The possibility that James Dean did not die in 1955 investigated

According to a handful of people Hollywood, this was one of the longest held secrets. Even as the secret was passed down to a second and then a third generation, it was still kept between just a few people. It wasn’t until after a tiny news report from Calgary, Canada made it to these people did they start talking outside their circle.

The rumor is that James Dean never died, but his death was staged so that he could escape the career he came to hate.

Dean rose to prominence as a movie personality, personifying the restless American youth of the mid-1950s and embodying the title of one of his films, Rebel Without a Cause. Dean received two Academy Award nominations for his roles in East of Eden and Giant. Despite the fact that he only created three films, they were completed in little over a year and his fame was instantaneous. It broke the hearts of so many to hear that on September 30, 1955, while on route to a race in Salinas, CA, Dean was killed in a traffic accident. He was so young.

Even though the whole world cherished and loved him, he despised every minute of it. He didn’t want anything to do with the fame that had exploded in such a short period of time. As the story goes, he decided he wanted out, and staged his traffic accident.

He sought out the assistance of a police chief who thought the world of him, and a rival studio head who was determined not to see the huge box office figures he generated. The studio head enlisted the help of set designers and stunt performers to depict a vehicle crash. The police chief supplied an unclaimed corpse from the morgue so that a body could be buried, and everything was ready. The studio head negotiated a lifetime deal with the actor that paid him around $1500 per week.

So James Dean lived out his life in Canada, and lived a very long life indeed. In April, he was either 95 or 85 years old when he was killed in a car accident north of the border, depending on whether you used his Canadian or American birth certificate. It is unsure which date is correct because studio’s often changed the age of their actors to suit their audience.

In the last several years, he and his wife relocated to a much bigger city in order to be closer to medical treatment, since they had lived in a rural region of that northern nation for most of the last sixty years or so. His age did not prevent him from enjoying driving, and his wife enjoyed accompanying him when he did. She was in the automobile with him when it was struck by a tractor trailer. His wife was anticipated to recover, however, their names were held from the Canadian story.

95-year-old killed in crash with semi near Three Hills

Apr 24, 2018

A crash involving a semi-tractor trailer near Three Hills, Alta. on Tuesday afternoon has left a 95-year-old man dead, according to RCMP.

The collision occurred at about 2:30 p.m. near the intersection of Highway 583 and Highway 21. The man was driving a car with a 96-year-old woman in the passenger’s seat when it was struck on the driver’s side by the tractor trailer unit.

He was taken to hospital with injuries where he was pronounced dead. The woman in the car was air-lifted to a city hospital with serious injuries.

Police say the driver of the semi was not injured.

An RCMP collision deconstructionist was on scene Tuesday to assist with the police investigation.

A preliminary investigation suggests that the car entered the intersection from Highway 583 after the stop sign to make a left turn northbound onto Highway 21 when it was struck by the southbound semi-truck, according to RCMP.

The intersection was reopened Tuesday evening.

Ironically, on April 25, 2018, one day later, OK Magazine published an article called End Of A Legend: Inside The Brutal Car Crash That Killed James Dean At 24. The piece is about his death in 1955, but as the rumor goes, they could not acknowledge his death a day earlier, so this was as close to a memorial to the legend that they could create.

In the search to validate the possibility that he never died in 1955, looking for some scrap of proof, I found an interesting group of videos on YouTube where they are testing a man’s DNA who claims to be James Dean.

It was posted six years ago, sometime in 2016, two years before the 2018 car wreck.

It is on Cinema 4th Annual LIVE Oscar Special on the Adult Swim channel on YouTube, which is an adult testosterone thick content that normally wouldn’t appeal to those over the mental age of 13.

The man who claims to be James Dean is in the studio, sitting originally in the dark against the wall, smirking and enjoying the fuss.

The host and his friends are challenged to prove his assertions, so they claim that they found a way to compare a hair sample found on actual clothes he wore while filming many years ago, and a current hair sample of the man in the studio to compare.

“I have a friend that I’ve gotten to know through my circles … and she works at the Hollywood movie museum on Hollywood Bou

levard … they actually have a pair of James Dean’s pants from the set of 1955 to Rebel Without a Cause … She found when she was cleaning the thing, a hair that was in the zipper of the jeans.”

They have the hair, and bring out “Dr. Sam”, who looks like a bit like Rasputin, and he explains what DNA is and how this test works.

The second video shows Dr. Sam in a lab working on the hair samples, as the host acting out some really tacky shit talk toward the “James Dean.”, that resembles what you hear in TV wrestling.

“I’m going to prove you are a fraud.”

The third video, which takes place an undetermined amount of time later, reveals that the hairs match, and older man is indeed James Dean. The host flies into this overacted rage on how embarrassed he is, and demands to talk to Dr. Sam.

It is never explained why the question of this older man’s true identity came up in the first place, or why this older man man chose to be involved.

Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 if you would like to watch. Thankfully, they are short.

These videos most assuredly feel as if they are faked, and it would be so easy to create this story, except for one thing; the older man does resemble an older James Dean, especially his very full lower lip, his hairline, his build, and the basic features of his face align.

I would love this story to be true. To think this miserable man finally found happiness and lived to a very old age with a loving partner, free from the stress, and enjoying his life is a healing thought. His early death had always been such a tragic story. However, I had to step back from what the story was doing to me, and look at the facts.

There is no absolute proof that this story is real. The videos could have been completely staged. The memorial article posted in OK Magazine could have just coincidently been published one day after the wreck in Canada. The rumor that came out of Hollywood could be from an overactive imaginative individual.

But then….maybe….I got the best screenshot I could of the man in the studio’s ear. It does not have great clarity, but considering what age does to an ear, and he was at least in his 80’s, it looks eerily like a match. It’s the shape of the cartilage that you compare because the skin around the cartilage will age.

Could James Dean have used this ridiculous platform, knowing that no one would take it seriously, to play a final joke?

Liv Barker

PROC. BY MOVIES