The Fatal Crash and Aftermath

This is exactly right Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bone Show between the radio show and the podcasts. constantly being on my phone When I say the internet matters at my house, it really matters at my house. It runs it That's why having fast reliable internet You can keep up what really matters and why you need Optimum's famously fast fiber Innet This is elite stuff. Optimum fiber blows flaky five G out of the water and keeps it cool with the fastest and most reliable speeds Don't slow down when things heat up. stuff is amazing So don't wait eight eight eight for optimum. Visit optimum. com or stop by your local optimum store today. famamously fast fiber thirty dollars a month for five years. you cannot beat it. Terms apply. See optimum dot com for details. When it comes to looking your best, beachbum tanning does it better. Beeachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way, Rcharge your body, refresh your skin, Ret your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you Summer is a gift The gift of days that last a little longer. Brighter state of mind So giveift yourself a new Kia at the Kia Summer Sticker sales event, Epecially tacked vehicles including the Sorrento, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nurohybrid all backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited powertrain warranty. So the gift of summer can keep on giving for summers to come. Kia, Movement that inspires. Call eight hundred thirty three four Ka Freeetails hostosa free event and seven six twenty six to dealer for warranty details Hey guys, it's Seth Lundy, Good Doctor here at Double Elvis and co host of the Hollywood Land podcast. Welcome once again as we wind the reels back for another story from our archive, this one on James Dean. The word iconic gets tossed around way too often and I for one am guilty of this sin from time to time, but James Dean was and remains a true icon of Hollywood because everything about him seems predestined for immortality. He came around just as the culture was shifting a prelude to the beetles and the stones, and in the blink of an eye set the template for the rebellious rock ' and roll idol And he was gone just as fast Dead at the age of twenty four before two of the three movies he ever made had a chance to be released The immortality thing happened fast and was capitalized on by the movie studios which leaned into a rumor that he was, in fact, still alive in order to create posthumous buuzz You'll hear all about that gruesome publicity stunt in our episode on James Dean. as well as the magicians who got audiences to believe they could resurrect Dean's corpse and the haunted afterlife of the car that he died in. I hope you dig it And I hope you will join me again here on Wednesday in the rap party where I'll respond to your calls and your texts. And then again on Friday in the screening room When I'll do a deep dive into the nineteen fifty five film. Rebel without a cause Hollywoodland is a production of Double Elvis It. honey this one. and a sneaky old ceiling. Give me the partet h The story is about James Dean are insane He died in a high speed car crash at just twenty four years old His death was foretold by a fellow movie star. one week before it happened Rumors he survived the deadly crash were spurred on and in some cases planted by a film studio with a financial stake in keeping his memory alive The car that killed him had a grrizzly afterlife of its own taking two more lives before mysteriously disappearing forever. unlike James Dean, whose legend lives on becausecause James Dean made great movies. Although he only made three in his lifetime. He remains one of the greatest American actors in the history of film Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show That wasn't from a great film That was a fair use sample from the Library of Congress of Bessie Smith performing Haunted House Blues in nineteen twenty four. I played you that clip because I can't afford the rights to a clip from Walt Disney's Lady in the Tramp. Why would I play you that particular slice of spaghetti sharing Parmesan cheese? Could I afford it becausecause that. was the number one movie in America. On september thirtieth, nineteen fifty five. And that was the day that James Dean died in a brutal crash on a California highway. On this episode, a death foretold, a gruesome publicity stunt, a haunted race car, and James Dean I'm Jake Brennan. This is Hollywood Land. There wasn't shit to do once the sun went down in Fayette, North Carolina The army grunts bused in from Fort Bragg were looking to fuck or fight. and this town had limited options for either But they did find a lurred poster, plastered to a light post on what passed for the town's main drag A Karacouomb's International Mystery Show, it read, Ghosts will talk and sit with you. Vampires