Few towns go as all-out for his or her most famous son as Fairmount, Indiana.
For nearly 50 years, James Dean fans have flocked about an hour north of Indianapolis every September for an annual festival celebrating the late hometown hero and Hollywood heartthrob.
The sexy, mysterious star is best known for 3 movies he made — “East of Eden” and “Rebel With no Cause,” each made in 1955, and 1956’s “Giant” — before he died at age 24 in a horrific crash of his Porsche Spyder sports automotive in Cholame, California, on Sept. 30, 1955.
Yet his legend lives on, for fans each young and old: rebels looking for applause, or perhaps just a large adventure east of Eden — or not less than east of the Mississippi.
“I believe he at all times thought that he’d be famous someday,” Dean’s cousin Marcus Winslow, 81, told The Post. “I doubt that he thought that he’d be famous 70 years after his death.”
This yr marks the seventieth anniversary of the actor’s all-too-young passing, and James Dean Festival Director Christy Pulley Berry told The Post she expects a crush of 25,000 Dean-iacs over this weekend.
And it’s his aura — bolstered by a white T-shirt, or a leather jacket, or a cigarette dangling from his pouty lips — that also draws Dean devotees who wish to embrace his brand of bravado, in an era when a Kardashian posing for a selfie has replaced old Hollywood cool.
“He never went out of favor,” Berry told The Post. “Little boys are available in, and so they’re just fascinated. Everybody knows the James Dean image.”
Dean — just “Jimmy,” to locals — stays a generation-unifying icon a long time later; even wistful Taylor Swift gave a nod to a beau’s “James Dean daydream look” in her 2015 ballad “Style.”
‘He looks like James Dean’
The town’s yearly gathering is punctuated with kitschy attractions worthy of a nostalgia-steeped carnival: a good with rides and lots of popcorn. Dancing in poodle skirts and rolled-up denim that evoke the Nineteen Fifties. An antique automotive show, resplendent with Ford Mercury autos of “Rebel” drag-race infamy. Tribute band performances — this yr highlighting Kiss and one other Indiana-native, John Cougar Mellencamp — plus the crowning of a festival king and queen.
But the large draw — “my favorite,” admitted Berry — is a James Dean lookalike contest, with categories for each adults who remember seeing his movies in theaters and youngsters whose parents weren’t even born yet when the actor died.
“I’m just amazed at how serious the look-alikes take it and the way they’ve really upped their game through the years,” Berry told The Post.
Gen Z fan Michael John Gross, 24, who won three of the past 4 contests, was a genetic shoo-in from a young age.
The Boston native recalled it was only a decade ago — “around 14, 15, a transitional period” — when he discovered Jimmy was his jam.
“You’re attempting to work out the way you look, how you must slot in and stuff,” Gross told The Post.
He gained his own fast fandom — by the use of friends’ mothers, who assessed Gross point-blank: “He looks like James Dean.”
Fairmount teen Money Croy, who won second place in the kids’s category last yr, said he has been going to the festival so long as he can remember.
“I’m gonna be watching ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ loads, and the opposite movies, simply to form of get his movements down,” Croy, 14, told The Post of his preparations this yr, which is able to include wearing a scarlet “Rebel”-worthy jacket — because “at any time when you think that of James Dean, you think that of race cars, red jackets or motorcycles.”
Some impersonators even recreate whole film scenes. One time, an entrant doused himself with gooey molasses to simulate a memorable “Giant” clip through which Dean’s character, Jett, struck oil that rained down, drenching him in front of his unrequited love, played by Elizabeth Taylor.
For Croy, though, there could also be a straightforward explanation for the teenager’s uber-fandom.
“Indiana is just not, like, a extremely big state,” he said. “The one major thing we got going is the Indianapolis 500 and James Dean.”
Memorabilia central
The rebellious film legend is so popular, in truth, that Fairmount can support not only the James Dean Museum — Berry is its director — but in addition a James Dean Gallery, a Victorian space restored by Massachusetts native and owner David Loeher, 75. He and his husband moved to the “Norman Rockwell-looking town,” as Loeher called it, in 1984 and amassed what is taken into account amongst the biggest private collections of Dean memorabilia on the planet.
The museum, meanwhile, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary after opening a brand new constructing in 2024, with 4,000 of its 6,000 square feet dedicated to Dean, plus exhibits on other local notables, including “Garfield” comic creator Jim Davis.
The museum has some particularly treasured items, in keeping with Dean’s cousin Winslow, who was 12 when the actor died.
“We found his original motorcycle just a few years ago, which is pretty impressive,” Winslow told The Post.
There’s also a 1949 Ford that Dean used to drive his date to a faculty prom — a story that has an only-in-a-small-town twist.
“Matter of fact,” Winslow shared with a touch of scandal, “the date that he took to the senior prom was my wife’s sister. And so, a variety of memories in there.”
‘Preserved image of beauty’
The festival will come to a detailed on Sunday with a somber ceremony at Dean’s Park Cemetery gravesite — but his fame will likely carry on for generations to come back as he stays, to many, an enigma.
“There’s a variety of things that we don’t find out about James Dean. He may very well be seen as a queer icon, too, which may very well be one more reason he has a hold on our generation,” Gross told The Post, alluding to rumors of the simmering star’s bisexuality which have swirled far past his demise.
“He’s this image of cool that, like Marilyn Monroe, is a preserved image of beauty.“
That level of fame continues to construct cross-generational fan curiosity a few bygone era and a life still steeped in mystery and magnetism.
“He’s this concept of this golden age of American culture,” Gross said.
