“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today”.
YB books is devoting an album of iconic and previously unreleased pictures in honor of this hero who, if he hadn’t died in 1955 at the age of 24, would have turned 80 on February 8. An impressive 170 pictures tell the behind-the-scenes story of his short life. First a very well documented text that follows his ascent to stardom. The unusual nature of this tormented, revolted soul who burst in flight to become a mythical hero.
Then the pictures tell the story of his life. Childhood pictures, with his family, in school, on the basketball and baseball team, the Actor’s Studio and his first steps on stage. A very precious dive into the intimacy of the first three movies that turned James Dean into a great Hollywood actor. And his happy days of flirting with Elisabeth Taylor, Ursula Andress, and his friends, including his spiritual big brother, and hero, Marlon Brando. We essentially owe these pictures to two of his friends, Sanford Roth and Dennis Stock. They help us understand the incredible fascination this astonishingly modern personality provoked at the time, and continues to provoke.
First, Dennis Stock’s New York series: a young lonely man in the streets of the Big Apple in the 1950’s. This black and white New York teenagers around the world yearned for. James Dean walking through Times Square, his collar raised in the rain, taking dance or drumming classes, or lost in a crowd. Astonishing and rare pictures, again by Dennis Stock, back on the family farm in Fairmount: James Dean working the fields, with the animals.
Sanford Roth was responsible not only for the intimate pictures taken on the set of George Stevens’ film Giant, but also for the magnificent color photos including the cover shot: James Dean the ideal model. A marked taste for fashion defined the cool appearance he invented and that influenced generations of young fans throughout the world.
The book is very rich (Warner Brothers and Getty images) and closes with a picture by Sanford Roth: James Dean driving his Porsche 550 Spyder. The last picture of him alive. The next day, he killed himself. As if writing The End to the movie of his life. The myth had begun.
Paul Alessandrini
Y B books
192 pages, 170 photos (60 previously unreleased)
39 euros
