Video Age International June/July 2016

6 Book Review June/July 2016 V I D E O A G E A fter slogging through the entirety of James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes (Blood Moon Productions, Ltd., 2016, 744 pgs., $17.78) — the new 700-plus-page doorstop of a biography on the doomed star from authors Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince — I’ve come to the conclusion that the book is quite possibly a complete work of fiction. Sure, there are elements of truth to it — Dean was in fact born in 1931 in Marion, Indiana, he did die in a car crash in California in 1955, and he did appear in a few films in between. Otherwise there’s simply no way of knowing if even half of the stuff the duo allege actually happened. Instead of direct quotes from trusted sources, Porter and Prince opt for a method they call Phraseologies. “Since we…weren’t privy to long-ago conversations as they were unfolding,” they write, “we have relied on the memories of our sources for the conversational tone and phraseologies of what we’ve recorded within the pages of this book. This writing technique, as it applies to modern biography, has been defined as ‘conversational storytelling’ by the New York Times , which labeled it as an acceptable device for ‘engaging reading.’” OK, so it’s an “acceptable device,” but is it reliable? Not really. It seems that since Dean is long gone, they’re mostly reliant on the hearsay of folks who may just want their own 15 minutes of fame. The pair claims that before he was famous (and even after he gained some small degree of notoriety) that the young, opportunistic Dean slept with or sexually serviced nearly every person— man or woman — that he came into contact with in Hollywood in the hopes of meeting someone, anyone, who could get him a role in a movie and make him a star. They contend that he accepted money for many of these interactions, effectively making him a prostitute, not a stretch really since they also insist that he actually did work as a gay hustler, picking up nameless, faceless men for quickies all over Los Angeles. Among those A-, B- and C-listers he supposedly bedded are: Walt Disney, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Montgomery Clift, Spencer Tracy (who supposedly was fascinated by Dean’s foreskin; how Porter and Prince gleaned that tidbit I’ll never know), Steve McQueen, Jack Benny, Merv Griffin, Elizabeth “Dizzy” Sheridan (who’d go on to a kind of fame playing Jerry Seinfeld’s mom on Seinfeld ), former child star Roddy McDowall and many, many, more. It’s quite a who’s who of Hollywood. And it’s a little hard to believe that so many of these folks — especially the men in an era as closeted and prudish as this was — would have felt free to be so sexually vulnerable even with someone as sexy and brooding as the one, the only James Dean. Or maybe that’s just how it is in Hollywood. How it’s always been. In addition to these dalliances, the authors also insist that Dean had a tortured love affair with an actor he idolized, Marlon Brando. In a chapter actually entitled “James Dean vs. Marlon Brando: Rivals on Screen, Master & Slave After Midnight,” the authors write of a conversation that supposedly occurred between the two actors shortly after meeting, that was allegedly recounted to Bobby Lewis, a founder of the famed Actors Studio. “[Brando] stood looking into Jimmy’s eyes for a long minute, maybe two minutes, maybe a lot more. As he would later recall the moment to Lewis, Brando said he wasn’t certain of the time. Finally, he spoke to Jimmy. ‘I hope you understand what I’m about to do. I sometimes do this with men. I’m going to take you in my arms and give you a long, deep kiss. It may be the first time in your life you’ve ever been kissed, really kissed. My kiss will be just the beginning of a lot of other deep kisses that I’m going to give you in the months ahead.’ As he moved toward the young actor, Brando got so close he could smell Jimmy’s breath. ‘All your dreams and fantasies about me are about to come true!’” Could it have happened? Sure. Did it? Only Dean and Brando really know for sure. And they’re not telling. Again, it’s unfathomable that the authors could claim to know even half the stuff they reported. Were they in the bedroom with Dean and his plethora of conquests? Would Dean have actually shared so much about his sex life with friends so that they’d know the very intimate details of each encounter — down to each kiss he gave and received? Maybe. Maybe not. He was, of course, a young, bored guy with lots of free time on his hands. Some men whittle. Others play the guitar. Perhaps he passed the time by telling tales. There’s simply no way to know for sure. As evidenced by the description of Dean’s first meeting with Brando, the entertainment value of this book mostly comes from the fact that it reads like amateur-hour erotica. Of an encounter with “Frank,” a john he met on Santa Monica Boulevard, they write: “The man showed Jimmy the bedroom, where he removed a bill from his wallet. ‘Get undressed.’ He had become a commander. Seductively, Jimmy removed his T-shirt before taking off his boots. Then his jeans came down. He wore no underwear. He tossed his jeans onto the floor, and, fully naked, lay down on the bed, closing his eyes. Frank seemed to devour him as it became obvious that Jimmy was conjuring up images that had nothing to do with the man who serviced him.” There are lots and lots of passages like this in Tomorrow Never Comes , almost like the writers spent a little too much time in 50 Shades of Grey ’s red room of pain before sitting down to craft this opus. I could go on, but I trust that most readers will have gotten the point by now. The book actually does shine in those rare instances when it bothers to go beyond the salacious to get to the heart of the man, the myth, the legend that was Jimmy Dean. The authors’ description of his unhappy childhood in Indiana — his mother died of ovarian cancer when he was just nine years old and his father, with whom he never really connected, shipped him off to relatives to raise him— is particularly moving. Other fascinating tidbits include allegations that he was abused by his local pastor, the aptly named James DeWeerd, that he was cocky to the point of alienating others, that he once got so into a scene in an acting class that he almost choked a classmate to death in the heat of the moment, and that the nearsighted Dean — who needed thick glasses to see — loved to drive “at full throttle” at all times, even around a bend that many dubbed “Suicide Curve” in his hometown. These are the things that made Dean seem like a real, live human. One whose real, live human life was tragically cut short. So come for the scandalous sex stories. But stay for the real-life drama. Because even if there’s no way to verify many of these tales unless you’re skilled in the art of the Ouija board, James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes is a hard book to put down. ( By Leah Hochbaum Rosner ) James Dean: Live Fast, Die Young, Sleep With Everything That Moves in Between