(CAPTION — Tomorrow, September 30th, is the 56th anniversary of legendary actor James Dean’s death. He reportedly had his last meal here in Santa Clarita.
His was a star that burned bright but passed ever so quickly.
He made only three movies — all of them in the same year. He was nominated for two Academy Awards (“East of Eden” and “Giant”) and was one of only five actors to ever be nominated as Best Actor in their first performance.
And then he died.
Born James Byron Dean on Feb. 8th, 1931. Perhaps the signature of his bottomless angst was losing his mother at such an early age.
“I didn’t know what to do. How do you tell an eight-year-old boy his mother’s going to die? I tried. In my own stumbling way I tried to prepare Jim for it,” his father Winton Dean told a reporter from Modern Screen Magazines. “Nowadays, he lives in a world we don’t understand too well, the actor’s world. We don’t see too much of him. But he’s a good boy, my Jim. A good boy, and I’m very proud of him. Not easy to understand, no sir. He’s not easy to understand. But he’s all man, and he’ll make his mark. Mind you, my boy will make his mark.”
The odd, cruel timing of it.
The article appeared just a month before his boy was killed in a fiery car accident outside Paso Robles.
Dean would attend high school in his birthplace of Marion, Indiana. He would attend classes at the James Whitmore School where Whitmore urged him to go to New York to study.
Another odd Santa Clarita tie-in: Whitmore’s son, Steve, would later become a reporter and City Editor of The Signal newspaper during the 1990s.
Taking the famed actor’s advice, Dean would apply to the prestigious Actors’ Studio in New York.
From his own hand, a letter to his family written in 1952:
“I have made great strides in my craft. After months of auditioning, I am very proud to announce that I am a member of the Actors Studio. The greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock…Very few get into it, and it is absolutely free. It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong. If I can keep this up and nothing interferes with my progress, one of these days I might be able to contribute something to the world.”
A half-century later, Dean is still worshipped as a god. Every mall in the country hawks giant posters of his likeness. Without a doubt, one of his three films was the mantra for Dean and the young generation he represented as the alienated Jim Stark in “Rebel Without A Cause.”
Dean had moved back and forth from Los Angeles to New York, doing television and stage. He played the Howard Hughes-like character in “Giant” opposite two other tormented stars, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, but started the year with Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.”
The world seemed to be his.
“[Dean's] death caused a loss in the movie world that our industry could ill afford,” said actor Gary Cooper. “Had he lived long enough, I feel he would have made some incredible films. He had sensitivity and a capacity to express emotion.”
Though romanticized today, there was an even darker side to the troubled youth. Stories are still around today about a pornographic nature and excesses to the actor.
Life seemed to imitate film for the tragedian.
In March of 1955, he celebrated his wild success and rave reviews by buying a Porsche Spyder. Soon, he was racing on and off the street and on tracks across Southern California.
But Dean was not happy.
Dean reportedly told his close friend, actor Dennis Hopper, that he was going to quit his white-hot acting career. Dean confided that he couldn’t stand being “treated like a puppet” as an actor and said he wanted to direct.
He was en route to a race in Salinas before he died.
For years, the rumor circulated that he had been speeding when he hit a farmer’s truck that had rumbled onto the main highway in the flatlands of the San Joaquin Valley. Subsequent investigations noted he was only driving about 55 mph when his Porsche collided.
Interestingly, the engine from that car was sold to a Beverly Hills doctor. Dr. Troy McHenry would die in a car accident on Oct. 22, 1956. The car reportedly was piloted by Dean’s engine.
There are other stories about the Porsche. Supposedly, after the crash, it rolled onto a mechanic at customizer George Barris’ garage and broke the man’s leg.
There are urban legends involving the death of another doctor who bought the Porsche transmission, plus injuries of two other men who had reportedly used parts from Dean’s wreckage.
Today, the body of the car is still missing. An Indiana museum has offered a $1 million reward for the racer.
A half-century later, James Dean is still with us, strong as, well — Elvis.
Why?
Biographer Joe Hyams summed it up best in “Little Boy Lost.”
