Hollyweird Babylon: The Next James Dean?

How Hollywood manufactured a god, and the never-before-told story of one man who sacrificed himself at its altar.

[Ed. note: Special thanks to PB (@bmobepip) for reaching out to a fellow traveller and providing additional research and materials. Without your help, this would have never come together!]

On September 30, 1955, one the most effective and enduring guerrilla marketing campaigns in modern history kicked off at the junction of US Highway 466 and State Route 41 just east of Cholame, California. And for his career-defining performance, James Dean would do his own stunt work. The young up and comer had made his film debut in that April, and principal photography had already wrapped up for his next two starring vehicles.

When news first started coming out that James Dean had died in an auto wreck in the middle of nowhere, the Warner Bros publicity machine went into overdrive as they began converting their deceased contract player into a Hollywood god. Luckily for them, the press had taken just enough but not too much notice of him yet; after all, his first film had only come out six months before, and the hype surrounding his follow-ups had been standard fare for Warner Bros up to now. And the timing couldn’t have been better.

James Dean’s 24 years on Earth covered enough ground, at each turn seeming to draw a camera to capture the moment, that the package he left behind had something for nearly every teenager to latch on to. He was strikingly photogenic, an Indiana farm boy, an All American athlete, a rising movie star, an artist, a hipster, a beatnik, a goth, a biker, a race car driver, an orphan, a rebel and a tortured soul. He was simultaneously magnetic and an outcast. In his immortal form, being misunderstood was James Dean’s greatest strength and, for many, itself his key appeal.

In the 26 days from his untimely demise to the premiere of his consummate performance in Rebel Without a Cause, Jack Warner had successfully reanimated James Dean. Not since United Artists unexpectedly lost 31 year old Rudolph Valentino in 1926 had a studio been sitting on a property as hot as this. However, Warner Bros only had one more feature left in the can…

Best as he could, Jack Warner tried to get the jump on their white-hot IP, but wrapping his new toy around a telephone pole instantly made James Dean a free agent. Alongside the wave of Deansploitation that came out of the gold rush to capitalize on the moment, the hunt was on for the next James Dean. Who would follow in the footsteps of The Rebel Without a Cause? Who would pick up the torch? The audience appetite was palpable, and the financial incentive was undeniable. For the prototypical fresh-faced no-name dude around town hoping to snag a break in show biz, the prospect of stepping into the shoes of The Immortal One was the ultimate Hollywood dream. For one, it would be his siren song.

In this article, we’re going to look at how dying to be famous paid off for James Byron Dean thanks to his gambit coinciding with the rapidly shifting cultural zeitgeist of the moment, dovetailing with Formula 1 precision into the advent of the teen ager in tandem with a pop music fad that triggered widespread moral panic. We’ll look at the wild early days of Deansploitation. And we’ll unpack the bizarre, never-before-told story of one would-be who heeded all caution on Halloween night 1958 as he took his pursuit to become the Next James Dean all the way.

Teen Agers

Wild as it may be to consider, but teenagers as we know them today have only existed as a concept for a little over a century. G Stanley Hall coined the term “adolescence” in 1904 in the title of his two volume compendium of research on the phenomenon. Prior to this, humanity throughout recorded history had recognized the perpetual enigma of how best to prepare young people for the challenges and opportunities of a world that is constantly changing. But Adolescence was the first work to identify it as a unique stage of life.

What we’ve come to learn since is that the prefrontal cortex, the area tasked with reason and rational judgement, is the last part of the brain to fully develop, typically by around age 25. Meanwhile, as hormonal fluctuations occur with the onset of reproductive capabilities, mood swings that range from melancholic to excitable to combative are often seen. As the adolescent struggles to reconcile the naiveté and promise of childhood with the harsh realities of the adult world, an often unfounded overconfidence in their own judgement leads to rejection of social norms and a propensity for high risk behavior in an especially reckless manner. In questioning what has been imposed on them by their elders, the search for the self often drives teenagers towards music, entertainment and culture they are able to regard as their own.

In 1924, Roger Wolfe Kahn became America’s first “teen idol” of sorts when, at 16, he formed a dance band that took off quickly in popularity. By 18 he had branched out into composing and running his own booking agency for other acts, earning the nickname “The Millionaire Maestro.” As aging flappers swooned over Rudy Valee, Roger Wolfe Kahn carved a niche following among otherwise overlooked younger audiences.

The man responsible for the first bona fide teen idol craze on American soil was a doctor on a house call in Hoboken, New Jersey on December 12, 1915, when a first-time mom began having severe complications in the process of giving birth. Already 30 hours in labor by the time he arrived, a C-section was out of the question. The doctor proceeded to crudely extract the baby boy, who was initially presumed to have been stillborn but survived thanks to swift intervention by his grandmother. But the forceps used in the process had gouged his left eardrum, rendering Francis Albert Sinatra ineligible for military service later in life.

As the United States’ involvement in World War II began to ramp up, A-list actors like David Niven, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable put their careers on hold to sign up to fight on the front lines. The draft also targeted every other able-bodied U.S. male age 21 to 45, most of whom lacked the resources to secure a deferment. But thanks to his 4-F status, Frank Sinatra was able to capitalize on the dried-up dating pool across the country. He’d begun singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1940 and helped produce several gold records for the group by 1942 when he cut his first single as a solo artist, “Night and Day.”

At his first run at the Paramount Theater in New York in December 1942, Frankie’s press team hired a dozen or so girls to act over the top when he would linger on an “oooh” or an “aaah.” The stunt turned out to be wholly unnecessary as a crowd of around 5000, mostly 13 to 19 year old girls, went genuinely berserk at the sight of Frankie’s piercing blue eyes in living color as his sultry voice and distinct phrasing seduced them en masse. At the time, girls commonly wore ankle-length socks to dances. This casual footwear trend quickly became sexualized as a sort of underage offshoot of shoe fetishism when the media took notice of it among the fans, and “bobby soxers” took on a life of their own in popular culture.

A return engagement in May 1943 drew a bigger and more fevered audience and by Columbus Day 1944, the overflow from the turnout of around 30,000 had spilled out into Times Square, where the mildly disorderly excitement of the impatient fangirls was dubbed a “riot” by the press. The month prior, the first issue of Seventeen magazine had sold over half a million copies, and its mission statement offered a rare message of empowerment to its adolescent female readership: “You dictate the music charts…you are the bosses of the business.”

The sudden emergence of this demographic along with the threat of their perceived autonomy instilled a collective anxiety amongst adults. A March 1944 article in Newsweek declared: “The gravest tragedy of the war was the moral break-down among American girls.” The corruption of the young was already a mainstay of roadshow exploitation films such as The Road to Ruin (1934), The Cocaine Fiends (1935), Reefer Madness (1936) and Assassin of Youth (1937). Wartime anxieties around children in adult bodies indulging in wanton hedonism and criminality began to turn inward as Poverty Row melodramas started pointing the finger to negligent parents. Monogram Pictures followed up 1943’s Where Are Your Children with Are These Our Parents in 1944, which, along with PRC’s I Accuse My Parents and RKO’s Youth Runs Wild that same year, framed wayward teens as “tragic victims of war and turmoil” and the true culprits as “pleasure mad parents.”

As the boys returned home from the war, Frankie’s popularity began to wane, and within a couple years, a string of film flops, public violence, an insatiable appetite for extramarital indiscretion and a receding hairline signaled that his time as heartthrob for high schoolers was up. But the teen market was firmly established, and the fashion and cosmetic industries lead a heavy push to commodify adolesence.

The Method

The roots of The Actor’s Studio in New York can be traced back to the 1922-23 U.S. tour of the Moscow Art Theater, where a handful who attended went on to become fervent acolytes of Konstantin Stanislavski. Stella Adler was somewhat of a mainstay around Broadway but never quite secured steady enough work to quit her day job as an acting teacher. She took her shot at Hollywood stardom in 1937, got nowhere, and returned to New York, where she had better luck peddling herself as a coach.

Meanwhile, Lee Strasberg was a young, aimless high school dropout who became an instant convert when the Moscow Art Theater rolled through town. He picked up a couple small roles on Broadway but by 1931 had established a reputation as the guru of an immersive, intense and vulnerable approach to acting that took on a chic appeal among the high-brows of the New York theater scene. Strasberg’s first attempt to proliferate his teachings was the Group Theater, an actor’s collective he would mold in his image.

In 1947, Lee Strasberg decided it was time to monetize and put his courses behind a paywall. The Actor’s Studio offered dues-paying members exclusive access to workshops from world-renowned exemplars of the adage “those who can’t do, teach.” Strasberg continued to develop an Americanized version of the Stanislavski style he began to refer to as The Method. Stella Adler also taught at the Studio, and the two clashed over a dispute on their interpretations of Stanislavski’s approach.

Strasberg won and The Method became en vogue around the Great White Way. Ironically enough, it was Adler’s protege that would propel it to the masses. Marlon Brando established himself as the poster child for The Method with his raw, pained portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, first in 1947 for the original Broadway run, then in 1951 for the film version. The notion of masochistically suffering for their art gave Method actors an air of romanticism, and both Brando and The Method became the epitome of Hollywood’s cutting edge.

Brando capitalized on a trend of returning World War II soldiers who’d struggled to adjust back to civilian life and had begun to find belonging and camaraderie in motorcycle clubs. At a rally sanctioned by the American Motorcycle Association in Hollister, California over the Fourth of July weekend 1947, several unaffiliated clubs showed up to participate, and their drunken behavior devolved into chaos and property destruction. The Hollister Riots received heavy press coverage, and after an AMA spokesperson remarked that motorcycle clubs not endorsed by the AMA were “outlaws,” the veterans who’d already experienced a sense of disenfranchisement from the country they’d served began to adopt an anti-social posture.

1953’s The Wild One was a dramatization of the Hollister Riots that continued Brando’s streak playing the kind of antihero characters that were seen as the optimal showcase for The Method. The vilification of motorcycle gangs in the media inspired by The Wild One was conflated with a simmering fear of the adolescent class. The post-war prosperity of the late 40s along with the advent of suburban life resulted in high schoolers with disposable income of their own for the first time. And while Big Business was quick to identify that teens are inclined to prioritize immediate gratification over fiscal responsibility, this newfound autonomy nonetheless continued to instill fear in grown-ups.

The terrors of property vandalism and loud motor vehicles disturbing the peace now added to the fear that an entire generation of the nation’s youth was falling prey to corrupting forces. But the latest trend in popular music would only serve to pour jet fuel onto this fire.

“Rock Around the Clock” had originally been written as an orchestral novelty tune in the vein of Leroy Anderson’s “The Syncopated Clock.” Bill Haley and His Comets were a white dance combo who’d seen some success playing in the jump blues style that had been popular among black artists over the last decade. They recorded a jump-up version of “Rock Around the Clock” in May 1954 that was used the following year as the theme song for MGM’s paean to juvenile delinquency Blackboard Jungle. The single shot to #1 when it was re-released in May 1955, and when black R&B artists Chuck Berry and Little Richard followed “Rock Around the Clock” up with the crossover hits “Maybelline” and “Tutti Fruiti” that summer, rock and roll was born.

And just as quickly, this bubbling anxiety around youth in jeopardy gelled into a full-blown moral panic. As much as parents feared the corruption of their children, teenagers themselves were now coming to be viewed as the enemy from within. Reactionaries convinced themselves rock and roll was a communist plot to weaken the “moral fiber of the nation” through its sexual suggestiveness and implications of “race mixing.” At their own peril, they failed to make the basic connection that teenagers inherently find things that ruffle their parents empowering. The U.S. saw its first Generation Gap as the Silent Generation began to adopt rebellion as fashion.

And this was the moment James Dean stepped into when he immortalized himself at the age of 24 on September 30, 1955.

Who was Jimmy Dean? A Brief [and not necessarily comprehensive] Overview

James Byron Dean was born in Marion, Indiana on February 8, 1931. At age 6, his father Winton Dean decided to leave the farm life and moved the family out to California. The Deans lived in Santa Monica for a few years until mother Mildred became stricken with uterine cancer and passed away at 28. Winton felt he was unequipped to be a single parent and so Jimmy was shipped back to Indiana to be raised by his aunt and uncle. After graduating high school, Jimmy returned to SoCal in an effort to reconnect with his father, but this didn’t quite pan out as he’d hoped. In the meantime, he appeared in the Miles Playhouse production of “The Ballad of Scarlet Gulch” in the summer of 1949 under the name Byron James. In the fall of 1950 he enrolled at UCLA where he was seen in the drama department production of Macbeth. On December 14, he landed his first paid acting gig: a commercial for Pepsi which was shot in one day at Griffith Park. The ten dollar bill he had to show for it was enough to give Jimmy the confidence he needed to drop out of school to pursue acting full time by February 1951.

Holy Cross Family Ministries and their media arm Family Theater Productions are the predecessor to PureFlix, producing Christian media in-house and distributing independently. Starting with a radio program in 1947, Family Theatre made the leap to television by 1951. “Hill Number One” was an Easter special that aired on March 25. Though the role of John the Apostle was a minor one, Jimmy managed to play his handful of inane lines to the hilt. A group of girls from Immaculate Heart High School took particular notice and formed the Immaculate Heart James Dean Appreciation Society. Jimmy was reportedly touched to learn he had his first fan club and even accepted an invitation to one of their meetings.

Jimmy picked up some more TV work and a few bit parts in features. But by 1952, Marlon Brando and The Method were the hot ticket in town, and entry into The Actor’s Studio in New York was seen as the surest bet for the unknown looking to break out. That summer, Jimmy was one of 15 accepted out of 150 tryouts. A few months in, when Strasberg dressed him down mercilessly in front of the rest of the class after a reading of Matador, Jimmy withdrew, returning only to audit classes from time to time.

Meanwhile that summer, he began a campaign to charm his way into Broadway producer Lemuel Ayers’ world, worming his way into a spot as crewman on his yacht. A month later, Ayers held tryouts for his next production, See the Jaguar. Jimmy’s politicking gave him a leg up over the estimated 100 actors jockeying for the part of Wally Wilkins, a 17 year old who’d spent his upbringing isolated and abused at the hands of his mother. After her death, Wally struggles to interact with the outside world for the first time, and whispers of a sizable inheritance make him the target of exploitation.

William Hawkins of the World Telegram and Sun described See the Jaguar as “a play of poetic quality,” a perhaps charitable way to describe playwright J. Richard Nash’s “free-form” dialogue which Lee Mortimer of the Daily Mirror predicted “would gag a Y.M.C.A. social director.” John Chapman of the Daily News noted “it is a pity that one small ingredient was left out. The ingredient I mention is a play, and a play is no more than a believable story.” The New York Post’s Richard Watts Jr. summed it up as “ full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times proclaimed “See the Jaguar accomplishes nothing but noise and confusion.”

See the Jaguar opened December 3, 1952 at the Cort Theater and shut down December 6 after five performances. But while the show was an unqualified flop, the Post noted “James Dean achieves the feat of making the childish young fugitive believable and unembarrassing.” Walter Kerr of the Herald-Tribune stated “James Dean adds an extraordinary performance in an almost impossible role.” The Mirror remarked “no show is complete without a character actor that thefts the show. This has two, namely Roy Fant as Grandpa Ricks and James Dean.”

At the end of 1953, Jimmy landed his second and final Broadway role. The Immoralist was another controversial production for its day. It centers around Michel, played by Louis Jourdan, who marries a woman in hopes of resolving his repressed but all-consuming homosexuality. Jimmy played Bachir, the couple’s flamboyantly gay houseboy who continuously seduces and taunts Michel, eventually provoking him to consummate their marriage to prove his manhood. From there, things descend into tragedy for the newlyweds.

Once again, Jimmy was singled out by the critics, but he wouldn’t stick around long. He put in his notice shortly after The Immoralist opened on February 8, 1954 and gave his last performance February 23. He’d walked away from a hit production and burned his bridge with producer Billy Rose, one of the biggest power-brokers on Broadway at the time, on the basis of a handshake agreement with Elia Kazan to be cast in an upcoming film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Kazan had established himself as the Method actor’s director after helming Streetcar Named Desire in 1951. Kazan and Brando teamed up for another Steinbeck adaptation, Viva Zapata! in 1952 and again for On the Waterfront in 1954. Brando was Hollywood’s golden child, and Elia Kazan was regarded as the starmaker behind him.

