keep an e
ye on both Lana and her husband. In fact, as documented here in the chapter on Lombard, it was while rushing home from a bond rally in order to reunite with Gable, who was filming with Turner, that Lombard died in a plane crash. Her death encouraged Gable to put his movie career on hold and go into the military. Lana then threw herself into selling bonds herself, as well as visiting soldiers in order to raise their spirits. Once the war was over, she went on to star in the 1946 film noir, The Postman Always Rings Twice, which buoyed her confidence as she had fought for a dramatic role for some considerable time and it cemented her reputation as a Hollywood star.
However, away from the screen, it was always Turner’s personal life that caused the most waves in the newspapers, and she was known from an early age as a rebellious party girl who loved nightclubs and dancing. So much so, in fact, that she was often seen hanging around at Mocambo and Ciro’s, staying up late to drink cocktails, dance the night away and spend time with the various men who frequented both establishments. Lana, it can be said, was a huge fan of the opposite sex and by the time she passed away in 1995, the actress had been married a staggering eight times to seven different men. She later wrote that she found men to be exciting and could not understand any woman who did not think that way, describing them as ladies with no corpuscles or as statues.
A true romantic at heart, Lana believed she would one day get the classic Hollywood ending and live happily ever after, but unfortunately none of her marriages were successful, and a few even turned abusive and violent. She later described her first husband, band leader Artie Shaw, as the most egotistical man she had ever met, adding, “I hate him.” Things were not much better – and often worse – with her future husbands, but out of all the men in her life, perhaps it was second husband Stephen Crane who made the most impact as it was with him that she had her beloved daughter, Cheryl.
The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals Page 28
