Perry Taussig
The Lowdown
January 1957
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After the death of James Dean in September 1955, the actor's growing legion of fans expressed extreme, almost cult-like devotion to the dead star, flooding Warner Bros. with 8,000 fan letters per month. The Lowdown got hold of some of these letters, much franker and more explicit than the sanitized versions typically appearing in the press, and published them, alongside information cribbed without credit from a Life magazine feature from a few months earlier. Notably, they included a letter from a gay man, one of the very few to be publicly acknowledged. (Rumor was that Winton Dean had letters from male fans destroyed to protect his late son's image.) “James Dean's Torrid Love Letters” appeared in January 1957. Its copyright was not renewed, according to a records search, which places it in the public domain. Boldface and italic text is as it appears in the original. Stylistic inconsistencies and spelling errors are as given in the original. |
R E V E A L E D :
JAMES DEAN’S
TORRID LOVE LETTERS
by PERRY TAUSSIG, Hollywood, Calif.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Since James Dean. film actor, was buried on October 8th, 1955, in his hometown of Fairmont, Indiana, a kind of and morbid hysteria has crept over the American scene.
(Dean, who was only 24 at the time he was killed in his sports car, was just at the beginning of his meteoric career. His sudden death was a sad misfortune. Death always is.
(But American women, married and unmarried. teen-agers and dowagers, hare clutched this particular death to their bosoms and are making an emotional orgy of it.
(Monthly, more than 8,000 love letters pour into Dean’s former studio and to his former film colleagues. Most of the letters say that Dean is still alive and that the writers love him madly.
(This is a gruesome mental illness of the unhealthiest order. A close friend of Dean, Sanford Roth, was trailing Dean’s car the day he was killed. When the accident happened, he took several photos of the poor, smashed body and the car. Roth refuses to release these photos on the grounds they are too horrible. He is quite right.
(Yet, the fact that the pathetic remains were buried privately and not laid out for public view has given rise to this weird and necrophiliac sexual morbidity.
(Herewith, for the first time. are revealed just a few of the printable love letters that have poured in. As Lew Bracker, a close friend of Dean, puts it: “If Jimmy were here and saw what was going on, he’d die all over again without the accident. It’s mass hysteria.”)
The following was written by a 44-year-old woman, mother of five children. It was, of course, written after Dean’s death, written to a dead man.
MY SWEET DARLING: When night falls and my stupid fat husband snores at my side, I hold you closely in my arms. I know you are not dead. You are disfigured and ashamed to show your face. My beloved one, I know you are alone somewhere in a foul rooming house. Tell me where you are. I have 34,500 in savings. I will leave my husband and my children, bring the money to you, get good doctors and heal you. I will show you such love as you never knew. I will make you whole with my kisses no matter how badly you are hurt.
My Darling, when my fat husband insists on holding me in his arms and I get that feeling of being used and abused. I shut my eyes tightly and dream it is you who is clutching me. in my heart, I murmur your name and it is as though you are truly with me.
I hold you in my arms, press your dear, sweet face against my bosom and sleep, sleep. Here is my picture. You are my man and I am your woman. Write me, please write me, my Only One.
The following letter is from a teenager:
JIMMY, MINE: I am a virgin and yet I would give myself to you if only I could shield you against the thing that happened.
My true feeling is that you were horribly disfigured in that terrible car accident. I don’t care. I know I should not be writing this, but I feel you are not dead. If you are dead, you will come back again.
If you do not come to me, I will never marry and I will always keep you in my heart as long as I live.
Jimmy, I have a little picture of you which is a shrine to me. Nights, I hold you against me closely and I know that you have some warmth and comfort in your secret hospital or your grave. Nothing else makes any difference to me at all.
My parents ask me why I don’t go out with boys anymore. I cannot tell them. This is a secret between you and me. I have seen your movie “Rebel Without A Cause” 27 times now. One day, I saw it three times. I know that you look directly at me from the screen. It is then that I squeeze myself together kind of make a soft ball of me you can hold me closely all in one piece.
This one is from a palpable homosexual. It shows how all-inclusive the Dean Disease has become.
SWEET JIMMY: I wrote you tonight because I see before me vividly the curly locks of your hair and your sweet body. Your limbs and mine—Oh, I cannot go on.
I know you never knew real love for you were snuffed out before you had the chance. Studying your pictures in the movie magazines, I know you would have come over to our side, to the world of men that hates women.
I know you would have allowed me to serve you breakfast in bed and to kiss you full on the lips as you lie there on OUR pillow, sleepy and drowsy. And then . . .
(Editor’s Note:—The description following is unprintable.)
This sad and sick missive is from a very rich society woman who lives in Texas:
JAMES: I must speak to you sternly now. The plot to keep you from greatness and stardom is known to me. I have spoken with my husband about this and he is indifferent. But I have hired private detectives and I know you have been the victim of a conspiracy to keep you from the top. I have written you before, giving proof, but you’ve ignored me. You must listen.
That automobile accident was a setup, wasn’t it, son? I am 45 but I still feel the thrill of womanhood. I can shower upon you hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can set you up as a producer and director of your own films. I know where you are hiding out with the scars on your face and your thighs. But you have great acting talent and I will lavish everything to show up your enemies.
This one is from two girls who share a mutual and fantastic obsession:
(Dean, who was only 24 at the time he was killed in his sports car, was just at the beginning of his meteoric career. His sudden death was a sad misfortune. Death always is.
(But American women, married and unmarried. teen-agers and dowagers, hare clutched this particular death to their bosoms and are making an emotional orgy of it.
(Monthly, more than 8,000 love letters pour into Dean’s former studio and to his former film colleagues. Most of the letters say that Dean is still alive and that the writers love him madly.
