- He is the only actor in history to receive more than one Oscar nomination posthumously.
- Rolf Weütherich, the German auto mechanic who was riding with Dean in the passenger seat during his fatal auto crash, was thrown from the car by the impact and received multiple injuries. After Dean's death, he fell into a depression from the trauma of the incident and made several suicide attempts. He died in Germany in 1981 in an auto accident similar to the one that James Dean died in.
- He was terribly nearsighted and wore thick glasses when not on the screen.
- On the night Dean was killed, four of his co-stars: Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood, Nick Adams and Richard Davalos, were all having dinner together in New York. The conversation turned to Dean, his new Porsche, and speculation that his speeding would cause him to have an accident during the coming year.
- He was issued a speeding ticket only two hours and fifteen minutes before his fatal accident.
- He met Alec Guinness in Hollywood while the actor was filming The Swan (1956). Guinness later recalled that when Dean showed him his newly-bought Porsche, he advised him to "Get rid of that car, or you'll be dead in a week!" Unfortunately, Guinness' advice turned out right.
- The famous Failure Analysis Associates, from Menlo Park, California, reconstructed and recreated all details of the accident at the same approximate time on September 30 and have concluded that James Dean was travelling 55 to 56 mph when the fateful accident occurred, thereby proving he had not been speeding, as rumor had it.
- Dean said on numerous occasions that he did not expect to live past age 30.
- He was known to have loved animals as he spoke fondly of being raised around cows, pigs and chickens when he was young. He also was given a Siamese kitten named Marcus as gift by Elizabeth Taylor.
- Reportedly, Dean was very much in love with Pier Angeli and they planned to marry, but her mother blocked the union because Dean was not Catholic and she helped arrange Pier's marriage to Vic Damone. Before she committed suicide, Pier wrote that Dean was the only man she had ever really loved.
- His headstone was stolen twice but recovered.
- He is one of only six actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance. The other five actors are: Orson Welles, Lawrence Tibbett, Alan Arkin, Paul Muni and Montgomery Clift.
- Much like Dean himself was with Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley emulated and idolized Dean. He would talk to friends for hours about his reverence for Dean, and got into acting as a way of following in Dean's footsteps. He confessed to his friends and close ones that Dean had the acting career he always wanted.
- As promotion for Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Dean filmed an interview with actor Gig Young for the "Behind the Camera" segment of the ABC series "Warner Bros. Presents" in July 1955. Dean told Young, "I used to fly around quite a bit, you know, I took a lot of unnecessary chances on the highway.... Now when I drive on the highway, I'm extra cautious." When asked if he had advice for young drivers, Dean concluded the interview, "Take it easy driving. The life you might save might be mine." Dean died soon afterward and the interview was never aired.
- He was a skilled painter and excelled in art class.
- He suffered from very erratic mood swings and it is believed that he may have had undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder.
- During the filming of Giant (1956), he and Rock Hudson did not get along. This tension heightened their onscreen clashes. However, according to Hudson's ex-wife Phyllis Gates, he cried after hearing the news of Dean's untimely death. Gates wrote, "Rock couldn't be reached. He was overcome by guilt and shame, almost as though he himself had killed James Dean.".
- He also worked as a "stunt tester" on the game show Beat the Clock (1950), testing the safety of the stunts that some of the studio audience members would later perform. However, he proved so agile at completing the stunts that his results could not be used to set time limits for contestants to complete them. So he was reluctantly released.
- He was the mentor and friend of Dennis Hopper.
- He had originally majored in pre-Law but switched to Drama, which angered his father.
- According to Marlon Brando, Dean would often call him, leaving messages with Brando's answering service. Brando would sometimes listen, silently, as Dean instructed the service to have Brando call back. Brando, disturbed that Dean was copying his lifestyle (motorcycle, bongo drums) and acting techniques, did not return his calls. The two met at least three times: on the set of East of Eden (1955); on the set of Désirée (1954) and at a party, where Brando took Dean aside and told him he had emotional problems that required psychiatric attention.
- Before his acting career took off, Dean would often sleep in his car once he could not afford rent.
- President Ronald Reagan referred to Dean as "America's Rebel".
- At the time of his untimely death, Dean was signed to appear in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) at MGM and The Left Handed Gun (1958) at Warner Brothers. Both roles subsequently were taken by Paul Newman and helped make him a star. Newman's career may very well have been retarded if Dean had lived as, while still alive, they competed for the same roles (East of Eden (1955)).
- Many of Dean's friends at the time thought the silver Porsche 550 Spyder was too high-powered for him and, indeed, days before he died, Alec Guinness, who was in Hollywood filming The Swan (1956), had a premonition that he would die behind its wheel. Dean had bumped into Guinness at the Villa Capri, a local Hollywood celebrity hangout often frequented by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the Hollywood celebrity-gentry. Dean was so proud of the car that he insisted upon showing the silver 550 Spyder to Guinness, where the race car was parked outside in front of the Villa Capri's street foyer entrance. Dean, a self-confessed speed freak, laughed off the suggestion. There was no way he could have known that Guinness's warning would become - chillingly - a reality.
