James Dean: Little Boy Lost – An Intimate Biography

From early childhood, James Dean was eager to get to the next experience. His mother invented the “wishing game” for him – each night before going to sleep, Jimmy would write a single wish on a piece of paper which he then hid under his pillow. During the night his mother would carefully extract the paper without waking him, and would spend the next day making that wish come true. Then as a teenager he learned to love reckless speed, never learning fear because, according to a teenage friend, he never came off his bicycle, no matter what stunt he pulled. And he discovered sex, both with girls and with the Wesleyan Baptist pastor, a local war hero, who let Jimmy sink his fist into the deep crater in his flesh left by shellfire, and taught him that he was a deprived child. Jimmy in return confided that he knew that he was evil, which was why he was sent away by his father, and why noone would love him. His sense of isolation and rejection was already formed. Having left home, he developed a pose as a surrealist, became obsessed with bullfighting, to the extent of sleeping under a blood-stiffened matador’s cape that reeked of slaughter, and exploited his sexual charm, going to gay parties and sleeping with men who could advance his film career, whilst simultaneously having affairs with a succession of girls he picked up in cafes, acting classes and at the homes of friends. This is a biography of James Dean, written with the help of access to his own writings.