On April 7, 1954, Jimmy signed with Warner Bros at a starting salary of $1000 a week, or, adjusted for inflation, $11,853.40 in 2025. Jack Warner was anything but pleased with his newest acquisition; Jimmy was slovenly, uncultured in their eyes, undisciplined and often defiant. But Warner couldn’t ignore the reality that he was getting his clock cleaned by the little studio that could, Columbia. Warner Bros put Marlon Brando on the map with Streetcar Named Desire in 1951, but failed to lock him into a contract at the time. He recognized Jimmy’s potential as Warner Bros’ answer to Brando and saw that losing out on the chance to snag him meant running the risk of diminished relevance.

Most coverage of Jimmy over the summer of 1955 focused on comparisons to Marlon Brando. Sidney Skolsky was a columnist who worked out of an office above Schwab’s on Sunset. After publicists pushed an urban legend that Lana Turner had been “discovered” there by chance, Schwab’s Drug along with Googie’s Restaurant next door famously became a magnet for aspiring unknowns hoping to get noticed.

In a piece titled “Demon Dean” from the July 1955 issue of Photoplay, Skolksy follows Jimmy, whose profile was only just beginning to rise after the release of East of Eden, along with an entourage of admiring no-names and hangers-on, as they hang out one night. In line with most pieces on Jimmy at the time, Marlon Brando is mentioned no less than 14 times in the article. Skolsky attempts to qualify the comparison: “Dean resembles Brando because they both represent today…Jimmy, you must understand, has character and integrity. He is also undisciplined and irresponsible…he is Marlon Brando seven years ago. There’s the refusal to conform to accepted patterns, right to the motorcycle.” Skolsky also notes: “Brando’s only comment, as far as I know, was made at a party attended by both. Marlon said to Jimmy: “Don’t you think you’re going a little too far to attract attention?” One of the few in-depth profiles published in his lifetime, “Demon Dean” and its portrait of Jimmy as a motorcycle-ridin’, bongo drum-beatin’, convention-defying, jive-spewin’ hepcat would go on to be a foundational text in the lore of the James Dean myth.

Deansploitation

Throughout the month of October 1955, news reports of Jimmy’s death along with a spate of columns mourning his untimely loss appeared on newsstands alongside Warner Bros puff pieces in fan magazines which had already been scheduled for publication. While East of Eden, which had come out that April, did good business at the box office and had garnered him a measure of attention, he wasn’t quite yet a household name. For many, the media hype surrounding his sudden passing was their introduction to James Dean, and the morbid duality of the tragic news alongside heavily sanitized get-to-know-Jimmy articles promoting his next movie became the incantation to summon Hollywood’s latest god. The studios had been refining the craft of capitalizing on dead actors for decades, making the most out of posthumous releases like The Son of the Sheik, which came out a year after the death of its star Rudolph Valentino. The “Ice Cream Blonde” Thelma Todd was found unresponsive at 29 under suspicious circumstances in 1935, but that didn’t hurt ticket sales for The Bohemian Girl the following year. And the original “Platinum Blonde” Jean Harlow’s untimely passing only helped make Saratoga, released seven weeks later, the top-earning film of 1937.

Looking to MGM’s windfall off the lateness of the late Jean Harlow, Warner Bros set out to zero in on the sweet spot: too soon and they run the risk of the blatantly crass commercialism diminishing the value of their asset, but the longer they wait, the higher the likelihood the public moves on and the studio is left with nothing.

Greenlit as a B-movie in spite of being their attempt to respond to the success of The Wild One and Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without A Cause was shot on lower-cost black and white when it went into production on March 28, 1955. Jimmy’s next project, Giant, set to be filmed that summer, was his prestige vehicle with A-list costars stars and a large-scale budget to match. As efforts to liken him to Brando started picking up traction in the press on the heels of East of Eden’s release, Jack Warner approved an upgrade to Cinemascope color. Reshoots put the production somewhat behind schedule but his instinct had once again served him well. Cinematographer Ernest Haller incorporated the same striking use of color that won him the Academy Award for Gone With the Wind. Marketing materials for the rushed release placed its deceased star front and center, and the image of Jimmy in a white t-shirt, blue jeans and blood-red Harrington windbreaker was beyond iconic. It was transcendent.

Rebel Without a Cause first premiered at the Astor Theater in New York on October 26, 1955. Exhibitors were given three days ahead of time to prescreen, pointing to the hurried nature of the release. It might not have been the highest-grossing film of that year (that would have been Mister Roberts, which raked in $8.1M) and it may have been dwarfed by Giant’s $12M in ticket sales the following year, but without question, Rebel Without a Cause is the film that made James Dean a cultural institution. The style, mannerisms and affect depicted in the character of Jim Stark set the first-ever universal standard of cool for the modern adolescent male. The title itself is the perfect encapsulation of the frustrations teens often face when pressed to “explain themselves.” Giant would further establish James Dean as an icon of Americana by stylizing him in the aesthetic of arguably the most American of all archetypes: the cowboy. But Rebel Without a Cause made him both immediately relevant and instantly timeless.

As fandom made a hard shift into idolatry, almost anyone that could claim even the flimsiest connection to James Dean was coming out of the woodwork to cash in. On top of endless tribute columns and articles flooding newspapers and magazines, special edition one-offs with names like The James Dean Album, The Official James Dean Anniversary Book and The Real James Dean Story were churned out by the same New York outfits that published the fan magazines. Friend Bill Bast turned out the first biography in 1956, laying the foundation for the James Dean myth that later works would either support or refute.

Meanwhile, weeks after the release of Rebel Without a Cause, RCA signed a recording contract with a 20 year old singer out of Memphis named Elvis Aron Presley. By the time rock ’n’ roll came into its own over the summer of 1955, Elvis had steadily built up a regional following performing in a similar style that blended jump blues with country & western. His talent as a showman was bolstered by his taste for flashy outfits along with dance moves he’d cribbed equally from black performers and strip dancers.

In spite of his status as an undocumented and therefore illegal immigrant, “Thomas Andrew Parker” had been awarded the honorary title of “Colonel” of the Louisiana State Militia in 1948 by Governor Jimmie Davis for his help on Davis’s campaign, and Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk would go by “Colonel Tom Parker” for the rest of his days. By early ’55, Elvis caught the attention of Colonel Tom, and that summer was featured on the Colonel’s Hank Snow Tour. Colonel Tom then took it upon himself to broker a deal to sign Elvis to a major label and began shopping around. In the eye of the hurricane that was the James Dean phenomenon, RCA saw the marketability in Elvis and won out the bidding war and on January 27, 1956, “Heartbreak Hotel” was released. The following day, Colonel Tom had arranged for Elvis to make his first national TV appearance on Stage Show.

Whisper was one of a handful of rogue tabloids in the 50s that sidestepped the studio-driven media machine in favor of more lurid and sensationalistic copy. The cover story for the February 1956 issue was one of the earliest incidents of the James Dean Myth taking on a paranormal dimension. “James Dean’s Black Madonna” makes the claim that James Dean was killed by a curse put upon him by Vampira, a fictional TV character, after their brief affair ended in disappointment. It’s worth noting that the article never mentions the name of the woman who portrayed Vampira, Maila Nurmi, and refers to her by her on-camera pseudonym throughout. But the pairing of his image with hyperbolic gothic and occult imagery was perhaps the first sign of a darker turn towards the Cult of James Dean.

Jimmy Dean Returns! was a one-off from the publishers of Rave magazine that promises to offer “his own words from the beyond. Instead, the reader is treated to fan fiction written pseudonymously as “Judy Collins,” an 18 year old working at Macy’s in New York in 1951 when Jimmy comes into the store. What starts out as the purchase of a can opener blossoms into a romance for the ages until Hollywood comes between the two. After their last kiss, Jimmy promises, “No matter what happens to me…somehow or other, some time, somewhere, I’ll come back to you. Remember! I’ll come back to you.” After Jimmy dies, “Judy” pads out the article by elaborating on her newfound interest in hypnosis through exhaustive reviews of multiple books she’d come across along with an article from the October 1949 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research quoted in full. All of this sets up the pretext for Jimmy talking to “Judy” by way of a small travel clock.

By June, Newsweek, Movie Life and other outlets began denying rumors that James Dean had, in fact, survived his car crash but was so disfigured from the accident he has since gone into hiding. Whether or not it’s true, as some have claimed, that Warner Bros press team planted the story to keep interest alive until the release of Giant, some of the suits became uneasy with the Cult’s growing fascination with the death aspect. The image of the crumpled wreckage of the Spyder became a holy symbol unto its own, the crucifix to which James Dean had been nailed. The prospect of teenage devotees tempting fate like their idol with grave results gave parents yet another reason to deride and fear their youth.