and zombies will attack you. Karacoub was the stage name of a Polish immigrant who'd been working the scareshow circuit in the US since the forties. He had a thick mustache and wore a white tux and turban Key tout to the International Mystery Show is the show that had baffled millions in Paris, London, Shanghai The truth was, Karac Comb struggled to stand out among other professional illusionists But he had something the others didn't have He could resurrect James Dee It was nineteen fifty seven Coombs actct was one of the bloodier ones out there called up volunteers from the audience and appeared to cut off their heads with a meat cleaver Th thenen he tossed the severed heads into the crowd. But it was the James Dean trick that put butts in seats teenagers, especially. Teniny popper girls desperate to see Jimmy Deeene one more time B boys in red jackets and perfectly styled hair, trying their best to look like Dean's ghost. The trick was simple Shara Coon brought out a life sized high contrast negative of James Dean and invited the audience to focus their energy on it did that They could summon Dean back from the grave effectively This meant the kids were staring at an image, which left an impression on their redness Cacumb let this go on for a minute, and then he suddenly shut off all the lights in the theater on stage. The ghostly image of James Dean replaced the picture the audience was just looking at teenagers web They fainted Overwhelmed by this mystical visitation of a man from the Great beyond Not all from the back of theater. A group of angry teens started to heckle the show. This is bullshit. One of them shouted. Everyone knows James Dean never fucking died, died When James Dean was killed in a car crash in nineteen fifty five at the age of twenty four, American teenagers went into hysterical mourning It didn't matter that they'd only seen him in one movie the press buildup for Reel Without a Cause, a follow up to his debut in East of Eden, successfully established Dean as one of the first teen idols alongside Elvis Presley, who hit the top of the charts that same year and had his own movie in the works A network of fan clubs calling themselves the James D. Memorial ring sprung up around the country population of Dean's hometown of Fairmont, Illinois doubled when teenage mourners flooded in to watch Dean's ruined body get planted in the ground This collective grief was enough to blow up the box office when Rebel Without a Cause hit screens just one month after Dean's death Devoted fans and the morbidly curious alike pack movie houses to see Dean rehearse his own car crash fatality in the movie's legendary chicky run scene Rebel rode Dean's ghost a huge financial success But Dean had completed shooting on another film before he died A Western epic giant It would be a year before that movie hit screens Conventional wisdom in Hollywood said nobody paid to watch a dead actor. There was something too morbid about watching a corpse walk around on screen in a room thick with cigar smoke The smell of whiskey. Warner Brosers executives decided to write off the big budget epic as a loss No point throwing good money after bad And then one of the execs noticed a note someone in the Warner Publicity department had passed them What if James Team? It was too blatant to stunt major company like Warner Brothers to even consider If they released a statement, claiming that James Dean secretly survived the crash It would be seen as a ghoulish and transparent cash gash. So Warners has issued a press release that said the opposite The studio vehemently denies any rumor that James Dean is alive. evenven though there were no such rumors They created the very rumors they were denying The first step was to engage the cult of mourning around James D Warner has hired a PR agent on the slide He contacted the presidents of the many chapters of the James T. Memorial Ring. He flew them into Hollywood, all expenses paid, of course, and he toured them around a Warner's lot sacred ground where their idol once walked told them they had to continue their vital work keeping the memory of James Dean alive And they returned to their hometown starry eyed and full of purpose They held monthly memorial services. They wore black armbands with Dean's face on them. They bought overpriced replicas of the Rd jacket from Rebel Without a Cause in such ridiculous numbers that every soda counter in the US looked like a casting call for a James Dean biop pic And they wrote letters. begging the studio to send them any piece of James Dean that might still exist They were true believers And they wanted relics of their patron scene Thousands of letters addressed to James Dean poured into Warner's offices every month A fact the studio's publicity department dutifully reported to the press Alive, Dean was on his way to becoming a teen idol Dead. He was an object of cult