William James Sharp

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James Sharp, or Sharpe, (4 May 1618 – 3 May 1679) was a minister in the Church of Scotland, or kirk, who served as Archbishop of St Andrews from 1661 to 1679. His support for Episcopalianism, or governance by bishops, brought him into conflict with elements of the kirk who advocated Presbyterianism. Twice the victim of assassination attempts, the second cost him his life.1996 saw the publication of James Sharpe’s Instruments of Darkness, a major work on the history of witchcraft in England over the period c.1550 – 1750. At the moment, witchcraft continues to be a subject of considerable interest to him, and he will be researching and publishing further into this field.

James Sharpe’s initial research was on the history of crime in seventeenth – century England, which resulted in the completion of a DPhil thesis which was subsequently published as Crime in seventeenth-century England: a County Study. He went on to broaden his researches into this field, completing a number of essays and articles, a general book on crime in early modern England, and a short survey of punishment in England from c.1550 to the 1980s. He is a member of the Committee of the International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice, a research network based in Paris which helps keep scholars working in this field in contact with research on an international level. This interest in crime and law enforcement led James Sharpe to work on a wide variety of court records, and this led to the realisation that since these records were frequently the only source for examining the attitudes of the middling and lower sorts in the early modern periods they could be utilised to explore a range of social attitudes, notably those relating to personal reputation. More recently, Jim has been director of an ESRC funded project on violence in early modern England, and hopes to develop his interests in this aspect of past behaviour.Professor James Sharpe has well established interests in the social and cultural history of early modern England, with wider interests in witchcraft, in the history of crime and law enforcement, and in early modern judicial systems.

Des McAnuff replaced Mann as director, and filming was rescheduled to December 1994. Screenwriter Horovitz was busy playwrighting in Europe, so McAnuff and producer Marvin Worth were constantly rewriting the script in July 1994. The budget was estimated at $20 million. McAnuff stepped down as director and was replaced by Dennis Hopper. Hopper was a close friend with Dean and co-starred with the actor in both Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. Hopper met with DiCaprio for the lead role, but the director eventually dropped out of the film. By May 1995, DiCaprio was still the top candidate to portray Dean with Milčo Mančevski in discussions to direct the film. Franco did extensive research for his role. He went from being a non-smoker to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, but has since quit the habit. He learned how to ride a motorcycle, play guitar, as well as the conga and bongo drums. The actor also carefully studied Dean’s mannerisms by watching his three films (East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant). Franco also read numerous biographies on Dean’s life. The actor also took advice from some of Dean’s closest friends, including Martin Landau, Dennis Hopper, Liz Sheridan (Dean’s former girlfriend) and Leonard Rosenman. “Martin was the most informative person that I spoke to. He helped me tremendously with James’s physical mannerisms,” Franco reflected. “I isolated myself a lot during the filming. I did this because I think he had a pervasive loneliness throughout his life and I wanted to feel what that felt like. Not talking to my family or loved ones had quite an emotional effect on me.” In the early 1990s, Warner Bros. planned to produce a feature biographical film about actor James Dean, and the studio hired Israel Horovitz to write the script. One of the working titles was James Dean: An Invented Life before it was finalized as James Dean. When Horovitz wrote the script, he explored the “psychological insight” of Dean by showcasing the abandonment of his father, which became the fulcrum of the storyline. Horovitz recalled, “Why would a father ship his wife’s body back on a train with an 8-year-old son, never go to the funeral and never pick the son up again, never bring the son back out to him?” The screenwriter felt it was best to portray Dean’s purported homosexuality by innuendo rather than explicitly. He wanted to focus on the romance between Dean and Pier Angeli and Dean’s growth as an actor, and believed that a homosexuality subplot would distract from the storyline. Producer Marvin Worth explained in July 1995, “We’ll try to make a good movie… not one of rumor and innuendo.”Michael Mann was contracted to direct James Dean in September 1993, and filming was scheduled to start in May 1994. Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt were under serious consideration for the lead role, while both actors were also attached to the part. Mann approached Leonardo DiCaprio for the role of James Dean, feeling that DiCaprio was the best candidate. Gary Oldman was also discussed for a supporting role. In March 1994, Mann decided not to direct James Dean due to scheduling conflicts with Heat (1995). Mann also thought that DiCaprio was too young and wanted to wait another year.