“There is no simple explanation for why he has come to mean so much to so many people today. Perhaps it is because, in his acting, he had the intuitive talent for expressing the hopes and fears that are a part of all young people… In some movie magic way, he managed to dramatize brilliantly the questions every young person in every generation must resolve.”
James Dean’s last meal was at Tip’s in what was called Saugus back then.
It was simply apple pie and milk.)
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN —
— From Seattle to San Diego, the Southern Hotel, built by Henry Mayo Newhall, was known as one of the top grand hotels on the West Coast. It burned to the ground on Oct. 1, 1888, 10 years after opening.
— He was wrongly credited for making the first gold strike in California in 1842 (monks and Indian miners were reportedly pulling gold out the Lost Padre Mine in the Castaic/Lake Hughes area as early as 1797). Still, Francisco Lopez’s discovery of gold sticking to a wild onion at the base of an oak tree is the stuff of legend and a state historical landmark at Placerita Canyon Nature Center. It was a good year for Don Francisco. Back on June 9, 1842, the governor of California gave Francisco Lopez the Rancho Temescal for his kind gift of making the first OFFICIAL and documented gold discovery but more so, for handing it over to the governor. On Oct. 2, 1843, he was granted the Rancho Los Alamos by the governor. How’s that for landed gentry welfare? Two huge estates, for being the governor’s pal?
SEPTEMBER 29, 1921 —
— A fire started on the Newhall Ranch and burned up 5,000 acres before a miracle rain came and doused the blaze. The brush fire raced all the way to the buildings on Harry Carey’s world-famous Horseshoe Ranch in San Francisquito. Using 50 volunteer firemen and his own squadron of Navajo cowpokes, and, along with the rain, the fire was squelched in the nick of time. Carey, by the way, was one of the most famous movie stars of his day and his resort was a dude ranch haven for the Who’s Who of the world. His house still stands today in the canyon.
— Before Barbara Myler’s jazz concerts at the Hyatt, we had O’Dette’s Players. They were a traveling minstrel group of 17. At Market and Spruce, they held a big tent vaudeville performance and outside, they showed a movie. Barb’s concerts are free, the O’Dettes charged a half buck for adults, and a quarter for kids.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1931 —
— The city of Los Angeles undertook a massive works program on this date. They lowered the aqueduct pipe in San Francisquito Canyon by a foot. We’re guessing it must have been a feet too high before.
— Local sheriff’s deputies broke up a railroad burglary ring operating out of Saugus. The crooks would order a variety of expensive gear and have it shipped C.O.D. to the train depot. Then, they’d break in and swipe it. The con men were caught in the act of breaking into the Saugus Station.
— A forked-horn buck deer was shot north of Castaic on this date. Fate finally caught up with it. A season or two earlier, another hunter had shot off its right front leg below the knee and the deer also had a bullet-perforated ear. Still, it managed to survive for a while longer.
— Eighty years ago, locals helped charity by providing 50 dozen quart jars of food for Goodwill in downtown L.A.
— The biggest unsolved crime of the year was several thousand dollars worth of fruit taken from Newhall Ranch. Local law had nary a clue.
SEPTEMBER 30, 1941 —
— Four young hoodlums, on foot from Santa Monica, stopped off at the Clampitt lease in Elsmere Canyon. They did some horrific damage, climbing up a 60-foot derrick and loosening bolts so the rig would blow over in the wind. They also rolled boulders down a hill to smash buildings and pipe, and opened a valve sending hundreds of gallons of oil into the chaparral. Interestingly, a Signal editorial pretty much predicted the end of civilization. “…They are more alarming as a symptom of the prevalent decrease in moral responsibility of the younger generation,” wrote editor/publisher Fred Trueblood. “The problem is a sociological one of the gravest nature. Its roots lie in the homes from which these violent and irresponsible young people come. The so-called modern enlightened theory of handling juvenile delinquency emphasizes the treatment of the delinquent as a sick or misguided individual rather than an ornery one. Probation is easy. Punishment is imposed only as a last resort after all other methods have failed.” Trueblood noted that his own youthful generation did steal a certain amount of watermelons and indulged in snowball fights with the missiles loaded with rocks or hardened with water.