worship session But nothing got to the core of the original pitch behind the viral PR campaign. The Fan Club meemorial serervices, the for profit ocult shysters like Caracb. Even grieving co stars like Sal Mino, alone in his apartment trying to summon Dan's ghost with a ouija board These things were all built on the very correct presumption that James Dean was dead And the trick was to make James Dean The first story to make such a claim popped up on the other side of the country A New York newspaper reported that Hollywood was buzzing with the rumor that Dean had actually survived the crash He was so disfigured that the studio was hiding him in an institution somewhere And there was no such buzz. The story was planed by Warner's hired PR hack More New York papers ram copy the articles sent to his network at James Dean Fan Clubs Let letters poured into the Warner Bothers offices addressed the Dean as if he were alive, trapped in need of rescue I know you are not dead I will leave my husband and my children, get good doctors and heal you In another, two women detailed their plan to set up a home where the three of them could live in polyamorous bliss And in a third, a woman offered up skin from very sensitive parts of her body as grraasps for Dean's wounds Warners leak these letters to the press Rumors of a rumor expanded into a bizarre cult of bobby soxers who believed without any evidence, that James Dean had never died, and that they might be the ones to find him and save him. It was enough to keep James Dean's image in front of a million eyes for the year between his death and the release of Giant And the movie was the top box office earer that year. scoring James Dean hiss second posthumous Oscar nomination O onnce the film had earned its money back Warers led the campaign Rumors never entirely went away Just like Elvis, James D was still alive Jackie Curtis One of the superstars of Andy Warhol's factory scene claimed that Warhol was James Dan and that Warhalls so called acne scars Dean' burn injuries from the crash But Jackie herself wound up the Warhall scenster mostly After Lou Reed wrote about her and walk on the wild side, just speeding the way. thinking she was James Dean for her day You could hardly blame people for thinking they'd seen James Dean. Set free from his body, his image haunted the rest of the twentieth century in the body of every greaser, rocker and punk No one would ever be more associated with that rock Lve fast, die young. leave a good looking corpse, than James D. Except there was nothing good looking. Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bone Sh between the radio show and the podcasts And just constantly being on my phone When I say the internet matters at my house, it really matters at my house. It runs it That's why having fast reliable internet. You can keep up what really matters and why you need Optimum's famously fast fiber internet This is elite stuff. Optimum fiber blows flaky five G out of the water and keeps it cool with the fastest and most reliable speeds Don't slow down when things heat up stuff is amazing So don't wait eight eight eight for optimum Visit optimum. com or stop by your local optimum store today famamously fast fiber thirty dollars a month for five years. you cannot beat it. Terms apply. See optimum dot com for details. When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum tanning does it better. Beachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. recharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning, It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn, host of EarsSay, The Audible and IHart Audiobook Club This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Lily Chu, the author of the Audible original romantic comedy Just Kiss Already. It's a story about a forensic anthropologist who secretly writes mystery novels, an actress who adapts his book into a film, and what happens when a meme and a mediatur collide with a slow burn romance It pererformed by Simul Lu and Philippa Su, and it is an absolute blast When you actually hear the performance, You realize that other people are taking your words and what you thought was kind of a straightforward sentence like the cat in the corner is black In my head, it's the cat in the corner is black, not the dog, not the derbil. But someone else might say it, the cat in the corner is black That's always fascinating to me and how they just bring in all these different nuances and really make it fun and interesting and distinctive. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and IHart Audiobook Club on the IHart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts inn has stood at the intersection of Hollywood and vine It was late starving But every restaurant turned him away Mabbe for his dinner date was Grace Kelly, the American actress, co star his first Hollywood film could have gotten a table. But his lady friend was wearing trousers And that was a blatant violation of the dress code at every respectable Hollywood establishment And it didn't matter that Guinness had a medal from the quQueen. or that he had a lifetime of success in the British film industry I didn't mean shit here In America She was a nobody. Very hungry, nobody He just go back to the hotel Maybe room service can scare up a hamurer Th then heard footsteps coming down vine. someone was running towards her footsteps get faster and louder Jis panicked. Here he was starving now, He was about to get mugged, boop He quickly turned around and saw a short skinny boy running to catch up. The boys skided to a stop and swept back his hair. was undeniably gorgeous, but Guinness didn't recognize him The boy spoke while trying to catch his breath I saw you get turned away at that Italian place up the street. My name's James Dean. Do you want to come eet with me Guinness recognized the name buzz around Deane's performance in East of Eden, and the publicity blitz leading up to Rebel Without a Cause was in full swing. The press painted the young actor as cool and aloof, sometimes even rude or stand offffish The kids standing in front of Guinness now was none of those things Honestly, it didn't matter if the kid was nice or not. Sin is just needed to eat James Dean up on his offer before they sat down. Dean had something he was dying to show off his new car Parked out front of the restaurant was a Porsche five hundred fifty spider. A lightwight lad to the ground speedster, is silver with bright red tartan seats and the number one thirty custom painted in black on the hood and little bastard and neat cursive on the trunk Beamed. course was his baby. He picked it up from the detailing guy that afternoon Alec Ginness wasn't much of a car guy, but he didn't want to be rude. How fast can he go in that? he asked. Dean said he could go one hundred and fifty. Guinness felt something like a cold hand on the back of his neck. He heard himself speaking, but it didn't sound like his voice. The words came from nowhere. Please don't get in that car, Guinness said. If you get in that car, by ten o'clock next Thursday, you'll be dead Alec Guinness and James Dean stood on the sidewalk in awkward silence. Dean began to laugh Guinnness's reputation as a comedic actor was well known. And Dan figured this was some weird gags, some kind of British humor. Guinness apologized. He didn't know why he'd said that, D didnn't know where those words had even come from. And they went into the restaurant and had a pleasant meal They made promises to see each other again. A week later, a Thursday, James Dan crashed the porsche. was dead James Dean's obsession with Speed went back to his childhood in Fairmount, Illinois A nothing town in the middle of nowhere Dean got his first motorcycle when he was fifteen, a little nineteen forty seven CZ one hundred and twenty five CC. It gaveit fifty on the flat open planes. Dean and some of the other boys met up on the weekends at the local cycle shop They shot the shit, fixed their bikes, and raced around the back lot If the weather was too shitty to race, Dean would dream up races, casting each of his biker friends in an imaginary competition. He grabbed the mic plugged into the shop's speaker system and gave the playby play in his head. And the other bikers sat listening as Dean narrated, holding their breath as they made a jump, wincing as their imaginary bikes crashed Dean never crashed. Some of the hack biographies that were rushed to press after he died claimed he knocked his two front teeth out in a motorcycle accident as a kid Dean had knocked out his team One of his favorite gags was to side of the bridge that held his two fake teeth out of his mouth in the middle of a meal to shock his dates But it wasn't a bike accident that cost them as choppers J to fall in the high school basketball cour Maybe if Dan had crashed his bike, even once He would have been a little more inclined to pump the brakes now and then James D It's all gas When it was time for him to try his luck in New York Dean upgraded to a rooyal infield with five hundred CCs. Whats kind of massive entine bike that the BRmi used? And while he was a student at the Legendary Actorors stududio Dean woke before Dawn. rode around the empty Manhattan streets, listening to the sound of his engine echo in the canyon of the city's buildings Fame and money brought better, faster bikes Indine bought a triumph TR five The same bike as hero Marlin Brando rode in the wild Dan rode it to a party at the Chateau Marmin He spotted Shelley Winters driving with Marilyn Monroe to the same party He circled their car on his bike He weaved in and out of traffic, and then he braked hard right in front of them Shelley Winters was not having it She laid on the horn. And Marilyn sat rigid in the passenger