James Dean

The leather jacket. The white T-shirt. The cigarette. \nEveryone knows James Dean, eternally young and the king of 1950s cool. A short career and a talent that was only starting to flare meant that with his 1955 death, Dean entered into the cultural lexicon as the standard for living fast and dying young. \nThis September will mark the 50th anniversary of his death, and the small Indiana town where he grew up is preparing to celebrate his short life. Fairmount, Ind., has a population of slightly more than 3,000, but is host every September to a festival that draws approximately 40,000 people. This year's four-day festival will start September 22. But because 2005 marks a notable anniversary, a second festival was conceived. James Dean Fest 2005 in nearby Marion, Ind., sponsored by Warner Brothers, took place this weekend, and saw the U.S. premiere of an original documentary. Both events draw thousands of people to central Indiana, but for the locals, it's simply another chance to remember the man they still call "Jimmy."\nDean was born in Marion, but moved to California with his parents at a young age. After his mother died, he returned to Indiana to live with his aunt and uncle on a farm just outside Fairmount. He lived with Marcus and Ortense Winslow and his young cousin Marcus Jr. from age 9 until he graduated high school. And when fans come to Fairmount, it's these years they want to explore. \nLori Lashure, a tour guide with the Fairmount Historical Museum, was on hand as festival-goers boarded buses to tour the city and the sites associated with Dean. Lashure volunteers at the museum a few days a week. From the bus, Lashure pointed out the large white farmhouse where Dean spent his adolescence. \n"The window where everybody is standing? That was Jimmy's," Lashure told the bus. Currently, Marcus Jr. and MaryLou Winslow, Dean's cousin, live in the house and farm the surrounding acres. Dean stayed in touch with Marcus Jr. from the time he left Fairmount until his death. \nSmall tributes are sprinkled all over Grant County. Back Creek Friends Church, which Dean attended as a child, holds memorial service every Sept. 30. Dean started acting at the church when he was 10 years old. A park on Main Street commemorates Dean, and the water tower shows his face alongside Jim Davis, the creator of "Garfield." The Fairmount Historical Museum, along with the James Dean Gallery in nearby Gas City, have two of the largest collections in the world of memorabilia and artifacts. The museum has his first motorcycle, yellow with a leather seat, letters and a locket given to him by then-girlfriend Pier Angeli and an original copy of a handwritten autobiography Dean wrote for a high school class. Part of the essay reads, "I don't mind telling you, Mr. DuBois, this is the hardest thing to write about, considering the information one knows about himself, that I've ever attempted." \nEdison Thomas graduated from Fairmount High School in 1950, just one year after James Dean. Thomas volunteered with the Fairmount Historical Museum during the weekend and was posted at the shrine that spontaneously generates at Dean's grave. The Dean that Thomas remembers, though, is askew from the popular image.\n"Jim in high school was not a rebel," Thomas said. "He wasn't a timid guy, but he wasn't the president of the class, he wasn't a jock. He was just a good fellow. He dated, he liked sports. But everybody knew that he was different. He was good at all the dramatic stuff."\nThomas, a farmer in Fairmount, isn't a historian or a Dean expert. He said he didn't see the last of Dean's films until more than 20 years after Dean died. But seeing the faithful flock to Fairmount has taught him that the boy he knew from Fairmount High School inspired and touched people all over the world. \n"The number one thing that I've had people ask me is why, 50 years after his death, people come to see where Jim is buried, where he was born and raised," Thomas said. "If you look at that stone, you'll see some lipstick, some coins, there's a pair of sunglasses and a comb laying there. That sunglasses and that comb weren't there this morning. Now, a pair of sunglasses and a comb don't mean really mean anything to anybody, but it meant something to whoever put it there. You come out here on Monday after (the festival) is all over, there are more cigarettes, more rocks, more coins, more tokens, people who have taken off their watch bands. You'll see incense, little rocks put in circles. It's like a little shrine, and it's all for James Dean. If you go to where Abraham Lincoln was buried, there's no lipstick. Nobody leaves cigarettes at his grave. There's something special here"