Angered with his life, James decides to learn the truth about his father’s disinterest toward him since he was eight years old. Winton tells him that his real father was a man with whom his mother had an affair during the marriage and that he did not have the courage to raise him, not being his real father. With his inner demons resolved, he begins to enjoy life once more and adopts a friendly relationship with director Stevens. Shortly afterward, he dies in a car crash that shocks the film industry and the general public. En route on a train to Indiana, Winton sits next to his coffin in the storage room, he would not leave him this time.

Warner Bros. then decided to produce James Dean as a TV movie for Turner Network Television (TNT); both Warners and TNT are owned by Time Warner. Franco was cast as Dean in May 2000 after a search that resulted in 500 auditions. Franco researched his role to closely portray Dean. James Dean was shown on TNT in the United States on August 5, 2001, receiving generally positive reviews from critics and widespread acclaim for Franco’s performance.

The film was released on DVD and VHS on January 22, 2002 by Warner Home Video. It featured theatrical trailers for Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, English, French, Spanish subtitles, and Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio.

The biopic began development at Warner Bros. in the early 1990s. At one point, Michael Mann was contracted to direct with Leonardo DiCaprio starring in the lead role. After Mann’s departure, Des McAnuff, Dennis Hopper, and Milčo Mančevski were considered for the director’s chair. Rydell was hired as director in 1996, but the film continued to languish in development hell.

Rydell received a Directors Guild of America Award nomination, while Franco was nominated for his performance at the 8th Screen Actors Guild Awards. In addition, Franco won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film. The film also received multiple awards and nominations at the 54th Primetime Emmy Awards. Michael Moriarty won the Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for his portrayal of Winton Dean. The art department (led by Robert Pearson, Marc Dabe and Leslie McCarthy-Frankenheimer), also won an Emmy. Nominations included Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Lead actor (James Franco), Direction (Mark Rydell), Cinematography (Robbie Greenberg), Casting (Nancy Foy), Costume design (Yvonne Blake and Randy Gardell), Film editing (Antony Gibbs), Makeup (John M. Elliot, Jr.) and Hairstyling (Carol A. O’Connell).Rydell and other filmmakers started a casting call in late March 2000 to find the most suitable actor for the lead role. The call encompassed New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, Atlanta, Chicago and the Midwestern United States. Casting director Nancy Foy commented that the search included “everyone from highly-trained, experienced actors in their early and mid-20s, to people who had no training and had sent in self-made tapes”. Five hundred actors auditioned, and James Franco was ultimately cast as James Dean in May 2000. Franco acknowledged he was cautious of taking the role over fear of typecasting.

Despite concerns from Pier’s domineering mother, James and his girlfriend buy a beach house in which they live together. Meanwhile, eccentric director Nicholas Ray casts him in the lead role for Rebel Without a Cause (1955). He once again hopes to impress his father with his rising movie star career in Hollywood, but Winton persists with his indifference. When East of Eden debuts, Warner is furious that he does not show up at the premiere. He considers shutting down production of Rebel Without a Cause, but he drops the idea due to James’s praised performance in Eden. Later, he finds out that Warner sided with Pier’s mother over his break up with her. She ends up marrying Vic Damone, while James then signs a one million dollar contract with Warner Bros. and is cast in Giant (1956). His mental breakdowns become more apparent when he starts conflicting with director George Stevens.At eight years old, James Dean lives with his estranged father Winton and mother Mildred in 1939 Santa Monica, California. When Mildred dies of cancer in 1940, Winton sends James on a train to Fairmount, Indiana, along with the coffin containing her body. Winton does not show up at the funeral, leaving James to be raised by his aunt and uncle on a farm in Fairmount. Over the years, he becomes more curious about his father’s decision to abandon him. He tries to impress him by sending him a package displaying his various athletic trophies in high school sports.

