WI: James Dean lives longer

Status
Not open for further replies.
What if James Dean hadnt died in 1955 and instead survived into the 90s,or even into today? Where do you see his career going from 1956 on?
 
Well he'd either become a Jimmy Stewart/John Wayne type of actor, or possibly a Marlon Brando type of actor.

That is if he's able to keep roles after becoming a certain age, and no longer the "teenage heartthrob rebel" he once was. If not, then he's regulated to B-Movie appearances, and the occasional big screen movie role here and there.

Now who knows how he'd be, on a personal level, if he had lived till about now. *doesn't really know much of Dean's personal life* what he liked, what he believed in, etc.

Who knows how he'd react to the 60's and 70's, with that counterculture Hippie movement.
 
Of those options he's definitely more of a Brando. He was an artist in various media (including some quirky little animation pieces) and was rumored to be interested in directing.

Considering his willingness to create art for and with little money, I can see him making common cause with the skid row B movie shops. He was already friends with Dennis Hopper, it's not much of a stretch to see him getting involved with Roger Corman and at least utilizing the methods and equipment Corman is associated with.

A model that might be a decent predictor is John Cassavetes, working as a Hollywood actor to finance his own underground films. Dean's desire for control and his already formidable attitude would most likely lead him to falling in with the counterculture.

But it's pretty impossible to talk about the success of one actor/director based on performances we can never see and films that were never made.

So the only interesting twist I can glean from this is that he becomes the first major "outed" star sometime in the mid-late 60s. It's a great boost for the gay rights movement, and gains them a slot on The Great Hippie List of Causes.

He hangs out with Warhol and John and Yoko. Takes a turn with Scorsese in the mid-70s. Goes to Europe maybe, Truffaut and Godard can fight over him with Bertolucci Fellini, Herzog and Wenders.

A brief flirtation with the Studio 54 crowd sobers him up a bit after he loses a friend or two. In the 80s, if he's been at all successful as a director, he settles down and directs fairly prolifically. Or maybe disgusted with Reagan, gets into politics, becomes mayor of some town out West, maybe works his way through the ranks. Dies a retired governor, lobbying for open spaces or gay rights or arts funding for schools.

But again, that's just going off of what other people did.
 
What if James Dean hadnt died in 1955 and instead survived into the 90s,or even into today? Where do you see his career going from 1956 on?

" Election 1992 Breaking News- Senator James Dean of California[D] has narrowly beat Incumbunt John Wayne in the Election"
 
" Election 1992 Breaking News- Senator James Dean of California[D] has narrowly beat Incumbunt John Wayne in the Election"

Yeah, something like that. Except John Wayne's already filmed The Conqueror by the time James Dean survives his car crash I'm pretty sure. It's cutting it close either way, and I can't see a surviving Dean affecting his decision to take the part. So he still spends 1955/56 out in the Utah desert and mysteriously develops cancer and dies in the 70s.
 
So he (John Wayne) still spends 1955/56 out in the Utah desert and mysteriously develops cancer and dies in the 70s.

Hah! Along with every other cast member, crew member and many of the studio techs exposed to the soil that was trucked in for set shots. THat'll teach them to shoot a movie downwind of all those nuclear tests.......
:eek:
 
Would he necessarily live to old age? If he gets into the '60s Counter Culture and than the '70s Studio 34 crowd I could see him dying of an overdose sometime in that period. If he's a homosexual he might also die of AIDS sometime in the '80s. Depending on his career after his OTL death and how close his death is in time to that of Rock Hudson it might add an extra shock during the AIDS epidemic.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top