seat Dean pulled in ahead of them at the chateau Mar Ma' parking lot Grin like a little bastard. Shelly Winters wanted to deck him. Maryilyland wanted nothing to do She refused to talk to her at the party It was the only time the two icons ever spent in the same room and they spent it at opposite corners James Dean's invite to the Chateau Armont had come from Nicholas Ray, who was directing him in Rebel without a cause. That film iss a legendary Chicky run scen D and his rival race toward a cliff first one to bail out of their car gets branded a chicken based on a supposedly true account of a race gone bad for the shoe All precautions were taken to make sure no one actually got hurt He was shot on a plateau at the Warner's Ranch A car is speeding toward a shallow ravine rather than a cliff Dean was body doubled for the stunt jumps out of the movie c The last shot where Dean and the rest of the kids look over the edge of the bluff onto the flaming wreckage shot on the sound stage withith everyone staring at a black cloth devoured in apple. and then spattered ketchup on the core He threw it onto the black claoth as a focus point. distracted Ging speed fixation soon turned to race cars His first one was a little MG with enough muscle to get him in an amateur race He had no experience, no pick group Just some guys who knew him from the studio lot and jumped in to help him out team bounced off haybills at every hairpin turn, refusing to tap the brakes upgraded to a porsche speedster with the money he got when he landed the role in Reel Nicholas Ray didn't even mind when Jimmy disappeared from the set to compete fourour days before the end of shooting Dean was in a ten lap race in Santa Barbara He clawed his way up from eighteenth to fourth place. On the fifth lap, he saw an opening and gun the engine. It was too much. The car blew a piston, and Dean didn't finish, But he was lucky I wasn't hurt He never got hurt The studio heard about the race and they were spooked. They couldn't have James T. messing up that pretty face of his. They banned him from racing while he shot his next film, Giant. That was fine He registered himself in a race in Salinas that would take place immediately after shooting with set a rarap in September. And he bought a Porsche five fifty spider The last car he ever owned We'll be right back after this wor, W, W Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bone Show between the radio show and the podcasts And just constantly being on my phone When I say the internet matters at my house, it really matters at my house. It runs it That's why having fast reliable internet. You K keep up what really matters and why you need Optimum's famously fast fiber internet This is elite stuff. Optimum fiber blows flaky five G out of the water and keeps it cool with the fastest and most reliable speeds. Don't slow down when things heat up stuff is amazing So don't wait eight eight eight for optimum Visit optimum. com or stop by your local optimum store today famamously fast fiber For thirty dollars a month for five years, you cannot beat it. Terms apply. See optimum dot com for details. When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum Tanning does it better. Beachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. recharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning, It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of EarsSay Audible and IHart Audioobook Cub. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary. Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science. And what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. and it's like, okay, yo, yeo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, No, at this point it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. There's places in this book deeply emotionally affected me And I left it on the mic. That's great 'cause it served the story. People will say like, oh my Godd, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude me too. Listen to EarsSay, the Audible and I heart audiobook club onn the IHartt Radio apppp or wherever you get a podcast James Dean stood in front of the porsche dealership off Mahholland Drive and stared out at the openor There was still a little of his last role in his blood Linkering told he couldn't shake when he was making giants Dror George Stevens would ask Ian to stare into the distance justust like this. Take after take. s got to be a habit There was something comforting about it. The morning sun behind him Cast a shadow long across the pavement to be a good day. in the garage, Ralph Wtherick madeade final tweaks to Bean's new Porsche five fifty spider Tomorrow was the big day the race in Selinas Ralph was a former Nazi pilot But he was also Dean's friend and mechanic The twoo of them bonded with their heads stuck under a hood of fast cars Dean studied Rolph's movements his accent