Meanwhile, the fact that Jimmy had no will meant that, by default, his estate, at the time of his death valued at around $100,000, went to his surviving next of kin, which was his semi-estranged father Winton Dean. In July, he and the Dean family incorporated the James Dean Memorial Foundation and, later, the James Dean Foundation Trust, to manage licensing, kicking off a decades-long legal battle with Warner Bros over who holds the rights to an individual’s name and likeness after they are gone.

In hopes of containing the monster they’d created, the Hollywood Machine activated a two-pronged campaign: 1.) tarnish the image of James Dean the All American Farm Boy through a succession of “leaked” stories about his more sordid behavior, 2.) paint the fans as delusional weirdos with whom no self-respecting high schooler should want to associate themself. One headline in the L.A. Mirror from August 6, 1956 read “Continued Fascination Assumes Macabre Aspect.” A September 24th article in Time magazine, “Delirium Over a Dead Star,” referred to the fandom as a “morbid cult.” That same month, broader fears over the adolescent menace boiled over when Elvis made his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show September 9, where the camera crew was famously ordered to shoot him from the waist up in order to shield CBS’s audience from the hyper-sexuality of The Pelvis. Not long after, Sullivan learned Steve Allen was working on a tribute to James Dean scheduled to air October 21 and cynically ran one of his own a week prior. Irate and not to be outdone, Allen produced a tribute album, The James Dean Story, that Coral Records released the same day Allen’s special aired.

On October 28, Saturday Evening Post writer Maurice Zolotow ran a syndicated column that newspapers across the country ran with alternating headlines: “Jimmy Dean Should Be No One’s Idol: ‘Late Actor Was Sadistic, Uncouth, Arrogant, Cruel and a Filthy Slob” [Omaha World Herald] or “Jimmy Dean Called Rotten Idol For U.S.” [Syracuse Herald Journal] or “Legend Is Based on Lies, Nonsense” [Detroit Free Press] The Detroit Free Press ran a column alongside Zolotow’s from Kitty Hanson headlined “Are Dean Fans ‘Buying’ Phony Idol? There’s Profit in Pushing the Dean Hoax,” the “hoax” being gullible teenagers enriching those capitalizing on their fervent devotion to the James Dean Cult via merchandising.

The December issue of Esquire included an article: “The Apotheosis of James Dean” which contains quotes from two primary sources: Christine White, Jimmy’s audition partner and classmate at The Actor’s Studio and frenemy Leonard Rosenman. By all accounts, Jimmy made Rosenman’s lengthy career as a film composer happen by convincing Warner Bros to let him score East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause. At some point and for reasons never made clear, the two had a falling out. Up to his death in 2008, Rosenman himself remained cagey on the matter, yet somehow still found it in his heart to jump at every (paid) interview or Dean-related project he was approached to participate in. While he never directly disparaged Jimmy on camera, Rosenman often framed their relationship in a patronizing and self-aggrandizing fashion. In his article, “Was James Dean Sexually Sadistic?,” Jason Colavito asserts their rift was due to Jimmy publicly exposing Leonard’s infidelity towards his first of four wives, Adele Bracker, who was also the mother of his three children. This is supported by the fact that the two had divorced at some point prior to Rosenman’s marriage to wife #2 Kay Scott in 1959.

On November 24, 1956, Giant was released to commercial and critical acclaim. Warner Bros’ gambit ended with a blowout, netting tens of millions for the studio and, as a bonus, they were off the hook for the eight films (and the $800K salary) left in his contract. But, they figured, once this gusher dried up, with no more product to peddle, James Dean would now retire to Hollywood Heaven alongside Valentino and Harlow.

The same week Giant came out, Elvis made his silver screen debut in Love Me Tender. While music had always been central to him, Elvis, like many kids, grew up dreaming of becoming a movie star. Knowing this, Colonel Tom set out to make it happen, and soon after signing Elvis to RCA brokered a one-picture deal with Paramount Pictures that included an option for six more. Awestruck at his effectiveness, 21 year old Elvis made Colonel Tom his full-time manager, entering into an agreement that would effectively condemn him to indentured servitude down the road. But having already conquered pop music, Elvis now proved himself as a viable box office commodity. His unpolished but undeniably radioactive charisma on camera combined with his status as the leading force of rock ’n’ roll in the moment made Elvis Presley the indisputable heir apparent to James Dean, whether or not he would admit it himself.

A February 1957 article in the non-studio-sanctioned gossip rag Inside Story headlined “The Amazing James Dean Hoax!” includes several unsubstantiated claims that Warner Bros artificially inflated hype over James Dean during the summer of 1956 by, among other things, paying fan clubs to force enthusiasm despite alleged waning interest. It is believed that the anonymous insider source for the article was Walter Ross, a New York-based publicist who had a particular distaste for Jimmy going back to his Broadway days. Ross went on to publish a novel in 1958, The Immortal, in which the main character of 24 year old Johnny Preston is a thinly-veiled stand-in for James Dean, portrayed in an especially lurid and unsavory light.

Whether or not “The James Dean Hoax” contains any truths, it may be so that the fever over Deanmania had cooled some by 1957, but the James Dean Cult remained evergreen. A poor-quality home recording of Jimmy “jamming” on conga with Bob Romeo on flute was released as a single as “Dean’s Lament.” On the B-side, “Jungle Rhythm,” they are joined by “the King of Palm Springs” Duke Mitchell on bowangos. Ironically, Duke and Jimmy had both worked as extras on the Martin & Lewis comedy Sailor Beware back during Jimmy’s first go-around as a no-name in Hollywood.

But a barely-audible five minutes of James Dean hitting the skins wasn’t enough to satisfy the lingering appetite, and reports of a biopic in the works started to trickle out. Much of the discussion revolved around who would be cast in the lead, with reader polls tilting heavily in favor of Elvis. A Kansas City-based filmmaker took notice of the demand to see his life story presented on the big screen and came up with an approach that would be far more cost-effective and at the same time benefit from its authenticity. In between producing industrial shorts, Robert Altman was directing his first feature film, The Delinquents, when Jimmy died. Altman saw the James Dean phenomenon as an essential entry into the catalogue of Americana, a subject area that would become a through-line of his work in years to come. Altman marshaled the resources he had on hand and began work on a documentary. But aside from a handful of on-camera interviews and some unremarkable B-roll from Fairmount, Altman had little to work with in the way of footage. His solution was what he called “dynamic exploration of the photograph,” which was basically using zoom, pan and tilt to create a sense of motion with a still image.

On August 13, 1957, The James Dean Story premiered in Marion, Indiana, Dean’s birthplace. Warner Bros was pleased enough with Robert Altman’s finished product that they decided to scrap plans for a biopic and distribute his film instead. Given the considerable limitations of his resources and access, The James Dean Story is far less factual documentary and far more impressionistic treatise with a heavy dose of armchair psychoanalysis, lacquered with stylization that aimed for ultra-hip including a soundtrack that featured then-popular jazz artists Chet Baker and Bud Shank. In the end, The James Dean Story would crystalize the version of the James Dean Myth that Warner Bros and the James Dean Memorial Trust could market to all ages: the Renaissance man that epitomized cool but could never escape the shadow of losing his mother at 9 years old.

On October 10th, the Greater Los Angeles Safety Council first exhibited the wreckage of James Dean’s Spyder in conjunction with a screening of The James Dean Story. George Barris had purchased the remains of the Porsche he’d customized days before the crash by emblazoning the rear with the nickname “Little Bastard.” Unable to rebuild it, Barris sold off the drivetrain and loaned out the body and chassis to the Safety Council. While the clear hope was that Dean-heads would become mortified at seeing firsthand the reality of his recklessness and think twice about following in his footsteps, at an exhibit in Sacramento, the car reportedly slid off its display and crushed one attendee’s hip. At another exhibit, it slipped during setup and killed George Barkus, a truck-driver hired to help transport it. Several people claimed to have cut themselves by just touching the body. A number of other freak occurrences related to parts Barris had sold off added to the consensus that “Little Bastard” was cursed, another supernatural element that only added to the mystique.

