Publisher's Synopsis
James Byron Dean’s acting career was an eighteenmonth
tour de force. Three films with star directors
Elia Kazan (East of Eden), Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without
A Cause), and George Stevens (Giant) as well as
friendships with the photographers Dennis Stock,
Sanford Roth, and Roy Schatt created the myth of
James Dean at a breathtaking pace. The brief span
between his contract signing for East of Eden in
March 1954 and his fatal car accident on September
30, 1955, sufficed to give permanent expression to
the feelings of an entire generation embodied in
Dean’s teenage rebels.
On the occasion of the release of Anton Corbijn’s
James Dean biopic Life coinciding with the 60th
anniversary of Dean’s death, this book features the
most impressive stills from the three James Dean
films as well as the most striking pictures taken by
his favorite photographers. In his 1985 essay journalist
Axel Arens gives a fitting tribute to the hero’s
fulminant career and his tragic end.