- Just before his untimely death, his agent, Jane Deacy, negotiated a 9-picture deal over six years with Warner Brothers worth $900,000. Dean's next project was to be a television version for NBC of Emlyn Williams' play "The Corn is Green", in which he was to star with Judith Anderson. His next film was to be Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), a biopic of boxer Rocky Graziano, for which Warners were loaning him to MGM and in which he was replaced by Paul Newman. Newman also replaced him in the role of Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun (1958). Three other roles with which he was being linked were the leads in Gun for a Coward (1956), This Angry Age (1958) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).
- He is the subject of the songs "James Dean" by Eagles and "Mr. James Dean" by Hilary Duff. He is mentioned in the lyrics of many other songs, including "Rock On" by David Essex, "Electrolite" by R.E.M., "Jack and Diane" by John Mellencamp, "Vogue" by Madonna, "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, "Forever" by Skid Row, "American Pie" by Don McLean, "Speechless" by Lady Gaga, "Walk on the Wild Side" by Lou Reed, "Rather Die Young" by Beyoncé, "Choke On This" by Senses Fail, "Blue Jeans" by Lana Del Rey, "Style" by Taylor Swift and "Ghost Town" by Adam Lambert.
- His tastes in music were eclectic. He liked African Tribal music and Afro-Cuban music, as well as classical (Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky); jazz/blues (Billie Holiday) and pop (Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra). His favourite song was Holiday's "When Your Lover Has Gone" and his favourite album was Sinatra's "Songs for Young Lovers".
- In October 1997, he was ranked #33 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
- He was good friends with Martin Landau.
- His performance as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) is ranked #43 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
- He was biggest idol of Elvis Presley.
- Dean's first filmed appearance was in a commercial for Pepsi-Cola in 1950. He is the character who puts money in the piano/jukebox.
- Leonardo DiCaprio is said to have admired James Dean and mentioned that watching Dean's performance in East of Eden (1955) was one of the factors that influenced him to become an actor.
- He was Oscar nominated in two-thirds of his films, a record which will probably never be bettered.
- He was the first actor to receive an Academy Award nomination posthumously, for his role in East of Eden (1955). However, he did not win.
- His father inherited his estate, which was valued at the time of his death at $96,438.44 after taxes. The bulk of the estate came from his life insurance policy as well as $6,750 in insurance claims from his Porsche Spyder. His checking account had a balance of $3,256.48.
- He received posthumous Oscar nominations for his his first and last ever screen performances: East of Eden (1955) and Giant (1956).
- He loved playing practical jokes on friends and reading.
- East of Eden (1955) was the only one of the three movies in which he had major roles to be released while he was alive.
- The California State Route #46 highway near Cholame, the site of the Dean car crash has a roadside monument marking the crash site location. Since the 1955 accident, a new highway was relocated correcting the "V" intersection of the two intersecting route #46 (from Bakersfield to the California Coast San Simeon Highway #1) and #41 (Cholame to Fresno) roadways, moved northeast of the original roadway intersection crash site. The original actual crash site is located perpendicular to the monument in a far flung unmarked open field of tumbleweeds and broken up black asphalt debris.
- At the time of his untimely death, James Dean did not leave behind a will, so most of his possessions went to his father, Winton Dean, whose relationship with him was distant at best.
- He was very close friends with Elizabeth Taylor.
- Like his hero Marlon Brando (Dean had been separated from his own father as a child and was distant from him. Brando apparently served as a role model for Dean) Dean wanted to write. He told gossip columnist Hedda Hopper that writing was his supreme ambition.
- At the time of his untimely death, Dean was set to star in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) at MGM, a loan-out from his home studio Warner Brothers in exchange for Elizabeth Taylor's services in Dean's last film Giant (1956).
- He was originally set to star in King Creole (1958). After his death, the film was retooled from a gritty urban drama to a vehicle for Elvis Presley.
- Most of his so-called affairs with various starlets were made up by the Warner Brothers public relations. He did have love affairs with Pier Angeli and Liz Sheridan.
- His final screen test for East of Eden (1955) was shot with Paul Newman, who also was in the final running for one of the roles. Originally, director Elia Kazan had considered casting Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift in the roles of the two brothers, but they were too old to play teenagers as they were both in the their 30s in 1954. Newman's age, 29, also put him at a disadvantage. Dean, 23 years old and Richard Davalos, aged 19, were cast as the fraternal twins.
- Director Elia Kazan did not believe that Dean would have been able to sustain the momentum of his career. He felt that Dean's career, had he lived, would have sputtered out, as he was not well-trained and relied too much on his instincts, as opposed to his idol Marlon Brando, who, contrary to what people believed, had been very well-trained by his acting teacher Stella Adler and relied on that training to create his characters.
- He had a fondness for auto racing and had purchased the 1955 Porsche Spyder sports car, one of only 90 made of that year model, planning to participate in the upcoming races in Salinas, California on October 1, 1955.
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