James Dean premiered at the 27th Deauville American Film Festival in July 2001. Press conferences were held with the screening, and James Dean’s three feature films, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, were also screened at the festival. Turner Network Television (TNT) originally intended to premiere the film on United States national television in June 2001, but the release date for James Dean was pushed to August 5, 2001. The film attracted 3.18 million viewers and received generally favorable reviews from critics. James Dean was released on DVD in January 2002 by Warner Home Video. David Thomson, reviewing in The New York Times, felt Franco’s performance as Dean gave Baby Boomer audiences a positive sense of nostalgia of the 1950s. James Poniewozik of Time magazine also highly praised Franco’s performance, but felt the script was overtly cliché. Ken Tucker wrote in Entertainment Weekly that James Dean, alongside Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), was a revolutionary force in the television movie genre. Film producer-director Elia Kazan hires James for the leading role in East of Eden (1955), marking his Hollywood debut. He moves to Hollywood in April 1954 to begin filming for Eden and is introduced to Jack L. Warner, the stern president of Warner Bros. Studios who is determined to transform him into a movie star. Warner becomes suspicious of his personal life (such as his possible bisexuality and passions for auto racing and motorcycling). On the Warner Bros. backlot, he falls in love with actress Pier Angeli, who is working on the neighboring production of The Silver Chalice (1954). With the film languishing in development hell, producer Bill Gerber from Warner Bros. decided James Dean would work best as a television movie for Turner Network Television (TNT); both Warners and TNT are owned by Time Warner. Gerber explained the format choice, “It was just hard to find bankable names that the studio would finance a $20 million movie with. And there were marketing problems. He died in a highway accident in 1955 so almost everyone would know the outcome of the movie. James Dean also isn’t that well known by the general movie-going public these days.” Actor James Franco was cast into the lead role, and principal photography for James Dean started in June 2000. Filming took place around the Los Angeles area and at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.However, the “trade only” notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast’s account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean’s fellow motorcyclist and “Night Watch” member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean “experimented” with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as “Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves.” Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli’s mother disapproved of Dean’s casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean’s East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name “Pier” lightly penciled in every place the bride’s name is left blank was found amongst Dean’s personal effects after his death.

On April 20, 2010, a long “lost” live episode of the General Electric Theater called “The Dark, Dark Hours” featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean’s death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called “James Dean with a guitar”. Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as “A Young Man Is Gone” by the Beach Boys (1963), “James Dean” by the Eagles (1974), and “James Dean” by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). American musician Taylor Swift referenced him in “Style” (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in “Ordinary Life” (2016).

Early in Dean’s career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio’s public relations department began generating stories about Dean’s liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean’s Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an ‘eligible bachelor’ who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: “They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals.”

“According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy — never. I believe they were artistic soul mates.”Much of Dean’s performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal’s father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey’s shocked reaction in the film. Dean’s performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers. In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean released in his lifetime.

Dean’s overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. Dean enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law. He transferred to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore’s workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so “dumb”. Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.

Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean’s acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a “performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean’s performance in their own carefully constructed star personas”. Frascella and Weisel wrote, “As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation.”On the subject of Dean’s sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, “James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there’s some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there’s some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it’s always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?” Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean’s whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, “A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we’d talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to.” Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean’s sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ magazine, Taylor responded, “He hadn’t made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled.”

Positive reviews for Dean’s 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide’s book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship,In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, “Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film’s sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked […] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean ‘the first rock star’.”

Dean’s debut television appearance was in a Pepsi commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Apostle in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952). While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly “for trade”, as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean’s involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett’s “kept boy” and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship, “My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous.” James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean’s at UCLA, and later stated, “Dean was a user. I don’t think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act….Once…at an agent’s office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a ‘professional house guest’ on Fire Island.” Mark Rydell also stated, “I don’t think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them.”

Dean is often considered a sexual icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers’ Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, “No, I am not a homosexual. But I’m also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.”

Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted “a Brando” for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.