While Warner Bros were content enough that The James Dean Story had satisfied the fandom, one studio felt otherwise and went to work on their response immediately after its release. South Carolina-based Howco Productions boasted the distinction of having worked with both B-movie juggernaut Roger Corman (Carnival Rock, 1957) and the so-called “worst director of all time” Ed Wood (Jail Bait, 1954). The narrator in Lost, Lonely and Vicious melodramatically proclaims “this is a real documentary about how one young actor struggles with life.” And while Altman may have made the trip to Fairmount, Indiana for The James Dean Story, Howco Productions’ “Hollywood documentary” was shot entirely on location…in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. But instead of a documentary, Lost, Lonely and Vicious is a dramatization that follows a gifted but tortured rising star named “Johnny Dennis” whose obsession with death ends in tragedy. Norman Graham’s script appears to be heavily informed by Sidney Skolsky’s “Demon Dean” article. Much of the film takes place in a sparsely-adorned cafe where Dennis’s circle of hangers-on loiter, clearly cribbing from the scene at Googie’s Skolsky describes. Lost, Lonely and Vicious played the drive-in circuit on a double bill with My World Dies Screaming, and while box office information isn’t available, it’s fair to assume it turned a profit.

On March 24, 1958, Elvis Presley reported to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas for induction into the Army. With the King of Rock & Roll shipped overseas for the next two years, parents breathed a sigh of relief, believing the nightmare of rock and roll and rebels without causes was finally over. But, armed with The Catcher in the Rye as their manifesto, the kids saw right through top-down efforts to fill the vacuum left by Elvis with prefabricated teen-dream products like Frankie Avalon, Pat Boone and Fabian.

And while the press and the public may have christened him the Next James Dean, to Hollywood’s acting community, Elvis Presley was seen as a hick being propped up as a novelty and an interloper who never had to pay his dues and, as such, was illegitimate in their eyes as an actor. As rumors and half-truths continued to circulate among insiders, the James Dean Myth remained a uniquely intoxicating proposition around young Hollywood.

In one article, Dennis Hopper, who had minor roles in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, implored readers, “Please Don’t Call Me Another Jimmy Dean…” adding how much “he shrinks inside” when “the press and studio moguls” allegedly draw the comparison. One of the cast of Rebel who would have happily accepted it was Nick Adams, whose unabashed efforts to mold himself after his co-star culminated in 1959, when he landed the lead role in an ABC western for two seasons. Even the show’s title, The Rebel, was an unsubtle attempt to tie itself and its star to the Deaniverse.

Apart from promising young actors of the time like Paul Newman and Tab Hunter, the nomination of Tony Perkins for Next James Dean seems like an unlikely choice through a contemporary lens given his career-defining role of Norman Bates in the Psycho movies. Another odd pick for those more familiar with his work as lip-synching villain clown Ben in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet or as extra dimensional spirit guide Al Calavicci on NBCs primetime sci-fi/nostalgia porn hybrid Quantum Leap was Dean Stockwell. The November 1958 Photoplay article “Can DEAN Stockwell Shake Off the Jimmy DEAN Jinx?” opens with Stockwell surviving a relatively minor traffic accident in a Renault unscathed. From there, it continues to explore Stockwell’s frustration at supposedly unsolicited comparisons to James Dean, albeit while neglecting to cite any sources. “Sure, there were some likenesses…but that didn’t stop the magazine writers from trying to get Stockwell into the Jimmy Dean mold. And it hurt…he wanted to be accepted for his own abilities…But the magazines wouldn’t let him. They harped on the similarities between the two, manufactured others where they didn’t exist.” After finger-wagging the coverage coming out of other magazines, the magazine article then lingers on each of these alleged commonalities in depth, half-heartedly refuting or qualifying them with a “yeah, but…”: “Like Stockwell, he was crazy about Bartok. But his first love, as everyone knows, were the bongo (sic) drums.”

Tom & Jerry

If someone asks “who was Tom Pittman?” his Wikipedia page might satisfy them enough. But it’s the story of Jerry Lee Alten that can offer some real insight into the nature of stardom, idolatry and the mechanics of the Hollywood machine. And it’s one that has been nearly lost to time altogether. A story with a number of dead ends and still-unanswered questions. A story buried under layers of commercialism and self-serving misdirection.

Movie Stars magazine, the same Madison Avenue operative that gave us The Jimmy Dean Memorial Album, ran a piece in their March 1959 issue: “The Boy Who Followed Jimmy Dean to Death.” The bulk of the text is lifted word-for-word out of Associated Press cables from months earlier, but it is noteworthy for including the most complete version of the only available autobiography of Tom Pittman. The presskit for his final film and only starring vehicle High School Big Shot includes a fluff-to-the-point-of-dubious biography of its lead. His page on FindAGrave.com includes a memorial with some additional information. Yet, despite being barely more than a paragraph each, many of the handful of details available manage to contradict each other. In the 66 years that have passed since then, the story of Tom Pittman has been reduced to a footnote on the periphery of James Dean lore and a running gag in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

So, for the first time ever, let’s try and get to know Jerry Lee Alten, best known professionally as Tom Pittman (and sometimes Geoff Parish.)

What we know for certain is that Jerry Lee Altenburger was born March 16, 1932 in Phoenix, Arizona. His father Frank was born Franz von Altenburger in Vienna, Austria on May 7, 1907. According to his naturalization records, Frank lived in Czechoslovakia before immigrating to the U.S. October 17, 1927. Jerry’s mother Beulah Dahlia Cory was born in Fort Scott, Kansas March 25, 1910. Frank and Beulah married June 18, 1931 in Los Angeles, relocating to Phoenix by the time Jerry was born, nearly nine months to the date after their wedding night. When Frank applied for U.S. citizenship on March 1, 1935, the couple were still married and his occupation listed as “bartender.” However, the marriage would dissolve within the next couple years. Beulah married her second husband, Eugene “Bill” Adair of Los Angeles in 1939 and the two gave birth to Jerry’s half-sister Paula that same year in Yuma, Arizona. According to vital records, Beulah was a resident of California from 1939 through the remainder of her life and specifically Los Angeles County from 1941 onward. In 1953, she married for the third and final time to Stanislaw “Stanley” Jodzio.

Meanwhile, Frank shortened his last name to “Alten” as early as 1933 in his earliest-known mention as a professional entertainer, billing himself as a “world famous magician” at a children’s benefit for the Sierra Madre PTA, where he appeared alongside “the big ‘butter and egg man’ Colonel McWhiffelgigger.” In 1937 he was part of a cast of puppeteers in a Christmas show at the Pasadena Auditorium. Another article from 1942 has the “well known magician” performing for another youth benefit in Pasedena. A profile from 1943 notes Frank “has turned movie actor portraying Nazi villain officers for Hollywood films” by day while manufacturing armaments in Lockheed’s Burbank factory at night. The piece also identifies Frank as “Count Franz von Altenburger.” Frank would routinely claim, without proof, to be an Austrian Count by birth.

According to IMDB, Frank did a number of uncredited bit parts through the 40s, mostly in Poverty Row productions. His lone screen credit was in Republic Pictures’ sci-fi-meets-Gangbusters-meets-pirates serial Manhunt of Mystery Island in 1945. That September he opened a nightclub in Studio City called Emerald Cove. In 1948 he launched the Standard Directory which marketed itself as a centralized telephone directory for Hollywood talent. In 1954, Frank was swindled by a bunco artist named Vincent Lamb who posed as the producer of a fake game show called “Crossword of the Air.” In the process of buttering him up, Lamb stole a $1500 diamond ring from Frank along with bouncing a check to a hotel for $50. At Lamb’s trial for grand theft and forgery a number of Hollywood figures were implicated in the scheme, including actor Ken Murray and “red haired television showgirl” Dorothy Ford.

A Saturday children’s special at the 1955 Mid-Valley Fair in Panorama City was reported as: “Frank Alten, a clown, will present his trained ducks and dogs at 3pm.” Incidentally, the fair’s headliner Pedro Gonzales Gonzales was acknowledged as “Movie Actor.”

So, with both Frank and Beulah documented to have lived in California from 1939 onward, you may be wondering, what happened to Jerry? Did he stay with either parent after their divorce? Did the two work out a co-parenting arrangement? The fact that Jerry graduated high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1950 suggests he did not follow them to the West Coast, leaving open the possibilities of being raised by extended family, adoption, orphanage and/or the juvenile justice system.

His senior yearbook offers some clues. He was involved in a number of extracurricular activities including cheerleading, math, track and, of course, theater. To me, this prosocial engagement combined with the fact that he graduated at 17 and therefore was presumably never held back, indicates that, whatever his circumstances may have been, he’d found a way to adapt to some extent.

