James Dean's grave

" Final Resting Place of James Dean"

James Byron Dean
8th February 1931 - 30th September 1955
Actor
Died in car crash while driving his racing Porsche at the age of 24. He had made but 3 films "East of Eden", "Rebel Without A Cause" and "Giant". He died near the end of Filming "Giant" with Rock Hudson & Elizabeth Taylor, the end of the film was completed without him. Has his films were released (after his death) he became a symbol for the mixed up teenagers of the day. James Dean in death as become a Hollywood icon & cult hero over the years, whether this is due to his talent or tragic death is open to debate.
Park Cemetery, Fairmont, Indiana.

Childhood and education
Born in Marion, Indiana to Winton and Mildred Wilson Dean, James Dean and his family moved to Santa Monica, California six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician. Dean was enrolled in Brentwood Public School until his mother died of cancer in 1940.
At age nine, Dean was sent by his father to live with his aunt Ortense and uncle Marcus Winslow on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was brought up with a Quaker influence. In high school Dean played on the school basketball team and studied forensics and drama. After graduating from Fairmount High School in 1949, Dean moved back to California to live with his father and stepmother.
He enrolled in Santa Monica College, pledged to the Sigma Nu fraternity and majored in pre-law. Dean transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles and changed his major to drama, resulting in estrangement from his father.

Acting career
Dean began his acting career with a Pepsi-Cola commercial followed by a stint as a stunt tester in the Beat the Clock game show. He quit college to focus on his budding career, but struggled to get jobs in Hollywood and paid his bills only by working as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios. Following friends' advice, Dean moved to New York City to pursue live stage acting, where he was accepted to study under Lee Strasberg in the storied Actors Studio. His career picked up, and he did several episodes on early-1950s TV shows such as Kraft Television Theater, Studio One, Lux Video Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, Danger and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series, Omnibus (Glory in the Flower) saw Dean portraying the same type of disaffected youth he would later immortalize in Rebel Without a Cause (this summer 1953 program was also notable for featuring the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll). Positive reviews for his role in André Gide's The Immoralist led to calls from Hollywood and paved the way to film stardom.

East of Eden
Director Elia Kazan was looking for a new actor to play the role of Cal in East of Eden; Dean and another relatively unknown actor, Paul Newman, were the final two chosen. Following a screen test in New York City the part was given to Dean. On March 8, 1954, Dean left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting East of Eden. Dean played the son of a constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey). The relationship between Cal and his father paralleled that between Dean and his own father, and so Dean took the role personally. He became known on the set for his improvisational contributions to the script; his creativity proved to be very important as some of the most famous scenes were his addition to the script. Dean would apparently drive past cinemas during the release of the film and stare in amazement as people lined up to see him. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.)

Rebel Without a Cause
He followed this up in rapid succession with the starring role in Rebel Without a Cause , a film that would prove to be hugely popular amongst teenagers. The film is widely cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst of the early 1950s. The film co-starred Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. Director Nicholas Ray often encouraged Dean’s creative input. During filming, Dean purchased one of only 90 Porsche 550 Spyders, and introduced himself to competitive auto racing, where he had early success.

Giant
Giant which was posthumously released in 1956, saw Dean play a supporting role to both Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. His role was notable in that, in order to portray an older version of his character in one scene, Dean dyed his hair grey and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline. Giant would be Dean’s last film. Towards the end of the film, an artfully aged Dean is at a banquet set to make a speech. This would be his last ever on-screen appearance. That scene has been dubbed “The Last Supper”. Dean was nominated for an Academy Award after the release of the film.

Racing Career and "Little Bastard"
When Dean got the part in East of Eden he bought himself a red race-prepared MG TD and shortly afterwards a white Ford Woodie station wagon. Dean would upgrade his MG to a Porsche 356 Speedster which he would race. Dean came second in the Palm Springs Road Races in March 1955, after a driver was disqualified, he came third in May 1955 at Bakersfield and was running fourth at the Santa Monica Road Races later that month until he retired with an engine failure. Dean traded the car in for a Porsche 550 Spyder.
Dean was contractually barred from racing during the filming of Giant but with that out of the way he was free to compete again. The Porsche was in fact a stopgap racer for Dean as delivery of a superior Lotus Mk. X was delayed and he needed a car to compete at the races in Salinas, California.
The feature that is distinct about Dean's 550 was that it was customized by the young George Barris, who would go on to greater things, including the design of the Batmobile. Dean's Porsche was numbered 130 at the front, side and back. The car had a tartan on the seating and two red striping at the rear of its wheelwell. The car was given the nickname "Little Bastard" by Bill Hickman, his language coach on Giant. Dean was keen to show off his new sportscar to friends but his acting friends had bad feelings about the car. Barris would later have bad premonitions about the car.

