Classic Hollywood: James Dean, 60 years on

Sept. 25, 2015 12:05 AM PT

his is Susan King, the guardian of the Golden Age of Hollywood galaxy at the Los Angeles Times. And every Friday in the Classic Hollywood newsletter I write about all things vintage, including TV and movie milestones, notable births and deaths, classic events happening around town and memories of legends I have interviewed over the years.

Every year, I have a heavy heart on Sept. 30, the day James Dean tragically died in a car crash at age 24. And this year marks the 60th anniversary of his death. I was first introduced to Dean when I was 8 and my mother took me to see 1956’s “Giant,” when it was reissued in the theaters. I had never seen any actor like Dean before. After I expressed my, well, crush on the actor, my mother informed me he had died several years before.

Actor James Dean in 1955. (Associated Press)

Over the years, I have seen “East of Eden” and “Rebel Without a Cause” (both 1955) at least 20 times each, as well as a lot of Dean's TV work. In 2000 I also got the opportunity to talk to his good friend Dennis Hopper about Dean.

“He was really into his work and acting,” said Hopper, who made his film debut in “Rebel” and also appeared in “Giant.” And though they became friends on "Giant,” Hopper noted that Dean was standoffish on the set of “Rebel.”

“I was 18 and he was five years older. That is really a big difference. His whole life was acting. Some days he could come in and you would say ‘hello’ to him and he’d walk right by you. He was totally concentrated on what he was doing. Other days he was gracious and open.”

Corey Allen accidentally cut Dean during the infamous knife fight sequence shot at the Griffith Observatory. When director Nicholas Ray saw what happened, he yelled “Cut.”

“Jimmy came out of his shoes, man,” Hopper recalled. “He said, ‘Don’t ever say "cut" when something real happens in a scene. Don’t ever do that.’ He really flipped out. He said, ‘It’s one thing for me to be cut, but it’s another thing for you to say "cut." ' So needless to say, Nick Ray never said ‘cut’ again until he knew Jimmy was through.”

TCM is celebrating Dean tonight with screenings of “East” and “Rebel,” as well as several of the early live TV shows he did before he became a movie star, including the terrific 1953 “Kraft Theatre” presentation of “A Long Time Till Dawn,” the 1954 “Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse” drama “Run Like a Thief” and 1954’s “General Electric Theater: I’m a Fool,” which also stars his “Rebel” leading lady, Natalie Wood.

Movie milestone

Tuesday marks the 61st anniversary of the star-studded premiere at the Pantages Theatre of George Cukor’s beloved musical version of “A Star Is Born,” starring Judy Garland in her powerhouse comeback performance and an equally impressive James Mason. The film earned six Oscar nominations including lead actor and actress for Mason and Garland.

Judy Garland stars in the movie "A Star Is Born." (TCM)

Shortly after the film was released, the film was cut by 27 minutes and for years it was only available in the truncated form. Then in 1983, Ron Haver, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Film Department, unveiled his restored version in New York. (Haver had found 20 minutes of missing footage in 200 film cans.) Shortly thereafter, "Star" played for two nights at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

I attended the second sold-out evening. Haver told the crowd not to leave because he had a surprise after the movie was over. And what a surprise! Mason walked out and the audience went crazy. He seemed touched by the response. I don’t remember what he said that night, but I remember the emotion in his voice. It was truly a magical moment.

Updated Maltin guide

Film historian/writer Leonard Maltin’s latest edition of his “Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide,” hits the streets on Sept. 29 with 300 new entries of old movies he has never reviewed before. And on TCM Monday evening, Maltin and Ben Mankiewicz will be hosting an evening of those new entries. The fun kicks off with the 1929 silent Colleen Moore comedy “Why Be Good,” which features a Vitaphone musical soundtrack; the 1934 “B” flick “Among the Missing,” with Richard Cromwell and Henrietta Crosman; 1953’s “Stolen Identity” with Franz Lederer; the 1931 drama “Five and Ten” starring Marion Davies and Leslie Howard; the 1934 Joe E. Brown comedy “A Very Honorable Guy”; the 1930 spy flick “Three Faces East” with Constance Bennett and Erich von Stroheim; and the 1931 Marie Dressler/Polly Moran comedy “Reducing.”

Gotta dance

Sunday marks the 12th anniversary of the death at 78 of the brilliant musical-comedy star Donald O’Connor, who will always be remembered from his landmark acrobatic “Make ‘Em Laugh” routine in 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain.” He also played straight man to a talking mule in the popular “Francis” comedies and won an Emmy in the early ‘50s for hosting “The Colgate Comedy Hour.”

I interviewed the affable O’Connor three times including for the 1997 Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau comedy “Out to Sea” in which he played a dance host on a luxury liner.

Hal Linden, left, and Donald O'Connor in "Out to Sea." (Twentieth Century Fox)

“I was born in the business,” he told me. “I come from vaudeville and so I’ve always been in it. I learned two dance routines when I was 13 months old, but didn’t know any of the basic steps. So when I went into movies when I was 13, I was fumbling all over the place because I had nothing to fall back on. It took me forever to learn the dance routines.”

O’Connor became something of a teen idol in the 1940s in a series of musicals at Universal with Peggy Ryan including “Chip Off the Old Block.” In fact, he made 14 pictures in one year at the studio. “I was going into the service and the pictures were making so much money, they tried to get in as many as they could so they could release them once every three months while I was in the service. So when I was in the service, my career was going up all the time."

He quipped he had a fantastic relationship with Francis -- for a while. “We were very dear friends until he started getting more fan mail and that was the end of that! That broke up our relationship. Ego clashed with ego.”

Here is O'Connor's L.A. Times obituary as it appeared in the paper on Sept. 28, 2003.