Following graduation, Jerry enlisted in the Coast Guard for two years, which is likely what brought him to the Portland, Oregon area. On March 27, 1952, Jerry was gunning his motorcycle loudly down SW Broadway. As he passed SW 6th Street, a police officer tried to flag him down. Jerry instead barreled straight towards him, missing him by inches. After giving chase for a few minutes, Jerry was arrested and jailed for Reckless Driving. On July 26, 1952, Jerry married 18 year old Carole Johnson of Milwaukie. Six months later, on February 12, 1953, the two gave birth to a daughter, Theresa. Three months after that, on June 15, Carole was granted a divorce on the grounds of “cruelty.”

In her memoir, Read My Lips: Stories from a Hollywood Life, Sally Kellerman spends the better part of a chapter discussing what she describes as her close friendship with “a fine actor [who]…some people thought…was going to be the next James Dean” named Tom Pittman. While it’s clear she’s referring to Jerry Lee Alten, who throughout his life never legally changed his (abbreviated) given name, Sally refers to him exclusively as “Tom,” or, at one point, “Tommy.” For someone who claims to have an intimate acquaintance and maintains the fondness for him she seems to years later, the erasure altogether of his real name is puzzling. Whether out of some kind of professional courtesy or if we’re to believe that Jerry went about as Tom in his personal life, regrettably, Sally is no longer around to clear some of this up, having passed away in 2022. There are several reasons her recollection of events would be wholly inconsistent with the idea that she knew Jerry only as “Tom.” Not least of which; we know with certainty when and where Jerry first began working under his stage name, and her story is contradicted at several points from there.

Sally shares her account of how the two came to be acquainted: “I’d met Tom through mutual friends shortly after my family moved to Los Angeles.” Earlier in the book, she clarifies this was “when I was around fifteen years old…in the middle of my sophomore year,” meaning Sally Kellerman (born 1937) began attending Hollywood High in the spring 1953 semester. This implies Jerry would have relocated from Portland to Hollywood very shortly after his divorce (June 1953) if not sooner.

“The first time he had a proper role on live television, on Playhouse 90, he came over to watch it with my parents and me.” Let’s start with the obvious question: how can someone watch themself performing on live TV? Playhouse 90 was an anthology show that alternated between live teleplays and pre-filmed episodes. However, the first episode of Playhouse 90 premiered October 13, 1956, well after Tom Pittman had made his TV debut, as we’ll get to shortly. Moreso, there is no record I was able to find of him appearing on any episode of Playhouse 90. It’s easily possible she confused Playhouse 90 for one of several other anthology series Tom did appear in such as Suspicion (1957), General Electric Theater (1957) or Studio 57 (1958).

Sally muddies the waters a little further when she gets to the topic of Frank Alten, who is never mentioned by name. “After the funeral, Tom’s father, a small unimposing Norwegian [sic] man came into Chez Paulette. He walked up and introduced himself to me. ‘I know Tommy loved you very much,’ he said. I didn’t know what to say. Tom’s father had been a radio and television actor, but as far as I knew, the two were never close.”

Was this correct? On one hand, we’ve established Jerry had separated from both of his parents somewhere between their divorce in 1935 and the late 40s. But let’s take a moment to consider the scenario around June 1953: 21 year old divorcee and absentee father Jerry Lee Alten decides to go all in on pursuing an acting career armed with a handful of high school credits and two unremarkable years of peacetime service under his belt.

But while his whereabouts and activities for the two years after his divorce remain unconfirmed, Tom Pittman’s obituary [FindAGrave.com] notes he’d “completed his training in theatrical arts from UCLA” before being introduced to producer Ivan Tors through his father. This makes it far more plausible that the two had stayed in touch or that Jerry had at least kept tabs on Frank’s entertainment career. It’s possible he was attending UCLA when Jerry met Sally, but his TV debut was neither on Playhouse 90 nor under the name Tom Pittman. On August 25, 1955, he starred in an episode of Lux Video Theatre, “June Bride” as Jerry Alten. Incidentally, this also means that Jerry and Jimmy Dean even coexisted as working actors in Hollywood for about a month, though there’s nothing to indicate the two ever met.

In Sindey Skolsky’s September 3rd column, a reader named “Esther Budde” writes: “In a recent column you wrote: ‘Standing in line waiting to get into the late show for Summertime was Leslie Caron with a young man who looked surprisingly like James Dean.’ That was Norma Jean Nilsson and Jerry Alten, the two kids who did such bang-up jobs on Lux Video the other night in ‘June Bride.’” Skolsky responds: “I’m willing to accept your word that everyone says Norma Jean looks surprisingly like Caron, but what about Jerry Alten passing for Jimmy Dean. And by the way, who the heat are you, Esther Budde?”

Good question, Sidney. I’m curious as well.

Jerry’s first public performance as Tom Pittman took place March 25, 1956, when End As A Man opened at the Players Ring Gallery Theater in Santa Monica. Coincidentally, Jimmy had also starred in an in-house production of Calder Willingham’s “controversial” play during his time with The Actor’s Studio. According to the bio from the High School Big Shot press kit, “Tom” landed his supporting role in the production by happenstance when he stopped by the theater to say hi to “a friend,” only to have the producer hire him on the spot.

In my view anyway, the saccharine whimsy of this version of events seems more in line with something a publicist from the time would have cooked up in the interest of myth-building. His online memorial is supported by the events that followed. Tom Pittman made his first television appearance on Science Fiction Theatre (“Who is This Man?”), produced by Ivan Tors, a month after End As A Man opened. By coincidence or design, on the very same night of Tom’s debut, April 20, 1956, Frank Alten also made his first TV appearance in a bit part on The Man Called X (“Acoustics”). Jerry himself would go on to be featured on The Man Called X that November in the episode “Underground,” playing an Eastern Bloc intelligence agent in a similar vein to the character Frank had portrayed.

Jerry’s performance in End as a Man led to a stint with the Hollywood Repertory Theatre and he quickly found himself in high demand for television work. Jerry returned to the Players Ring Gallery Theater in March 1957, this time around playing male lead in Patricia Joudry’s Teach Me How To Cry, a study in the challenges of adolescence. A March 6 review by Willie Williams noted “Opposite Miss [Jean] Allison is Tom Pittman, as a lad wise beyond his years.” Four weeks into its run, it was announced that Teach Me How To Cry was in the works to be developed into a movie by Universal. By the time it was released as The Restless Years, by chance released the same week as Lost Lonely and Vicious, the starring roles instead wound up going to John Saxon and Sandra Dee.

Whether or not he’d jockeyed for the movie adaptation of Teach Me Not To Cry, Jerry was already working regularly. By the end of 1956, he’d racked up nine TV appearances along with two uncredited cameos in World War II sagas. In 1957, he added another seven TV spots along with six feature films to his resume. Thanks to its perennial popularity as the quintessential stylized embodiment of the American myth, the Western genre seamlessly ported to television as it remained a mainstay of feature films. Other than oaters, Jerry continued to pursue tortured-youth roles in the James Dean vein, which remained in high demand among casting agents. However, as the fandom refused to die out, Jerry faced an ever-expanding pool of competition clamoring for a tiny piece of the James Dean aura.

Since no complete or expanded interviews with Jerry appear to be available, its wholly unknown if he’d attempted to embrace The Method as his acting philosophy. But the linking to James Dean one way or another remains a constant throughout post-mortem accounts. Leo Gordon wrote the screenplay for the “Western-noir” Black Patch that co-stars “Tom” alongside George Montgomery. On his Facebook page, Gordon commented: “Pittman was a very dark, moody, eccentric guy with a serious case of the ‘James Deans.’ He even drove a Porsche Spyder [sic], just like his idol.” Notably, Gordon adds, “Dad figured the guy would just grow out of ‘the James Dean thing’ and go on to have a solid career.”

One theme that had become a cliche in the media as the growing public awareness of adolescence collided with the rise of the James Dean Myth was the conflict between the father and the son. Not only did it hearken back to the tragedy of Jimmy’s own childhood and his strained relationship with Winton, it appears in one form or another in each of his three films. Cal Trask’s story arc in East of Eden is centered around his all-consuming yet futile efforts to earn the approval of his emotionally distant father. By contrast, Jim Stark’s father in Rebel Without a Cause is attentive and wants the world for his child, but sabotages his responsibilities as a dad through his desire to be a pal. As a consequence, he’s left spineless and ineffective. This time, with the son in the position of disappointment and disapproval of the father, the son now becomes empowered to set out on a voyage of discovery for himself as opposed to accepting and abiding by the prescribed rules and restrictions that had been handed down to him.