Few towns go as all-out for his or her most famous son as Fairmount, Indiana.
For nearly 50 years, James Dean fans have flocked about an hour north of Indianapolis every September for an annual festival celebrating the late hometown hero and Hollywood heartthrob.
The sexy, mysterious star is best known for 3 movies he made — “East of Eden” and “Rebel With no Cause,” each made in 1955, and 1956’s “Giant” — before he died at age 24 in a horrific crash of his Porsche Spyder sports automotive in Cholame, California, on Sept. 30, 1955.
Yet his legend lives on, for fans each young and old: rebels looking for applause, or perhaps just a large adventure east of Eden — or not less than east of the Mississippi.
“I believe he at all times thought that he’d be famous someday,” Dean’s cousin Marcus Winslow, 81, told The Post. “I doubt that he thought that he’d be famous 70 years after his death.”
This yr marks the seventieth anniversary of the actor’s all-too-young passing, and James Dean Festival Director Christy Pulley Berry told The Post she expects a crush of 25,000 Dean-iacs over this weekend.
And it’s his aura — bolstered by a white T-shirt, or a leather jacket, or a cigarette dangling from his pouty lips — that also draws Dean devotees who wish to embrace his brand of bravado, in an era when a Kardashian posing for a selfie has replaced old Hollywood cool.
“He never went out of favor,” Berry told The Post. “Little boys are available in, and so they’re just fascinated. Everybody knows the James Dean image.”
Dean — just “Jimmy,” to locals — stays a generation-unifying icon a long time later; even wistful Taylor Swift gave a nod to a beau’s “James Dean daydream look” in her 2015 ballad “Style.”
‘He looks like James Dean’
The town’s yearly gathering is punctuated with kitschy attractions worthy of a nostalgia-steeped carnival: a good with rides and lots of popcorn. Dancing in poodle skirts and rolled-up denim that evoke the Nineteen Fifties. An antique automotive show, resplendent with Ford Mercury autos of “Rebel” drag-race infamy. Tribute band performances — this yr highlighting Kiss and one other Indiana-native, John Cougar Mellencamp — plus the crowning of a festival king and queen.
But the large draw — “my favorite,” admitted Berry — is a James Dean lookalike contest, with categories for each adults who remember seeing his movies in theaters and youngsters whose parents weren’t even born yet when the actor died.
“I’m just amazed at how serious the look-alikes take it and the way they’ve really upped their game through the years,” Berry told The Post.
Gen Z fan Michael John Gross, 24, who won three of the past 4 contests, was a genetic shoo-in from a young age.
The Boston native recalled it was only a decade ago — “around 14, 15, a transitional period” — when he discovered Jimmy was his jam.
“You’re attempting to work out the way you look, how you must slot in and stuff,” Gross told The Post.
He gained his own fast fandom — by the use of friends’ mothers, who assessed Gross point-blank: “He looks like James Dean.”
Fairmount teen Money Croy, who won second place in the kids’s category last yr, said he has been going to the festival so long as he can remember.
“I’m gonna be watching ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ loads, and the opposite movies, simply to form of get his movements down,” Croy, 14, told The Post of his preparations this yr, which is able to include wearing a scarlet “Rebel”-worthy jacket — because “at any time when you think that of James Dean, you think that of race cars, red jackets or motorcycles.”
Some impersonators even recreate whole film scenes. One time, an entrant doused himself with gooey molasses to simulate a memorable “Giant” clip through which Dean’s character, Jett, struck oil that rained down, drenching him in front of his unrequited love, played by Elizabeth Taylor.
For Croy, though, there could also be a straightforward explanation for the teenager’s uber-fandom.
“Indiana is just not, like, a extremely big state,” he said. “The one major thing we got going is the Indianapolis 500 and James Dean.”
Memorabilia central
The rebellious film legend is so popular, in truth, that Fairmount can support not only the James Dean Museum — Berry is its director — but in addition a James Dean Gallery, a Victorian space restored by Massachusetts native and owner David Loeher, 75. He and his husband moved to the “Norman Rockwell-looking town,” as Loeher called it, in 1984 and amassed what is taken into account amongst the biggest private collections of Dean memorabilia on the planet.
The museum, meanwhile, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary after opening a brand new constructing in 2024, with 4,000 of its 6,000 square feet dedicated to Dean, plus exhibits on other local notables, including “Garfield” comic creator Jim Davis.
The museum has some particularly treasured items, in keeping with Dean’s cousin Winslow, who was 12 when the actor died.
“We found his original motorcycle just a few years ago, which is pretty impressive,” Winslow told The Post.
There’s also a 1949 Ford that Dean used to drive his date to a faculty prom — a story that has an only-in-a-small-town twist.
“Matter of fact,” Winslow shared with a touch of scandal, “the date that he took to the senior prom was my wife’s sister. And so, a variety of memories in there.”
‘Preserved image of beauty’
The festival will come to a detailed on Sunday with a somber ceremony at Dean’s Park Cemetery gravesite — but his fame will likely carry on for generations to come back as he stays, to many, an enigma.
“There’s a variety of things that we don’t find out about James Dean. He may very well be seen as a queer icon, too, which may very well be one more reason he has a hold on our generation,” Gross told The Post, alluding to rumors of the simmering star’s bisexuality which have swirled far past his demise.
“He’s this image of cool that, like Marilyn Monroe, is a preserved image of beauty.“
That level of fame continues to construct cross-generational fan curiosity a few bygone era and a life still steeped in mystery and magnetism.
“He’s this concept of this golden age of American culture,” Gross said.
