Beauty in the apertures of pain

James Dean playing with his gift from Elizabeth Taylor, a kitten he named Marcus. Photos by Sanford Roth, 1955.

James Dean and Paul Newman’s incredibly iconic sexual tension filled screen test for East of Eden.

James Dean, 1954, photo by Roy Schatt

‘“He was a squinty schlump of a person all bent over. Then Dean suddenly got up and this ugly person became a dream, an Adonis who started to dance around the room. It was a transition I couldn’t believe.” Dean studied photography with Schatt and they became close friends. Roy Schatt was Dean’s friend and photography teacher during the final year and half of his life. During that time, his camera captured the many facets of Dean’s complex personality.’ - Vintage Movie Star Photos

james dean in his apartment on west 68th street, new york city, 1955.

Eartha Kitt and James Dean in dance class, New York City, 1954

James Dean: Actor and cultural icon James Dean starred in East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. He was killed in a tragic car accident at age 24.1931-1955

‘’An actor must interpret life and, in order to do so, must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet. In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible. He must be superhuman in his efforts to store away in the core of his subconscious everything that he might be called upon to use in the expression of his art.‘‘

James Dean

James Dean

James Dean photographed by Roy Schatt, 1954.

Eartha Kitt and James Dean in NYC, photographed by Dennis Stock in 1955

- Excerpt of Eartha Kitt’s autobiography I’m Still Here (1989)

Eartha Kitt & James Dean, early 1950s (via American Masters). Dean studied dance with Kitt and said he learned more about acting from her lessons than he had in any acting class.

“[James Dean] said to me, ‘I want to move like you, can you teach me how to move my body like you do on stage?’ And I told him where to meet me, here in New York and that’s where we met for dance classes. And that’s where Jamie and I always met downstairs from that studio to have coffee, to have our little tete-a-tete conversations.”

“He was like my brother. He had something in him that he didn’t understand. He wanted to learn from me how to move on the stage the way I do, so I taught him how to control his body and how to let the words physically carry you from this point to that point. I was in a play and he’d just done his first film so we were both becoming known at that time. It was a good time.”

-Eartha Kitt

(via tick-tick-timebomb, tryphena & oldhollywood)

A bit speechless at this. Wow. Who knew?

Got to say that my respect for James Dean just went up. My respect for Ms Kitt couldn’t possibly go any higher. Oh wait! I think it just…

James Dean photographed by Dennis Stock, 1955.

When Jimmy was set to do something, nobody could stop him. He was tough-minded when he felt he had to be. And when he laughed, the whole world laughed, and when he cried, it rained. He was always able to get people into his moods. It was a wonderful gift. - Ortense Winslow

Happy 83d Birthday James Byron Dean! (2-8-31)

Les Beehive – Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean filming Giant in 1955

Jimmy’s return to Fairmount was more than a mere visit. With the completion of East of Eden Jimmy had experienced Hollywood and the intimidations of stardom. At this point he was straddling two worlds - the world of his origins in Fairmount and the early stages of stardom - and he knew instinctively that the two were in conflict. And so he went back to Fairmount, to examine his origins and to preserve what was relevant. - Dennis Stock