Death
James Dean Memorial in Cholame. Dean died about 900 yards east of this tree.
Dean and his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich set off from Competition Motors where they had prepared his Porsche 550 Spyder that morning for a sports car race at Palm Springs. Dean originally intended to tow the Porsche to the meeting point at Salinas behind his Ford, crewed by Hickman and photographer Stanford Roth, who was planning a photo story of Dean at the races. At the last minute Dean decided he needed more time to familiarize himself with the car. Later in the afternoon, Dean was pulled over for speeding. Already having left the Ford far behind, they stopped for fuel and to meet up with fellow racer Lance Reventlow.
Dean was driving west on U.S. Highway 466 (later California State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a 1950 Ford Tudor driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed attempted to take the fork onto California State Route 41 and crossed into Dean's lane without seeing him. The two cars hit almost head on. According to a story in the October 1, 2005 edition of the Los Angeles Times, California Highway Patrol officer Ron Nelson and his partner had been finishing a coffee break in Paso Robles when they were called to the scene of the accident, where they saw a heavily-breathing Dean being placed into an ambulance. Wuetherich had been thrown from the car but survived with a broken jaw and other injuries. Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:59PM at the age of 24. His last known words, uttered right before impact, are said to have been: "That guy's got to stop... He'll see us.", though are also, and probably more famously, known to be "My fun days are over."
Contrary to reports of Dean's speeding, which persisted decades after his death, Nelson said "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed was more like 55 mph (88 km/h)." Turnupseed received a gashed forehead and bruised nose and was not cited by police for the accident. He died of lung cancer in 1995. Rolf Wuetherich would die in a road accident in Germany in 1981. While completing Giant, and to promote Rebel Without a Cause, Dean had recently filmed a short interview with actor Gig Young for an episode of "Warner Bros. Presents" wherein he ad-libbed the popular phrase "The life you save may be your own" instead into "The life you save may be mine." Dean's sudden death prompted the studio to re-film the section, and the piece was never aired - though in the past several sources have referred to the footage, mistakenly identifying it as a public service announcement. (The segment can, however, be viewed on both the 2001 VHS and 2005 DVD editions of Rebel Without a Cause.)

The curse of "Little Bastard"
Since Dean's death, his Porsche 550 Spyder has been infamous as being the vehicle that killed not only him, but for injuring and killing several others in the years following his death.
Over the years, many groups of people believed that the actor's vehicle and all of its parts were cursed. Legendary Hot Rodder George Barris bought the wreck for $2,500, only to have it slip off its trailer and break a mechanic's leg. Soon afterwards, Barris sold the engine and drive-train to physicians Troy McHenry and William Eschrid respectively. While racing against each other, the former would be killed instantly when his vehicle spun out of control and crashed into a tree, while the latter would be seriously injured when his vehicle rolled over while going into a curve.
Barris later sold two tires, which malfunctioned as well. The tires, which were unharmed in Dean's accident, blew up simultaneously causing the buyer's automobile to go off the road.
Two young would-be thieves were injured while attempting to steal parts from the car. One tried to steal the steering wheel from the Porsche; his arm ripped open on a piece of jagged metal. Later, another man was injured while trying to steal the bloodstained front seat. This would be the final straw for Barris, who decided to store "Little Bastard" away, but was quickly persuaded by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to loan the wrecked car in a highway safety exhibit.
The first exhibit from the CHP featuring the car ended unsuccessfully, as the garage storing the Spyder went up in flames, destroying everything except the car itself, which suffered almost no damage whatsoever from the fire. The second display, at a Sacramento High School, ended when the car fell, breaking a student's hip. "Little Bastard" also found itself causing trouble while being transported several times. On its way to Salinas, the truck containing the vehicle lost control, causing the driver to fall out, only to be crushed by the Porsche after it fell off the back. On two separate occasions, once on a freeway and again in Oregon, the car came off other trucks, although no injuries were reported, another vehicle's windshield was shattered in Oregon.
Its last use in a CHP exhibit was in 1959. In 1960, when being returned to George Barris in Los Angeles, California, the car would mysteriously vanish. It has not been seen since.

Legacy
James Dean is one of only five people to have been nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for their first feature role and the only one nominated twice posthumously. He is buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana.
Of the films released in the 1950s Rebel Without a Cause (along with Blackboard Jungle), is most often cited as having symbolized the growing post-war rebellion of 1950s teenagers along with playing a part in the emergence of rock and roll as a lasting cultural phenomenon. Many young people of that and later generations modeled themselves after James Dean. His charm would forever influence the young generation of his time. His charismatic screen presence and very brief career combined with the publicity surrounding his death at a young age transformed Dean into a cult figure and pop icon of apparently timeless fascination.

Memorial
In 1977, a Dean memorial was built in Cholame, California. This stylized sculpture composed of concrete and stainless steel around a tree of heaven growing in front of the Cholame post office was made in Japan and transported to Cholame, accompanied by the project's benefactor, Seita Ohnishi. Ohnishi chose the site after examining the location of the accident, now little more than a few road signs and flashing yellow signals. In September 2005, the intersection of Highways 41 and 46 in Cholame (San Luis Obispo county) was dedicated as the James Dean Memorial Highway as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death. (Maps of the intersection 35°44′5″N, 120°17′4″W)
The dates and hours of Dean's birth and death are etched into the sculpture along with one of his favorite lines from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince - "What is essential is invisible to the eye."

Bio from www.wikipedia.org