Rebel Dean Was Seen as a Giant by His Young Fans

His life ended on a lonely stretch of California road more than 41 years ago, but James Dean’s star will shine forever.

The moody actor awoke on the last day of his life in his rented home at 14611 Sutton St. in Sherman Oaks. Destroyed in a fire several years later, the property served as Dean’s refuge from the pressures of show business.

Born in Indiana, Dean landed his first professional acting job in a Pepsi commercial filmed in Griffith Park. He gained his first fame in television dramas and a Broadway production of “The Immoralist.”

Dean returned to Hollywood in the spring of 1954 and starred in three Warner Bros. films in little more than a year--anguished characters that earned him two posthumous Academy Award nominations.

He was Cal Trask, the rebellious son of “East of Eden,” Jim Stark, the misunderstood teenager of “Rebel Without a Cause,” and Jett Rink, the cocky ranch-hand-turned-oil-baron of “Giant.”

“For young people coming of age, Dean was someone they could easily identify with: an outsider, a loner,” wrote Ron Martinetti in his book, “The James Dean Story.”

Dean died Sept. 30, 1955, when his Porsche Spyder collided with a college student’s sedan at the intersection of Highways 466 and 41. He was 24.