Btw Photo of Dean and Roberts is from Eden scene when Dean is using coal chute that he stole from miners. He is loading lettuce in chute and Roberts as farmhand, is next to him with lettuce.
Great article Jason, I've always been impressed with your analyzing through all of the sources and claims/counterclaims and trying to find the truth from the myths. Although Roberts account is an obvious exaggeration; it feels that even in the most cited/acknowledged Dean books there are cross claims. For example, in the Martinetti book it says James Dean never met Christopher Isherwood, while in the Holley book there's an account from Don Bachardy of Isherwood and Dean meeting at a private screening of East of Eden. I know, it's a relatively small example, but it's just an example of how even in the major biographies there are counter claims and inaccurate information in at least one direction. From all the research you've done with /for your book, are there Dean biographies out there right now that are more accurate/helpful than others?
Perhaps on the same wave length of a Monty Roberts; there's a (relatively) recent book by a man who played T-Bone in Carmen Jones (Sandy Lewis I believe) but who wrote under the name Michael St. John and who also claimed to have known/been friends with James Dean (and just about everyone else in Hollywood) and he claims that he helped set up James Dean with men and women. His Dean story is interesting but I couldn't find any mention of him ever having met James Dean in any source other than his book.
Then onto the least plausible/possible. There's a book by a woman who goes by Di Dean, and who claims to be James Dean's secret daughter (she also wrote a book about Dean under the name of Di Elman). While I see absolutely no reason or evidence to accept her claim as having any validity (and I haven't read her book, but from the amazon reviews it doesn't sound like she provides anything to back up her claims); Warren Beath gave the book a positive review--while also skirting around the what Elman/Dean was claiming by simply saying she has a 'unique perspective' on Dean.
The obvious difference is that those two books haven't sold 6 million copies or have their claims accepted uncritically as true.
Thanks. The big problem with all of the books is that they primarily rely on what (then) living people told the authors, but most people who knew James Dean only knew parts of his life. The Isherwood claim is a great example. I can't prove definitively, but the contemporary evidence from c. 1955-1956 supports their meeting at least once, as it was reported in a magazine at the time. Isherwood felt strongly enough about Dean that he kept a biography of Dean with him until his death. Martinetti added his claim that they didn't meet in the 1995 revision of his book (it isn't in the '75 original), but I don't know why. Generally, Martinetti's book is more accurate than others about facts, but all of them have issues with accepting anecdotes without confirming documentary evidence.
I don't have any way of knowing if Dean really knew Sandy Lewis / Michael St. John. There's no evidence for it, but also none disconfirming except that everything he said could have been gleaned from Dean biographies, which are themselves not always reliable. "Di Dean" is one of many supposed secret children; there is a guy on YouTube who claims to be a secret grandchild. The claims are rooted, ultimately, in tabloid stories from 1956-1957 that weren't considered credible even then.
If everyone who claimed to have had sex with James Dean really did, it's a wonder he found the time to make movies or to spend all those nights brooding in silence.
I looked into Michael St. John's claims a bit more. I read his chapter on Dean, and my judgment is that it's fiction. St. John's timeline is confused--he places the events simultaneously in 1952 (the latest he could have worked in radio on Inner Sanctum Mysteries), summer 1954 (when Dean dated Pier Angeli), and "near the end of the fifties," after Dean's death. For his claims to be true, he would have had to meet Dean within six weeks of Dean's arrival in Los Angeles, a period when Dean's correspondence makes plain that he had not yet made close friends besides his agent, Dick Clayton. The sex stuff is a pretty close copy-and-paste job from John Gilmore's various memoirs, and the bits about him having multiple infatuations in mid-to-late 1954 contradict Dean's letters and his friends' accounts. Lastly, no one else makes any mention of him, despite this period being well documented.
thanks Jason, that was pretty much my thought too when I read it, and for the exact same reasons you listed. Just today I did find another source that does say that Michael St. John did know James Dean, or at least he said he knew Dean prior to the publication of his autobiography. It's Elena Rodriguez's Dennis Hopper a Madness to his Method (pub 1988), where he's mentioned as James Dean's friend and gives a quote about Dean and Hopper smoking marijuana. Again, it doesn't prove anything, but I just saw it today.