In Giant, Jett Rink starts out as a ranch hand undefined by any backstory. A man with no family. The owner of the ranch, Bix, played by Rock Hudson, becomes a surrogate father figure for Jett to project an unspoken displaced parental rage onto. At first, his outward resentment towards Bix is framed as the byproduct of his unrequited infatuation with Bix’s new bride Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor. But after a twist of fate makes Jett the owner of a small plot of land that happens to be sitting on a healthy oil deposit, his hostility towards Bix persists along with an adversarial posture against the world overall.

Jerry and Frank Alten’s television debuts had taken place on the same night, but as Jerry’s career picked up, Frank’s run as an actor stalled out. Soon enough, he found himself pivoting to a new career as a sports commentator. Specifically, he and his new wife Pat Hanna established themselves as experts in auto racing around Southern California. The two co-hosted Motor Classics, a weekly radio program which sometimes aired televised specials covering premier events like the Indianapolis 500.

According to friends, by 1958 Jerry was making around $60K a year, roughly equivalent to $664K in 2025. Maybe not enough to start looking at mansions in Malibu yet, but Jerry’s first big purchase would end up defining the career of Tom Pittman. A cornerstone of the ubiquitous James Dean comparisons in post-mortem coverage was that both Jimmy and Jerry were driving Porsches when they met their demise. Purposefully or otherwise, the comparison is rendered even more reductive as Jerry’s Porsche is misidentified as a Spyder, not only in the press but by both Sally Kellerman and Leo Gordon.

In truth, Jimmy’s “Little Bastard” was, for all intents and purposes, a stock model straight off the showroom floor when he bought it on impulse. Jerry’s Porsche, on the other hand, was more than an “unusual” custom job. It was actually a very specific vehicle with a distinct place in Porsche’s history, and over the years, a considerable effort appears to have been made to erase Jerry’s association with it. And the headline from a 2021 Silodrome article truly punctuates the uniqueness of Jerry’s whip: “This Is The Only Glöckler-Porsche 356 Carrera 1500 Coupe Ever Built.”

The 1954 Glöckler-Porsche 356 Carrera 1500 Coupe

In the late 40s, Walter Glöckler opened one of the first Volkswagen dealerships in West Germany and in 1950 became the Frankfurt dealer for Porsche. Glöckler also had a passion for racing with a background in motorcycle competition prior to the war. With Volkswagens selling hand over fist, Glöckler had the funds to begin developing his own custom builds. In 1948 he collaborated with Porsche’s engineering team to make the first of six (or seven, depending on the source) prototype models, designed for racing and with performance in mind, each building off the successes and lessons from the previous design. Porsche adapted a number of their design elements into their commercial models, including the 550 Spyder. In 1954 Walter Glöckler completed his final prototype, the 356 Carerra 1500 Coupe. It was the first vehicle to feature a unique vertical engine designed by Ernst Furhmann that produced 110 horsepower, a considerable leap from the 70 horsepower a conventional inline motor of the same size could be expected to put out. This configuration would come to be known as the “Carrera” style engine. Glöckler also chose to add a hardtop, an odd choice at a time when topless models were the standard in racing. But function and performance were kept at the forefront; the windows extended into the roof to make entering and exiting easier while wearing a helmet and the wraparound rear window offers a panoramic rear view with minimal blind spots while passing.

The Glöckler-Porsche 356 Carrera 1500 Coupe was designed to compete in the 1954 Mille Miglia but wasn’t finished in time. It did race as #27 in the Liege-Rome-Liege rally that year but was disqualified about halfway through after the oil pipe was clipped crossing a railroad track. It sat for a time at the Porsche factory before it was purchased by a “Tom Shimpan” according to Sotheby’s and exported to the States. Given I was unable to find any record of anyone with the name “Tom Shipman” in California in the 50s or anywhere else in the car collector world, its entirely possible this was a misnomer on Sotheby’s part. Adding to this likelihood is the absence altogether of any provenance for this otherwise abundantly documented, historically significant vehicle for several decades after it was shipped to L.A.

Nonetheless, even with only two photos available of Jerry’s Porsche, it’s clear beyond a reasonable doubt that his and the 1954 Glöckler-Porsche 356 Carrera 1500 Coupe are one and the same. By 1958, when these photographs were taken, it had been refinished in black and now featured a distinctive pinstriping from the rear fins to the front fenders. The license plate is stamped “1956,” suggesting the year it would have been registered by its then-current owner. Up to now, Jerry had a measure of confidence in his abilities but, according to Sally Kellerman, winced at the sight of himself on the screen. Whatever Deanian aspirations he was fostering, he felt he had little to set himself apart from the hundreds of other “copycats” showing up to auditions. Now he was being spotted on the Sunset Strip driving a flashy one-of-a-kind sports car with the power to leave any challengers in the dust. Behind the wheel of the Glöckler-Porsche Coupe, Jerry could finally become Tom Pittman.

But about that name…Tom Pittman…how did he come to pick that for his Movieland alter ego? What was the significance?

Lt Colonel Thomas Leland Pitman (one T) began his military career as a pilot in the Army Air Corps before they were reclassified as their own branch and renamed the Air Force. His qualifications as pilot, navigator, bombardier and radar operator made Pitman one of the Force’s fabled “Four-Headed Monsters,” considered to be in the top echelon among airmen. After distinguished service in the Pacific Theater throughout World War II, then-Captain Pitman continued to serve as the U.S. entered into the Cold War. On February 12, 1955, he was in a B-47 returning from a training mission when two of the engines exploded in mid-air over eastern Saskatchewan. Two of the four on board managed to parachute out while Pitman and the other crewman were presumed dead. When a search team located the wreckage days later, Pitman was found alive. His leg required amputation, but Pitman had miraculously managed to survive the subzero winter climate.

On November 1, 1957, it was announced that Duell Sloan and Pearce planned to publish a book about the daring true-life exploits of Captain Pitman. For reasons unknown, author Rutherford Montgomery misspells his last name with two T’s in the title, Tom Pittman, USAF. While we have no way of knowing how Jerry came up with his stage name, it’s worth noting that the day after this announcement, the “currently in production” notices for his latest film, The Proud Rebel, make no mention of Tom Pittman but include the name “Geoff Parish.” Shortly after, Jerry appeared as “Geoff Parish” in an episode of Have Gun Will Travel which aired January 11, 1958. On February 5, Tom Pittman, USAF was released. The book turned out to be a heavily-embellished pulp novelization aimed at inspiring young males to enlist in the Air Force. At a time when the draft remained a pervasive and broadly unpopular reality for this demographic, this blatant military propaganda failed to make much of a splash. After a couple months of identity crisis, Jerry reversed course and reclaimed the Tom Pittman name for his own. By the release of The Proud Rebel on July 1, he was billed as “Thomas Pittman,” though some promotional copy whipped up by the studio ahead of time still make mention of “Geoff Parish.”

In August 1958, “Tom” and photographer Bill Claxton moved into an apartment together at 8520 Sherwood Drive in the Tri-West neighborhood of West Hollywood. A stones’ throw away from the beach, the Sunset Strip, Studio City and the Hollywood Hills, the location couldn’t be better for a young actor working steady. And while convention might have been to rent something more “glamorous” in service of image, “Tom Pittman” rejected materialism, instead favoring coffeehouses and greasy spoons like Googie’s. A quote of unknown origin would later circulate: “I never go any place where you have to wear suits.” The 1-bed 1-bath apartment is reported to be 800 square feet. A cozy living arrangement for the two Hollywood bachelors but it wouldn’t be for very long.

The last time Bill Claxton saw his roommate was on the evening of Friday, October 31, 1958. “Tom” was heading out to a party up in the Valley. But Halloween wasn’t the only thing his friend Norma Stuart was celebrating that night.

Two days before, the 31 year old won a divorce after an ugly court battle. Born Norma Jean Aldrich, she’d married her first husband, actor Keefe Brasselle, in 1943, and the two had a daughter together. Norma and Keefe divorced in 1956, and on September 1, 1957, Norma married again. Husband #2, 37 year old architect Michael Stuart, was reportedly jealous and abusive, threatening Norma “with physical violence if she said so much as ‘hello’ to another man.” Stuart’s possessiveness was reportedly such that he would berate Norma’s ex-husband Keefe along with hurling baseless accusations at both in the presence of their 14 year old daughter.