storing those details away Sooner or later, a studio would ask them to do a war film. All the big actors eventually did a war film Wouldn't it be something though, to flip it, do it different, and play it Gourerman G give me an Oscar if you could pull something like that off Ralph came around from the back, gave the thumbs up. The porsche was ready to go. Dean nodded He caught his reflection in the showroom window. Hair and makeup had shaved his hairline back for the last act of Giant to age his character. He looked at himself and smirked He wondered if that was what he'd really look like when he got old. Dean and Ralph hitched the trailer to Dean's Ford station wagon and drove off to the lot. It was Ralph who convinced Dean to buy the porsche Not that it took too much convincing. It was the newest, fastest model Only a few dozen were made The fact that there was one on the lotb indeed happened to stop by, well, it had to be fate, didn't it? They had lunch with Dean's father and Uncle Charlie at the farmer's market. Uncle Charlie taught Dean to ride his first motorcycle, and Dean wanted him to come see the race The older men both had better things to do than haul their tired bones out to Selenaas to watch cars bz by Dean and Ralph kept moving They stopped by the house of photographer Sandy Roth to pick up Roth and Bill Higman, Dean's dialogue coach from Giant Hub both set to come up to the race. Dean stared north toward an all day drive in perfect California weather way did he wanted to cooed up in a station value with three other guys? Besides, he hadn't really driven the car yet, except to show it off around Hollywood. He hadn't opened it up. Rolph always said, He never wanted to enter a car or to a race raw. Put a thousand miles on the engine to break it in, get it race ready. Rolph offered Rod shotgun in the porsche to Selena Dan could get used to the car, even though the car didn't have a passenger safety p They left LA at a quarter after one, the porsch in the lead and the station wagons struggling to keep up And they talked about the next day's racist Don't race to win, Rff said. Don't go too fast. He knew how you likeked to race. Pedal to the floor on the straightways. No thought to what was up ahead likeike the car' engine I Deed needed some mileage on him, a little breaking in Who didn't race to win, what the fuck is too fast supposed to mean Stean pulled off the road south of Bakersfield, so Rolf could check the engine. Ideally, you broke in a car under track conditions, smmooth pavement, no josts or bumps. The highway was no place for a car like this. Everything under the hood looked fine, and the pit stop gave the station wagon a chance to catch up. But we could barely keep you in sight at sixty, Sandy Roth said Spark On the other side of Bakersfield, Dean got pulled over by the California Highway Patrol doing sixty five and a forty five And the station wagon got pop too Their ticket was doubleled because they were hauling the empty trailer, but nobody sweated it They were riding with James Dean. Everything would be taken care of Somewhere, near Lost Hills at around five o'clock, Dean caught a glimpse of a beautiful car at a gas station and laid on the brakes. The owner of the Mercedes was headed to the same race as as Salinas and they took turns looking under each other's hoods. Re honest to God dig measuring contest. Dean, sweet talk, guy. grinned devilishly as he turned back to his crew She wass gonna bury that fucking relic Casso Robles was an hour west Dean and Ralf would meet the others there for dinner, and then power through the last hundred miles to Selenas Dean knew he could make it there well under an hour He bought a bag of apples and jumped into the driver's seat next to Rph, not bothering to buckle his belt He bit into an apple. the juice raan on his chin He turned the key and the engine roared to life. the little car vibrated with promise. Dean left the station wagon in the dust. He blazed through the desert into the setting sun, west on route four hundred and sixty six. And the engine humged a lullaby, who Ralph doest in the heat Dee Nudge her off awake. he didn't want to be alone. J down the road, a college student in a Ford sedan came to the intersection of four hundred sixty six and R forty one He looked as far as he could along the flat expanse of highway. You didn't see anyone coming You didn't see anything Not even the lowest slung race car, so low and so fast that it melldted into the pavement And the kid started into his left turn. Dean saw the forord but didn't care kid driving the sedan could worry about it Ke see Dean coming get the way One more Chicky run, just like in the movie There would always be stunt doubles to execute the role and fake bodies toss out of tumbling cars when it was over could stare at an Apple core in the abyss and pretend he saw flaming wreck And then they do it again