The book itself also repeats some of Hopper's more extravagant claims about his relationship with Dean. There's mention of them smoking pot together, which I've read in other places, but also that they "acted out tender love scenes together" and pretended to be the passengers on the Titanic; which is something I've never read any other source before. (I could be misremembering however).
And on a side note, I'm not sure if I find it completely convincing that Hopper's story of throwing Dean in a car to force him to teach him (hopper) how to act is believable. it doesn't seem like Dean would take to kindly to being manhandled like that.
Which leads me to another point, is anyone's claim about their relationship with James Dean accurate? I don't just mean people who only saw one side of him or in certain context; but like people who only knew him as an acquaintance or even a casual friend, but who described themselves as a close and intimate friend of Jimmy Dean's.
I saw that, too, in researching. There seems to be a pattern where people will test-drive a claim as an aside elsewhere before launching it. A trial balloon perhaps?
There isn't really any way to judge how accurate people's claims of friendship are, unless there are multiple witnesses who can testify to seeing them together. I can say that many people, like Hopper, garnered criticism from Dean's other friends for exaggerating their relationships. I can also say that very few people ever get mentioned by name in Dean's letters, and he writes incessantly about being lonely.
An interesting case is Lew Bracker, who describes himself as Dean's closest friend. When you read the letters that he sent to Dean's agent, Jane Deacy, it's hard to escape the conclusion that their relationship revolved largely around Bracker (successfully) trying to convince Dean to move his lucrative accounts to Bracker's insurance company and to the financial advisors that Bracker was close friends with. It's the kind of information that falls out of the retelling over the decades.
In one of the recently auctioned docs, Lew wrote a letter to Jane stating that she might want to take out an insurance policy on Dean’s life. Dean was close friends with Lenny Rosenman who was married to Lew Bracker’s cousin who was also allegedly to be friends with Dean. Rosenman and Dean friendship fizzled even though Dean got him film soundtracks for Eden and Rebel and tried to get him work on Giant. Rosenman said he outgrowing Dean as to reason for end of friendship. I think it cooled when Dean allegedly told Rosenman’s wife about Leonard affair with actress on Eden. That actress is still living.
Btw Photo of Dean and Roberts is from Eden scene when Dean is using coal chute that he stole from miners. He is loading lettuce in chute and Roberts as farmhand, is next to him with lettuce.
Great article Jason, I've always been impressed with your analyzing through all of the sources and claims/counterclaims and trying to find the truth from the myths. Although Roberts account is an obvious exaggeration; it feels that even in the most cited/acknowledged Dean books there are cross claims. For example, in the Martinetti book it says James Dean never met Christopher Isherwood, while in the Holley book there's an account from Don Bachardy of Isherwood and Dean meeting at a private screening of East of Eden. I know, it's a relatively small example, but it's just an example of how even in the major biographies there are counter claims and inaccurate information in at least one direction. From all the research you've done with /for your book, are there Dean biographies out there right now that are more accurate/helpful than others?
Perhaps on the same wave length of a Monty Roberts; there's a (relatively) recent book by a man who played T-Bone in Carmen Jones (Sandy Lewis I believe) but who wrote under the name Michael St. John and who also claimed to have known/been friends with James Dean (and just about everyone else in Hollywood) and he claims that he helped set up James Dean with men and women. His Dean story is interesting but I couldn't find any mention of him ever having met James Dean in any source other than his book.
Then onto the least plausible/possible. There's a book by a woman who goes by Di Dean, and who claims to be James Dean's secret daughter (she also wrote a book about Dean under the name of Di Elman). While I see absolutely no reason or evidence to accept her claim as having any validity (and I haven't read her book, but from the amazon reviews it doesn't sound like she provides anything to back up her claims); Warren Beath gave the book a positive review--while also skirting around the what Elman/Dean was claiming by simply saying she has a 'unique perspective' on Dean.
The obvious difference is that those two books haven't sold 6 million copies or have their claims accepted uncritically as true.