In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of Cal Trask, for screenwriter Paul Osborn’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s. In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping ‘madam’; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.

Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film’s later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.

As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as “the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach… Very few get into it … It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong.” There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956). Dean’s career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode “Glory in the Flower”, saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song “Crazy Man, Crazy”, one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll.

Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean’s closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean’s family. According to Bast, he was Dean’s roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, “Bill, there’s something we have to tell you. It’s Jimmy and me. I mean, we’re in love.” They broke up after Dean “exploded” when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function. Bast, who was also Dean’s first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean’s dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, “He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends.” Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old California Polytechnic State University student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.

In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had “an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years”. An alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander’s 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother’s death. Other reports on Dean’s life also suggest that he was sexually abused by DeWeerd either as a child or as a late teenager.In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, “I’ve made a study of Marlon Brando. And I’ve made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I’ve made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young ‘uns, go for us. We’re sullen, we’re broodin’, we’re something of a menace. I don’t understand it exactly, but that’s what the girls like in men. I don’t know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can’t be sexy if you smile. You can’t be a rebel if you grin.”

Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first notable figure of youthful rebellion and “a harbinger of youth-identity politics”. The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.Dean’s best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and they exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:

James Dean’s estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean’s likeness would be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. Prior to being shelved, the movie was to have been directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor would voice Dean’s part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean’s image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean’s car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean’s passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.

Dean’s final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean’s death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean’s funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount. American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean’s major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean’s death about his public image and legacy: “Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he’d never have been able to live up to his publicity.” Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, “All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior.” For Terrence Malick’s debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.After his death in a car crash on September 30, 1955, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in East of Eden. Upon receiving a second nomination for his role in Giant the following year, Dean became the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars list.

James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie Wilson and Winton Dean. He claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a “line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower”. Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was “the only person capable of understanding him”. In 1938, Dean’s mother was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean’s father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean’s father served in World War II and later remarried.

While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. In a career spanning five years, he is regarded as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).

Giant would prove to be Dean’s last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the ‘Last Supper’ because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.Joe Hyams says that Dean was “one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy”. According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is “the undefinable extra something that makes a star”. Dean’s appeal has been attributed to the public’s need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series, The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952, he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. “I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do’,” Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, “I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart.”

Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, “Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn’t have to be all gussied up. She doesn’t have to do or say anything. She’s just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life.” Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean’s death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. We use cookies to make our services work and collect analytics information. To accept or reject analytics cookies, turn on JavaScript in your browser settings and reload this page.

