Still a GIANT

FAIRMOUNT, Ind. -- James Dean has been dead for 49 years, but his image, his legacy and his energy are all alive and well in the rural Indiana town where he spent much of his adolescent life.\nDean starred in only three films, "East of Eden," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant," but erupted into stardom and was permanently crystallized in Americana as the quintessential rebel following his automobile accident death on Sept. 30, 1955.\nHis face is plastered all over the town of Fairmount, Ind. Billboards advertise the town's claim to fame; road signs direct you to his childhood home and his Fairmount grave site, where fans leave flowers, unsmoked cigarettes, pennies, Oreos and lip-stick kisses on the headstone. "Where Cool Went to School" signs whip in the wind on lightposts down Main Street. \n"He's become a legend," said Darlene Campbell, a member of the Fairmount Historical Museum board of directors. "There are kids who weren't even thought of when Jimmy was living, and they love him. He had charisma, and he was a nice looking young man. His popularity is just growing."\nCampbell refers affectionately to Dean as "Jimmy" because she attended high school with him.\n"It was one small high school," Campbell laughed. "You just knew all the kids in a class."\nCampbell remembers Dean as "a cut-up, a practical joker," who hung around with classmates and friends on the high school basketball team, where he played guard. Dean's initial fame, however, registered little with Fairmount residents.\n"The town really never thought too much about (his celebrity) until after his death," Campbell said. "Then his scene just exploded."\nFairmount hosts a four-day annual "Museum Days" festival during the last full weekend of September to commemorate the late actor.\nWith a roaring car show, amusement park rides and vendors peddling deep-fried foods and various kabobs, the festival has all the trappings of a common county fair, but underneath it all, and perhaps more importantly to the faithful, Dean's legacy leaves an indelible fingerprint that quietly overshadows the festivities.\n"We get anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 people, and this is a town of 3,000," Campbell laughed. "People come from all over the country and the world."\nRobert Fish, a minister at a Unity Church in Fremont, Calif., and Pat Taylor, a professor of dramatic literature at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky., are old friends who bonded over James Dean when they were teenagers. They use the festival as an opportunity to catch up with each other. \n"(Dean) was incredibly brilliant as a performer. I was attracted from the beginning by his vulnerability. We weren't used to actors who opened themselves," Fish said, wearing a bright red jacket, white T-shirt and dark denim jeans, reminiscent of Dean's most popular role in 1955's "Rebel without a Cause."\nTaylor, wearing a tan-colored blouse patterned with Dean's face, said the actor was "one of a kind."\n"There have been a lot of actors who tried to emulate Dean's style, like Michael Parker and Martin Sheen," she said, "but nobody ever got there." \nDean changed acting with his use of vulnerability, openness and intensity.\n"'Rebel' was the first teen movie about clean-cut, middle-class kids who were struggling," Fish said. "All of a sudden, middle-class kids have problems, too, and someone on the screen understands how we feel."\nThis year's festival boasted a new opportunity: a new six-room, 7,200 square foot James Dean Memorial Gallery relocated in May to Gas City, Ind., located minutes outside of Fairmount. The shiny art deco building sports the largest private collection of Dean memorabilia in the country. \n"There is a room (in the gallery) dedicated to each of his three films," said David Loehr, curator of the gallery. "We have a dozen pieces of clothing, original wardrobe pieces, artwork of paintings and drawings Dean did, hundreds of books and magazines, novelty items and a piece of the car that he was in killed in, with a note that he left before."\nHundreds of photographs and newspapers line the display cases. An ironic "JD" flask Dean owned is on display, and a small library full of files, books, buttons and magazines is positioned next to a small movie theater with a continuously rolling documentary on Dean.\nLoehr, whose interest in Dean was sparked in 1974 after reading a loaned copy of a Dean biography, said Dean's identifiable status in his few films creates much of his allure.\n"(Dean) had just made three films, three good films with three good roles and three good directors, and they still hold up. He had incredible charisma and looks, and people can identify with him," Loehr said. "He was an Indiana farm boy, a New York Bohemian, a race car driver, a painter, a sculptor, a movie star -- a lot of different people can connect with him."\nPam Crawford, a school teacher from Little Rock, Ark., said she agreed. \n"There's a little bit of James Dean in all of us, and there was a little bit of us in him," she said.\nAs the president of the only official Dean fan club, with members in all 50 states and abroad, Crawford's organization publishes a quarterly magazine in remembrance of the actor and also to keep fellow fans abreast on current events. "He always loved normal people, even after going to Hollywood," Crawford said. "He had a love for race cars and appealed to the rebel in us. He was an artist, a sensitive soul, interested in everything and constantly reading and seeking." \nCrawford said it's fair to say with Dean's rapid rise and post-mortem fame following only three films, nothing in entertainment history parallels Dean's story.\n"James Dean has the greatest fans in the world -- and I've met a lot of Elvis and Beatles fans," Crawford said. "Dean's fans are down-to-earth people, extremely diverse." \nTaylor said she likes to fantasize about what Dean's career might have been had he not passed away so early.\n"He wanted to do 'Hamlet' and wanted to do more stage work," she said. "I like to think he would have grown up, continued to mature and contributed artistically."\nFish agreed and said a hypothetical career from Dean would have provided a lot to the world of acting, adding, "He couldn't have stayed a rebel forever."\n-- Contact senior writer Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu