About the Author

Val Holley has written numerous articles on James Dean and H.L. Mencken. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

"The most definitive biography yet written...quite interesting without being sensational."
--Booklist
"Holley has produced a meticulously documented work that dissects Dean's personality as never before." "--Publishers Weekly"
"Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, this is a worthy addition to the growing body of literature surrounding an actor whose life achieved mythic proportions as a result of his untimely death." -"-Library Journal"
"The freshest, most revealing, and probably the most truthful account of [Dean] I have ever read." --Alexander Walker, author of "Vivien: The Life of Vivien Leigh "and "Fatal Charm: The Life of Rex Harrison"
"Jimmy, Brando and Clift knew how to play the field; how to project a unique mixture of 'delicate macho'--'Save me, but don't come too close'" --Frank Corsaro, artistic director, Actors Studio
"What's important about Jimmy is that in spite of his short life, he had really lived--and with his beauty, he acted in ways that other actors only dream about." --Terese Hayden, producer "Carmino Real"
"We felt Jimmy was explosive and not party of the community. We were aware he marched to a different drummer than nintey-nine percent of Fairmont. Some people in the town were glad to see him to go California." --Sue Hill, former Fairmont, Indiana, resident
"Val Holley allows James Dean to be as wily, controlling, beautiful, seductive, sexually ambivalent, and actory as he apparently was. It's like suddenly having the gift of a fourth, posthumous movie to slip on the shelf." --Brad Gooch, author of" City Pearl: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara"
"I was drawn in by its legwork and detail, suprising interview, sweet reasoning, and vivid characterization. This immortal of the screen stacks up as an American enigma" --Patrick McGilligan, author of "George Cukor: A Double Life"
"Val Holley's "James Dean" is obviously a labor of lve, and very thorough." -"-Washington Post Book World"

This September marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Dean in a racing accident, and with this anecdotal biography, his fans will have plenty of fresh fodder to chew. Born in 1931, Dean was nine when his mother died, and he was brought up by relatives in Indiana. After graduating from high school, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, which was advanced when he became sexually involved with an adman/director who introduced him to influential people in New York City. A bisexual, Dean used sex to promote his career by boating with a producer who cast him in the lead role in the Broadway-bound See the Jaguar. The book heavily concentrates on Dean's Manhattan years (groupies will have a field day visiting the myriad addresses where he lived) and gives a blow-by-blow description of almost every one of Dean's acting jobs, his years at the Actors Studio and his relationships with such actors as Arthur Kennedy, Martin Landau, Julie Harris and Betsy Palmer. Holley recounts Dean's manipulative friction with Raymond Massey in East of Eden; the confrontations with director George Stevens on the Giant set; and how studio head Jack Warner ended Dean's romance with actress Pier Angeli. Freelance writer Holley has produced a meticulously documented work that dissects Dean's personality as never before. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)