Between 1916 and 1918 Sharp three times visited the Appalachian Mountains in the United States to collect songs of English origin. His other published works include English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians, with Olive Dame Campbell (1917); English Folk Songs (1921); The Morris Book (5 parts; 1907–13); The Country Dance Book (6 parts; 1909–22); and Sword Dances of Northern England (5 parts; 1911–13). Cecil Sharp House was established in London in 1930 as a centre for the preservation of folk song and dance.Cecil Sharp, in full Cecil James Sharp, (born Nov. 22, 1859, London, Eng.—died June 23, 1924, London), English musician noted for his work as a collector of English folk song and dance. Sharp was educated at Uppingham School and the University of Cambridge. In 1882 he emigrated to Australia, where he practiced law and became associate to the chief justice of South Australia. In 1889 he changed his career from law to music and became assistant organist of Adelaide Cathedral and codirector of the Adelaide College of Music. In 1892 he returned to England and was music master at Ludgrove Preparatory School (1893–1910) and principal of the Hampstead Conservatory (1896–1905). Jim also has extensive experience representing corporate and individual clients in sophisticated litigation and in high-risk cases having extraordinary potential verdict value. He lectures for various educational, professional and business entities on litigation preparation and trial practice. In addition, Jim has recognized expertise in professional liability, insurance defense, insurance coverage and appellate matters.Serico v. Rothberg, NJ Supreme Court, 2018. Obtained a unanimous decision that a high-low agreement should be considered a contract and that, unless expressly agreed to, the award of counsel fees and costs permitted under the offer of judgment rule cannot be considered.Prior to joining Wilson Elser, Jim was a partner with Schenck Price Smith & King and a member of that firm’s Professional Liability practice. Earlier, Jim was the senior and founding partner of Sharp & Mahoney, a firm with a concentration in medical malpractice defense litigation, and subsequently, the chair of the Professional Liability and Health Care Department at a Northern New Jersey firm. He began his career as legal assistant to the director of the New Jersey Alcoholic Beverage Control.James Sharp is a highly regarded trial lawyer with more than 40 years of experience and a stellar reputation for integrity and skill in the courtroom. Throughout the course of his distinguished career, Jim has handled complex matters for his clients through all phases of litigation and appeal, particularly in the area of medical malpractice, in which he has conducted more than 250 trials from jury selection through verdict. In addition, Jim recently prevailed in a high-visibility medical malpractice case in a New Jersey Supreme Court decision. Known for his ability to port his exceptional trial skills to a broad spectrum of matters, Jim is a sought-after adviser and resource to colleagues in other areas of the law. Wilson Elser is the preeminent defense litigation firm in the United States. At any given time, our more than 1,000 attorneys are engaged in some 100,000 defense and coverage matters, with many defending clients in various local, state and federal courts. Indeed, over more than four decades, our litigation, coverage and trial lawyers have gained a reputation for taking on and prevailing in the most challenging and technical cases, frequently “parachuting in” to assume unresolved matters from other law firms. Our success also derives from winning on our clients’ terms and rigorously adhering to their guidelines. We are ranked 107 in the AmLaw 200 and 57th in the National Law Journal’s NLJ 500. This project currently contains records for over one million men and women who died whilst serving in the First World War, with over 600,000 locations worldwide, tens of thousands of images, cemeteries, war memorials and much more. It simply wouldn’t exist without the core assets that it draws on, enriched by additional information from and links to countless further sources.

The inherrent nature of historic records and using modern automated tools to extract information means there are bound to be issues. I will shortly be adding a ‘report error’ link to each record that can be used to flag an issue and will be queued up ready to be investigated and fixed. I’m afraid as this is a personal project created in my own time, I cannot respond to individual requests right now.With specific regards to the portrait images, these are primarliy, but not exclusively, from one of three sources – the incredible Bond of Sacrifice Collection, the Women’s War Work Collection (both Imperial War Museums), or uploaded by volunteers and individuals to the Lives of the First World War site (which itself is run by IWM). I am grateful to them for making all these available under a non-commercial license. As an example of an additional image source, the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum has provided over 2,000 portraits under an open license.

Whilst this personal project started simply as an experiment to explore the local legacy of the First World War, but at a global scale, it has struck me that it is much more than that. At the heart of it is the legacy of those who died in the conflict, and especially the scale of the imapct that that would have had on their local communities, it would also never have been possible without the significant legacy created by those who remained, from the families who sent in photographs of their loved ones and which formed the Imperial War Museum’s founding Bond of Sacrifice Collection, through the people who diligently compiled official records in the early 1920s and which formed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s records, right up to the modern-day professionals, volounteers and individuals who have shaped these records, shared them, and also significantly increased and enriched them, especially under the guise of First World War Centenary projects like Lives of the First World War

The following sources have potential matches based on the name and other information associated with this record. They may or may not be connected to this person but are provided for your further researchespite sedulous efforts to turn his life around, veteran William James Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) can’t quite escape his criminal past or the influence of his serial bank-robber brother, Daniel (Jake Gyllenhaal). When the insurance company denies coverage for his wife’s life-saving surgery, Will turns to his brother for help, but is soon inveigled into participating in a $32 million heist from the L.A. Federal Bank. Everything that can go wrong with the robbery does, and the siblings quickly find themselves resorting to increasingly severe measures to avoid capture. When they commandeer an ambulance carrying a wounded cop (Jackson White) and a steadfast EMT (Eiza Gonzalez), they begin a desperate race across the city with SIS Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt), FBI agent Anson Clark (Keir O’Donnell), and a never-ending battalion of police officers in close pursuit.