As “Tom” was leaving Norma’s Sherman Oaks apartment in the early morning hours of November 1st, no one had any concerns. While he might have been “moody” by default, he appeared to have an upbeat disposition at the party. He’d never mentioned being in any particular distress. Everyone who knew “Tom” knew he was a show-off and an adrenaline junkie with his Glöckler-Porsche. Bill Claxton later testified “He drove fast a good part of the time. He had a sports car and he used it like one.” And it was well-known that “Tom” especially loved gunning that thing through the tight, winding roads of the canyons that linked Beverly Hills to the San Fernando Valley.

In making the trip from Sherman Oaks back to his apartment in Tri-West, Jerry would have most likely been driving east on Mulholland Boulevard, where his decision to turn onto Benedict Canyon Drive would prove to be fatal. His overconfidence quickly caught up with him as he barreled blind into a hairpin turn on the 2800 block. Unable to correct, Jerry and the Glöckler-Porsche flew off the west side of the road and 150 feet down a steep embankment. The car landed on its drivers side with Jerry underneath, semi-ejected and pinned between the door and the steering column. The coroner’s office later ruled the official cause of death to be a crushed skull and estimated Jerry had died “a short time” after the accident.

Just how long Jerry had suffered…minutes…hours…days, even…we will never know.

Later that Saturday, after hearing from Bill Claxton that Jerry hadn’t made it back from last night’s party, Frank Alten called the police to report his disappearance but was told to wait 48 hours. On Monday November 3rd, Frank reportedly called to notify them Jerry had returned, but the next day, Tuesday, November 4th, he and Claxton filed a missing person’s report with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

It is at this point that a shifty character named Robert Bice is said to enter the picture. A bit player who’d been loitering around Hollywood since the early 40s, Bice was now abruptly injecting himself into the investigation. He claimed he’d lead the first search effort for Tom, along with actors Hugh O’Brien and Steve McQueen, after the missing persons’ report was filed. Sally Kellerman was interviewed twice by two men who identified themselves as policemen; one turned out to be Bice. It’s unknown altogether if the second man was an officer either as Sally neglected to verify their credentials. During their first visit, Bice floated his suspicion “Tom’s” disappearance might have been a publicity stunt. At their second meeting, Bice disclosed he was actually “Tom’s” best friend, which came as news to Sally. Playing “good cop” this time, Bice claimed “Tom” was addicted to heroin and that he and Bill Claxton were lovers. As the “bad cop” began to grill her on these allegations, Sally acknowledged he used marijuana but flatly denied any heroin use or homosexuality.

The next day, Friday, November 14, newspapers first began reporting on the disappearance of “Tom Pittman.” Speaking to reporters, Frank expressed fears that “Tom” may have driven off the road somewhere in the canyons. Distraught as he may have been, Frank said far less about his son than the “special Porsche” he was driving, commenting in depth on plans to have the car refinished and the poor condition of the tires. He also took the opportunity to mention that he is an Austrian Count, identifying himself now as “Count Franc Xaver Graf Riter Von Getenburgen,” adding that, by birthright, his son is therefore entitled to the title of nobility as well. The same article cited his “mother” but not by name, so it’s uncertain if the quote is from bio mom Beulah Jodzio or his stepmother, Pat Hanna. Either way, “Tom’s” “mother” told the press her son had repeatedly expressed over the last two years that “he would like to get away.”

On Tuesday, November 18, after spotting the broken guardrail, Officer Roy Kerton located the wreckage of the “special Porsche” at the bottom of the ravine, seventeen days after “Tom” had last been seen. That Thursday, for one day, Tom Pittman was front page news across the country. Much of the coverage tied in the parallels with James Dean while qualifying Tom’s lost career potential with the callous observation: “the 25 [sic] year old actor wasn’t exactly handsome.”

Last rites for Jerry Lee Alten were held at Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery on Tuesday, November 25. Aside from Sally and Frank, Jerry’s mom, “Mrs. Beulah Adair.” was also reported to be in attendance. News accounts also make mention of his “ex-wife” being there, who they identify as “Mrs. Pira Brent.” While there was a “Pira L. Brent” living in Santa Monica around that time, no record of a marriage could be located. Delivering the eulogy was producer-director Sam Fuller, who’d worked with “Tom” on a film he’d shot a year prior that lingered in production hell. Filmed in September-October 1957,Verboten! was the final film shot for RKO Pictures before Desi Arnaz bought them out. The conversion of the once-venerable giant of cinema’s Golden Age into Desilu Studios, the pioneers of TV production, symbolized the sweeping shift taking place in Hollywood. But with RKO shuttered,Verboten! was left shelved indefinitely.

On December 12, news came out that Tom Pittman was a doper. Sally Kellerman states in her book that “police found marijuana in his car” as a somewhat foregone conclusion. But’s it worth noting that the sole source for this allegation in every newspaper article I came across was Robert Bice, now identifying as Tom’s “ex-agent.” In the press, Bice claimed to have observed a can of reefer on the dash as the “special Porsche” was being towed out of the ravine. Beyond this, Bice would only go so far as to say “I knew from friends - and by the way he acted - that he used marijuana.” Testifying under oath at the coroner’s inquest, Bice admitted he’d never seen Tom smoke marijuana and identified his primary source as…Sally Kellerman. Meanwhile, Mrs. Frank Alten, Pat Hanna, testified that Bice had suggested to her that Tom may have been murdered. Ultimately, the coroner’s jury ruled the death to be accidental.

By late 1958, Sam Fuller’s frustration had reached its breaking point. He’d been trying to get Verboten! off the ground since 1950 and, after seven years of false starts and broken promises, he finally had it in the can. Then RKO went under and now it sat in limbo. And to be sure, Jerry’s depiction of Bruno Eckhart, the leader of a pack of underground Third Reich holdouts in post-World War II Germany, is the standout performance of the film. Fuller leveraged the publicity of his death to negotiate a distribution deal. The opening credits even incorrectly list him as “Introducing Tom Pittman.” (Actually, Verboten! would have been his seventh credited feature film role to date.) And while he may have shown enough restraint not to draw parallels in the marketing for Verboten!, Fuller was clearly the driving force behind the article “The Boy Who Followed James Dean to His Death,” published just ahead of the movie’s release in March 1959.

But even with a tie-in single from Canadian heartthrob Paul Anka, Verboten! came and went. However, Tom Pittman still had one last chance at becoming a household name. His final movie would also be his first and only starring vehicle. Filmed in June 1958, Blood Money was a low-budget noir heist caper with a patina of juvenile delinquency. Jerry attempts to force a square peg into a round hole as he short-sightedly tries to Deanify his portrayal of desperately horny school nerd Marv Grant. But producer Roger Corman was satisfied enough with what he had and leaned further into the JD aspect by retitling Blood Money as High School Big Shot when he released it on a double-bill with T-Bird Gang in September 1959.

As with Verboten!, High School Big Shot cycled through the B-movie distribution network to little fanfare, marking the end of the Tom Pittman story. But then there was the car…

Most articles about the 1954 Glöckler-Porsche 356 Carerra 1500 Coupe gloss over its time in the States altogether. Some make mention of it turning up at Rudi Klein’s “famous sports and luxury car salvage yard near Los Angeles.” A German buyer exported it back overseas in 1993 and begun restoration. It was sold to another collector who was able to restore it to its original specs, and in August 2021, the car was put up for auction in Monterrey. Sotheby’s catalog listing follows their “Tom Shipman” misnomer with a feigned amnesia over its Hollywood days. They estimated it would fetch between $750K and $1M, but the reserve price was not met and the car remained unsold.

A July/August 2011 profile in Classic Porsches magazine goes a little further into the car’s Hollywood time: “There, it was purchased by a long-since forgotten young Hollywood actor, but fate was to deal a cruel hand.” The article frames the accident as if Jerry were a passive participant: “The unique car, with its driver on board, plunged into a canyon after a driver error.” It adds some details about the car’s time in salvage: “The wreck finally ended up in the hands of Rudy Klein, a German butcher who emigrated to the States and for decades collected junk cars in Hollywood, which he partly restored and hired out to film companies.”

While its uncertain if the “special Porsche” was ever used in any film or TV productions, what is known is that Frank Alten exhibited it for a time in the mid-60s, billing it as “Frank Alten’s $35,000 Glocker [sic] Porsche.” [Fresno Bee 1-26-66]

At the end of it all, I’m left wondering…did Tom Pittman die trying to become James Dean? Or was Jerry Lee Alten trying to send a message to his father?