NONFICTION - Sept. 24, 1995

JAMES DEAN: The Biography by Val Holley (St. Martin’s Press: 324 pp., $23.95). Though not quite as young as the picture above, James Dean was several months shy of his 25th birthday when he died in a celebrated automobile accident on Sept. 30, 1955. Published to mark that event’s 40th anniversary is this latest in a string of biographies of a remarkable actor whose vibrancy on screen continues to prove elusive on the printed page. Author Holley has concentrated on Dean’s pre-Hollywood years, using extensive interviews with the man’s associates to examine his theatrical experience at UCLA as well as his stage and television work out of New York. Holley also deals frankly with Dean’s apparent bisexuality, especially the key role played by an advertising executive named Rogers Brackett who met Dean at Ted’s Auto Park at Sunset and Gower in 1951 and opened numerous non-automotive doors for the actor. Once Dean became a star, however, he spurned Brackett, behavior that is consistent with the moody selfishness that seemed to characterize much of his behavior. As Dean himself told an interviewer, “I don’t see how people stay in the same room with me. I know I wouldn’t tolerate myself.” Better to rent “East of Eden” than delve into his troubled and unappealing soul.