Thanks. The big problem with all of the books is that they primarily rely on what (then) living people told the authors, but most people who knew James Dean only knew parts of his life. The Isherwood claim is a great example. I can't prove definitively, but the contemporary evidence from c. 1955-1956 supports their meeting at least once, as it was reported in a magazine at the time. Isherwood felt strongly enough about Dean that he kept a biography of Dean with him until his death. Martinetti added his claim that they didn't meet in the 1995 revision of his book (it isn't in the '75 original), but I don't know why. Generally, Martinetti's book is more accurate than others about facts, but all of them have issues with accepting anecdotes without confirming documentary evidence.
I don't have any way of knowing if Dean really knew Sandy Lewis / Michael St. John. There's no evidence for it, but also none disconfirming except that everything he said could have been gleaned from Dean biographies, which are themselves not always reliable. "Di Dean" is one of many supposed secret children; there is a guy on YouTube who claims to be a secret grandchild. The claims are rooted, ultimately, in tabloid stories from 1956-1957 that weren't considered credible even then.
If everyone who claimed to have had sex with James Dean really did, it's a wonder he found the time to make movies or to spend all those nights brooding in silence.
I looked into Michael St. John's claims a bit more. I read his chapter on Dean, and my judgment is that it's fiction. St. John's timeline is confused--he places the events simultaneously in 1952 (the latest he could have worked in radio on Inner Sanctum Mysteries), summer 1954 (when Dean dated Pier Angeli), and "near the end of the fifties," after Dean's death. For his claims to be true, he would have had to meet Dean within six weeks of Dean's arrival in Los Angeles, a period when Dean's correspondence makes plain that he had not yet made close friends besides his agent, Dick Clayton. The sex stuff is a pretty close copy-and-paste job from John Gilmore's various memoirs, and the bits about him having multiple infatuations in mid-to-late 1954 contradict Dean's letters and his friends' accounts. Lastly, no one else makes any mention of him, despite this period being well documented.
thanks Jason, that was pretty much my thought too when I read it, and for the exact same reasons you listed. Just today I did find another source that does say that Michael St. John did know James Dean, or at least he said he knew Dean prior to the publication of his autobiography. It's Elena Rodriguez's Dennis Hopper a Madness to his Method (pub 1988), where he's mentioned as James Dean's friend and gives a quote about Dean and Hopper smoking marijuana. Again, it doesn't prove anything, but I just saw it today.
The book itself also repeats some of Hopper's more extravagant claims about his relationship with Dean. There's mention of them smoking pot together, which I've read in other places, but also that they "acted out tender love scenes together" and pretended to be the passengers on the Titanic; which is something I've never read any other source before. (I could be misremembering however).
And on a side note, I'm not sure if I find it completely convincing that Hopper's story of throwing Dean in a car to force him to teach him (hopper) how to act is believable. it doesn't seem like Dean would take to kindly to being manhandled like that.
Which leads me to another point, is anyone's claim about their relationship with James Dean accurate? I don't just mean people who only saw one side of him or in certain context; but like people who only knew him as an acquaintance or even a casual friend, but who described themselves as a close and intimate friend of Jimmy Dean's.
I saw that, too, in researching. There seems to be a pattern where people will test-drive a claim as an aside elsewhere before launching it. A trial balloon perhaps?
There isn't really any way to judge how accurate people's claims of friendship are, unless there are multiple witnesses who can testify to seeing them together. I can say that many people, like Hopper, garnered criticism from Dean's other friends for exaggerating their relationships. I can also say that very few people ever get mentioned by name in Dean's letters, and he writes incessantly about being lonely.
An interesting case is Lew Bracker, who describes himself as Dean's closest friend. When you read the letters that he sent to Dean's agent, Jane Deacy, it's hard to escape the conclusion that their relationship revolved largely around Bracker (successfully) trying to convince Dean to move his lucrative accounts to Bracker's insurance company and to the financial advisors that Bracker was close friends with. It's the kind of information that falls out of the retelling over the decades.
In one of the recently auctioned docs, Lew wrote a letter to Jane stating that she might want to take out an insurance policy on Dean’s life. Dean was close friends with Lenny Rosenman who was married to Lew Bracker’s cousin who was also allegedly to be friends with Dean. Rosenman and Dean friendship fizzled even though Dean got him film soundtracks for Eden and Rebel and tried to get him work on Giant. Rosenman said he outgrowing Dean as to reason for end of friendship. I think it cooled when Dean allegedly told Rosenman’s wife about Leonard affair with actress on Eden. That actress is still living.