Unreleased Video Demystifies James Dean

Want to get the down and dirty on James Dean, his alleged homosexual acts, his reckless partying? You're not going to get that here.

"James Dean: American Legend" was created and directed by the only Hollywood producer to read Dean's recently discovered diary. Viewers will read that fact several times on the video's box and hear it in the movie as well. Does that make a difference in this movie?

It does, according to director Alan Hauge. "The other movies did an endless list of the things he did and not why he did them," Hauge told .

"American Legend" is filmed in documentary style (read: "not slick and action packed"). But it portrays an air of intimacy with Dean and his family, largely because of the actor's family themselves.

Dean's cousin Marcus Winslow Jr. gave Hauge 22 letters that Dean had written to his family from Hollywood, along with Dean's diary and some secret audio tapes that Dean made of conversations with his family.

Hauge said that the documentary would not have been made if Winslow and his family had not put their seal of approval on the film.

Elvis called Dean a genius. John Lennon said that the Beatles would not have existed without him. And thousands of fans still gather for a festival in Dean's birthplace every year. Why?

Anthony Michael Hall, who narrates the documentary, said that while growing up in New York, he explored Dean's life thoroughly.

"The only three films that he left us made an indelible mark," Hall told .

Fans who are looking for fast 1950s fin-tailed vehicles and even faster women allegedly in Dean's life will be disappointed by the film.

But fans looking for baby pictures, school athletic pictures and excerpts from the diary of an introspective man who read Shakespeare and sculpted will be highly gratified.

"He was a very simple guy that liked the little things in life," Hauge said. "He did not like Hollywood at all. He came out here to fulfill the request of his dying mother at any cost."

Viewers of "American Legend" will be privy to some never-before-heard recordings, some rare footage, and seeing the actor's world through his own eyes, via his journal and some film footage that Dean shot on the set. There's also a short-stop animation that the actor created during one of his many forays into the arts.

Did Dean's diary hold any surprises for Hauge?

"You get the sense of two things: One, that he was a genius, and two, that he was an ordinary man at the same time" Hauge told .

So what about the naughty James Dean? The rebel?

The basic premise of the documentary is that Dean was not really a causeless rebel, but a sensitive man who began to live as a rebel for his art.

Dean was a student of Stanislavski's method acting, and Hauge said that Dean began acting the part of the rebel daily to enhance his own acting and to keep the Hollywood tinsel merchants at bay.

Hauge, who worked on the documentary for eight years, said that it wasn't until after talking with family, friends, fellow actors and old teachers that the idea of "the real James Dean" began to gel for him.

Hauge said that he was still dealing "with the guy they created" before he realized that Dean's outrageous comments and actions were just an actor taking his art to the streets for PR as much for self-defense.

"In America, it's dangerous because celebrity is something people buy," Hall said. "I don't think Dean is the type of guy who sold his celebrity."

In his diary, Dean wrote, "Being a good actor isn't easy, being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I die."

An honest critique of the movie? It is not Hollywood.

Win A Copy Of American Legend

Fans can order a copy of "James Dean: American Legend," which is being submitted to the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, at James Dean Online.

Behind The Scenes Trivia:

• The red Ford driven in the movie is the last car known to be driven by Dean.
• The tassel hanging from the rear-view mirror is the tassel from Dean's graduation, put there for the movie by Marcus Winslow.
• The actor driving the Ford did not know how to drive a stick shift, in this case located on the steering column. Dean's cousin Marcus Winslow was lying on the car's floor during every shooting scene to help the actor drive the car.
• The reason why Hauge chose Hall to narrate the movie was because at the screening, Hall just showed up. When Hauge jokingly asked him when Dean died, Hall rattled off the exact time and date of Dean's death.
• Hauge first wrote a feature-film screenplay about Dean called "James Dean: The Movie." The documentary came about because he had so much material left over.
• Dean hid a cassette recorder, and ran a wire down his sleeve into a small microphone hidden in his wristwatch, to tape the conversations with his family. He then transferred them onto three long-play records.
• Winslow will be writing a book from Dean's diary, and from the three records that Dean secretly taped with his family.
• Dennis Hopper heard that Hauge was filming a Dean documentary in the next lot, and said that he didn't want to talk to Hauge because people were always portraying Dean incorrectly. So Hauge gave the actor a copy of the documentary to try to prove to Hopper that he had told the real story.

Related Links

• James Dean Autobiography
• James Dean Memorial Gallery
• James Dean Online