| rdfs:comment | - James Byron Dean (born. February 8, 1931) is an American film actor, director, screenwriter, and musician. Dean's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his star were as loner Cal Trask in East of Eden, and as the surly farmer Jett Rink in Giant. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only these three films, his entire output in a starring role, after he retired from the acting business in 1957. He later went on to direct over 16 films before his retirement from the film industry altogether in 1986.
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| abstract | - James Byron Dean (born. February 8, 1931) is an American film actor, director, screenwriter, and musician. Dean's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his star were as loner Cal Trask in East of Eden, and as the surly farmer Jett Rink in Giant. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only these three films, his entire output in a starring role, after he retired from the acting business in 1957. He later went on to direct over 16 films before his retirement from the film industry altogether in 1986. His first film he directed was The Actor, made in 1958, starring Sal Mineo, Sterling Hayden, Marlene Dietrich, Deborah Kerr, and a cameo appearance of Frank Sinatra. The film was a major success, and he went on the direct his second feature, Bad Luck (1968), in which he worked with Stanley Kubrick, introduced by Sterling Hayden. He again worked with Kubrick in 1972, in The Clockwork Orange of Alex DeLarge, in which Dean co-wrote the screenplay and played the main doctor, Dr. Graham, of the Ludovico sequence. He would work frequently with long time friend and screenwriter William Bast, who also got Dean into the business of writing screenplays for his own films himself. In 1978, James Dean broke his arm and fractured his leg in a motorcycle accident near his hometown of Fairmont, IN, the accident lead to over three years of therapy. In this time, Dean became a recluse from the public, only coming out of his ranch to work on his films. The last film he worked on, The Big Kiss, released in 1985, meet with poor box office and mixed reviews. He effectively retired the following year. Since his comeback into music in 1992, by playing the guitar in a country-folk new-wave band named, The Rebels, he has been seen attending public speeches and film award ceremonies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Dean the 12th best male movie star on their AFI's 100 Years…100 Stars list.
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