— Lots of fires on this date. One idiot, passing through, tossed out a cigarette and started a 1,000 acre blaze. A train’s brakes started a brush fire near Ravenna and a quick-thinking engineer put it out by backing up the train, hitting a valve and dousing the new blaze with steam.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1951 —
— Youth, stupidity and dynamite — not a pleasant combination. On this date, some out-of-town youths discovered a box of TNT blasting caps. The group merrily rode around the valley, lighting the caps and throwing them out the window of their car. One of the boys held on for a bit too long and blew his hand off.
— The rustlers were either plumb mean or dumb or both. Ranch Ed Atkins of Castaic found his prize $1,000 stud bull dead and butchered on the back 40. The rustlers let several lesser-valued and more tender cattle alone.
— There is much talk of electronic surveillance and erosion of individual rights today. On this date, the local telephone company notified its customers that through an act of Congress, operators could legally eavesdrop on people’s conversations.
— This may seem odd in modern times, but many a rural Santa Claritan would augment a dinner from time to time with rabbit. Many a hunter curtailed his appetite for rabbit stew. Seems an outbreak of Tularemia — or, in layman’s terms: Rabbit Fever. One local farmer was stricken and developed some rather ugly ulcerated sores. Rabbit Fever is fatal in about five percent of cases.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1961 —
— About every decade or so, the community raises up to wag a fist at the younger generation. Many locals were incensed over a double bill playing at the old American Theatre. Conservatives did not like the use of the word, “hell” in the marquee announcing: “High School Hellcats.” Betcha the dogs didn’t like the use of the word, “cats,” either.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1971 —
— The Signal hit the streets early on this date, four decades back. Our one (1) delivery van flipped over. Driver Mark Wright was motoring back from Sun Valley (where The Signal used to be printed). He hit a hairpin turn and noticed he didn’t have any brakes. The van flipped, along with 9,000 Signals red hot off the presses. The swashbuckling little paper sent a note of apology to those readers whose newspapers smelt a bit of gasoline.
— For the second straight year, the SCV had the highest property taxes in Los Angeles County. We were at $15.4 per $100 of valuation.
— Chester Furgeson, the former Hart High District consultant, was found dead in a Fresno motel on this date. He committed suicide by taking barbiturates and leaving a hibachi full of smoldering charcoal. Furgeson was on trial for attempted murder. While working for Hart, he was also on the payroll of the Torrance School District, where he reportedly paid a hit man to 86 the superintendent there via rather grisly methods.
OCTOBER 2, 1972 —
— We were officially annointed as the Santa Clarita Valley on this date. The term, “Little Santa Clara River Valley” and “Santa Clarita” had been used decades earlier by historian A.B. Perkins and Signal editors Fred Trueblood and A.B Thatcher.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1981 —
— Ah, the penal system. Terry Zachery was let out of prison on this date, after serving 2.5 years of a 5-year-sentence. His crime? Murdering Gorman Sheriff’s deputy Art Pelino. Zachery had been arrested for disturbing the peace. He wrestled officer Pelino’s gun from him and killed him in cold blood. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and got off early for “good behavior.”
— This week, the American Cancer Society was busy with their health awareness program for local women. But 20 years ago, a scam artist posing as Dr. Tom, called local ladies, setting up appointments for him to visit their homes. Once their, the Unlicensed Female Body Inspector would have them disrobe and be subject to one of his thorough probes. Dr. Tom not only used his hands, but something Dr. T called a “Thermogram.” One woman noted the Thermomogram looked suspiciously like a 35 mm camera…
— — — — — — —
Well. Here we are, back where we started. In the here and now at The West Ranch Beacon. There’s naps to take, football games to watch and leaves to rake. I’ve got a few thousand horses to brush down, so you’ll have to pardon me, I’m off to Scared O’ Bears Ranch for a special horse moment. Looking forward to seeing all you saddlepals next week with another exciting Time Ranger adventure, and, until then, vayan con Dios, amigos!
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