(This is a gruesome mental illness of the unhealthiest order. A close friend of Dean, Sanford Roth, was trailing Dean’s car the day he was killed. When the accident happened, he took several photos of the poor, smashed body and the car. Roth refuses to release these photos on the grounds they are too horrible. He is quite right.
(Yet, the fact that the pathetic remains were buried privately and not laid out for public view has given rise to this weird and necrophiliac sexual morbidity.
(Herewith, for the first time. are revealed just a few of the printable love letters that have poured in. As Lew Bracker, a close friend of Dean, puts it: “If Jimmy were here and saw what was going on, he’d die all over again without the accident. It’s mass hysteria.”)
The following was written by a 44-year-old woman, mother of five children. It was, of course, written after Dean’s death, written to a dead man.
MY SWEET DARLING: When night falls and my stupid fat husband snores at my side, I hold you closely in my arms. I know you are not dead. You are disfigured and ashamed to show your face. My beloved one, I know you are alone somewhere in a foul rooming house. Tell me where you are. I have 34,500 in savings. I will leave my husband and my children, bring the money to you, get good doctors and heal you. I will show you such love as you never knew. I will make you whole with my kisses no matter how badly you are hurt.
My Darling, when my fat husband insists on holding me in his arms and I get that feeling of being used and abused. I shut my eyes tightly and dream it is you who is clutching me. in my heart, I murmur your name and it is as though you are truly with me.
I hold you in my arms, press your dear, sweet face against my bosom and sleep, sleep. Here is my picture. You are my man and I am your woman. Write me, please write me, my Only One.
The following letter is from a teenager:
JIMMY, MINE: I am a virgin and yet I would give myself to you if only I could shield you against the thing that happened.
My true feeling is that you were horribly disfigured in that terrible car accident. I don’t care. I know I should not be writing this, but I feel you are not dead. If you are dead, you will come back again.
If you do not come to me, I will never marry and I will always keep you in my heart as long as I live.
Jimmy, I have a little picture of you which is a shrine to me. Nights, I hold you against me closely and I know that you have some warmth and comfort in your secret hospital or your grave. Nothing else makes any difference to me at all.
My parents ask me why I don’t go out with boys anymore. I cannot tell them. This is a secret between you and me. I have seen your movie “Rebel Without A Cause” 27 times now. One day, I saw it three times. I know that you look directly at me from the screen. It is then that I squeeze myself together kind of make a soft ball of me you can hold me closely all in one piece.
This one is from a palpable homosexual. It shows how all-inclusive the Dean Disease has become.
SWEET JIMMY: I wrote you tonight because I see before me vividly the curly locks of your hair and your sweet body. Your limbs and mine—Oh, I cannot go on.
I know you never knew real love for you were snuffed out before you had the chance. Studying your pictures in the movie magazines, I know you would have come over to our side, to the world of men that hates women.
I know you would have allowed me to serve you breakfast in bed and to kiss you full on the lips as you lie there on OUR pillow, sleepy and drowsy. And then . . .
(Editor’s Note:—The description following is unprintable.)
This sad and sick missive is from a very rich society woman who lives in Texas:
JAMES: I must speak to you sternly now. The plot to keep you from greatness and stardom is known to me. I have spoken with my husband about this and he is indifferent. But I have hired private detectives and I know you have been the victim of a conspiracy to keep you from the top. I have written you before, giving proof, but you’ve ignored me. You must listen.
That automobile accident was a setup, wasn’t it, son? I am 45 but I still feel the thrill of womanhood. I can shower upon you hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can set you up as a producer and director of your own films. I know where you are hiding out with the scars on your face and your thighs. But you have great acting talent and I will lavish everything to show up your enemies.
This one is from two girls who share a mutual and fantastic obsession:
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JIMMY With the Beautiful Mouth: Our names are Lillie and Francine. We both work in a San Francisco department store. Each week, we are putting aside in a joint bank acount $25 for you. We already have $650 saved up for when you come back.
As soon as we have $1,000, we intend to leave home and set up a place for you and us. We will not be jealous of each other at all for you are the man of our dreams. We have spoken about this a thousand times and we promise that if you will share us equally, we will never give you any trouble. We don't expect marriage, either, for you can't marry both of us. If we have babies, these babies will be the family’s babies. We don’t care what people will say at all. We just love you and dream about you. We know you are in trouble because of the accident. We took a bus trip to your grave and we are sure that an empty coffin was placed there. Jimmy, you can't fool us. Men like you never die. Men like you were placed on earth to make women happy. Just picture it, Jimmy. Three bedrooms. A kitchen. A living room. We will work for you and keep your secret safe for we know that you have lost an eye and an ear and that your nose is boken in several places. It doesn't matter that your movie career is over. What do we care? We will give you courage to come forth and be cared for—and you will have a wonderful life. Home is waiting for you, Jimmy. What more can two girls offer? |
What does a noted psychiatrist, head of one of the country’s largest mental institutions, have to say about this illness that is sweeping the land like an epidemic? “It is not easy to analyze it. It is definitely a sickness. “When women send love letters to a dead man, it can only be because they are disappointed in life and in the living. Women who have lost touch with reality always seem to want more than mortal men can give them—and so they build up an imaginary picture of an immortal man who can give them the satisfaction they seek. “The Jimmy Dean situation, of course, is not new. The Roaring Twenties witnessed a similar mania with the death of the great screen idol, Rudolph Valentino. Then too, women refused to believe that Valentino had died, and worshipped at his shrine with sickening devotion. The Dean case is a repetition, though much worse, of this disease. Let us hope it will pass away quickly. and not too painfully.” |
Source: Perry Taussig, "Revealed: James Dean's Torrid Love Letters," The Lowdown, January 1957, 28-29, 43.
