James Dean

[cherrypine]

James Dean who died in the 50's was speeding in a sports car and had an accident. He died as a result of the accident. The really strange thing about the account that I read on the whole thing was that he hardly had any blood in his body when they recovered him from the wreck. I can't remember where I read that but I thought it was strange.

[_Nyx_]

This is the first I've ever heard that... a broken neck and numerous broken bones; depending on the severity of the breaks, could be a reason there was little blood left in his body.

[Jjbreen]

James Dean who died in the 50's was speeding in a sports car and had an accident. He died as a result of the accident. The really strange thing about the account that I read on the whole thing was that he hardly had any blood in his body when they recovered him from the wreck. I can't remember where I read that but I thought it was strange.

And this has what to do with ET's or UFO's??

[_Nyx_]

I'd say the claim about there being no blood in the body would immediately make people think aliens did it. they do it to cows and other assorted livestock, why not humans?

[cherrypine]

I didn't know for sure what category this would fall under so I tried to put in the best. Cryptology wouldn't be right.

[Jjbreen]

I'd say the claim about there being no blood in the body would immediately make people think aliens did it. they do it to cows and other assorted livestock, why not humans?

actually it is not hard at all to die in a car accident and there not be much blood or in that fact any blood at all. Not be 'extreme' here - but one can and has broke their neck in a car accident and not blood at all is seen -

Jj -

[_Nyx_]

Oh, I know.. I was just being a little facetious back there.

[Jjbreen]

Oh, I know.. I was just being a little facetious back there.

Ok, Merry Christmas and Happy 2007!!

[cherrypine]

This isn't the article but interesting and related:

The Death of James Dean: The Interview

with Warren Beath

When did you write The Death of James Dean?

I started working on it in the early eighties but I had already been

corresponding with accident investigators for ten years, and

collecting things related to the accident.

Were you just curious, or do you think the death of James

Dean really was an important event?

think it was an important event, occurring when it did right in the

middle of the Twentieth Century. Dean was a unique sort of hero,

and it took his death to authenticate him. A dramatic death is the

validation of the existential hero and the savior of any religion. He

has an incredible iconic importance to the culture. The image of

Dean in his sports car has inspired all sorts of artists, and it

continues to fascinate people.

What are the facts of the accident?

James Dean has a Porsche Spyder racer barely two weeks old

and with between 600 and 800 miles on the odometer. He had

entered an airport race in Salinas and it must have made him

nervous, the idea of competing in that kind of car with no more

seat time than he had in it. Because it was difficult to handle and

that was a dangerous situation. I think that was another reason

Rolf Weutherich, the German expert mechanic, was

accompanying him to the race. To try and fill James Dean in on

the handling of the car.

That?s why they decided to drive the car rather than tow it?

Yes. They left Los Angeles and James Dean was ticketed by

officer O.V. Hunter at around three o?clock. Hunter told me that he

believed Dean was going ninety miles an hour when he saw

him, but slowed when he realized he was being pursued.

Why didn?t he try to outrun the patrol car?

(Laughing) He had apparently done that earlier in the week,

pursued in the fog around Santa Barbara when he was

practicing. But in this case Hunter would have radioed for help

and more officers would have been waiting for Dean in

Bakersfield, if he went through Bakersfield.

<http://www.jamesdeanindeath.com/images/Warren_porsche1.jpg>

Here's the author in a replica of the Porsche Spyder

Photos taken at Blackwell's Corner 1990

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John Gilmore

He stopped at Blackwell?s Corner?

They stopped at Blackwell?s for a little bit and then took off down the highway west towards Paso Robles?

To meet Monty Roberts?

Roberts, the Horse Whisperer guy, says he knew Dean, and Dean was going to spend the night with him in

Salinas. He says James Dean called him from Blackwell?s Corners.

Do you believe that?

I don?t think it happened.

Why would he say that?

You would have to ask him. You can probably find his e-mail on ebay where he was selling James Dean?s

"chaps" riding gear from Giant a while back.

And at the intersection?

James Dean passed a car as he approached the intersection at high speed, driving another car off the road.

Donald Turnupseed was heading east and he began to turn onto Highway 41. He applied the brakes and let

up, then hit the brakes again. Probably, he had never seen a car like that on the highway and underestimated

how fast it was moving.

He said he didn?t see Dean.

He applied the brakes for something, because he was going too fast for the turn? He said he wasn?t going

that fast. He was deposed by an insurance company, and he said he had left San Luis Obispo at around one

o?clock. But the accident happened nearer to six o?clock. It?s not that far away, less than sixty miles, I think. I

wonder what he was doing for four hours.

When the cars hit?

Dean left his lane and tried to go around the Ford. He didn?t leave any skid marks so he didn?t apply the

brakes. But he didn?t make it and the left fronts of both cars hit. The rear of the Ford went up in the air. The

Spyder probably went airborne. Turnupseed saw an arm thrown up over the hood, and the witnesses behind

Dean saw something fly out of the car? probably Weutherich.

Who was driving the Spyder at the time of the crash? I?ve read that some people say that Weutherich was

driving.

No, there was some confusion by the witnesses behind Turnupseed. Don Dooley swear today that the

mechanic was driving, all this based on the color of their shirts. If both Dean and Weutherich had been thrown

out, this idea might have more legs. But Dean was caught where he was sitting, behind the wheel. His

injuries indicated he was on the Ford?s side of the car, the impact side.

The eyewitnesses were wrong?

They?re no doubt sincere, but policemen will tell you that eyewitness testimony is the worst kind. For instance,

in this case the witnesses say they did not see the occupants of the car until after they hit, after the impact. It

was a chaotic and explosive moment, cars exploding and people flying. It?s like seeing two people walking

together and one steps on a land mine, and after the explosion people disagree about who stepped on it. So

experts generally seem to disregard eyewitness testimony in favor of forensic reconstruction of events from

examination of the vehicles and skid marks. Especially fifty years later.

You don?t think people really remember?

I think in this case, and I?ve seen it, people involved in the events have absorbed so many accounts and so

many dramatizations that they adopt them as their own. Don Dooley says that Natalie Wood was at the

inquest, he remembers that distinctly. But I think the newspaper accounts would have mentioned that had it

happened. One policeman could not recall whether James Dean was wearing his glasses when he stopped

him. Forty-five years later, he recalled that Dean was wearing a rope-type belt. Did he see this in a picture? I

don?t know.

You met Donald Turnupseed.

I was about eighteen and I was interested in the accident, and he was nice, and tolerant but he said there was

no chance he would talk about it. He was working in the shop with his mother and father when I met him.

When I left it was one of those very long walks that you take to the door sometimes.

What did he look like?

He acted very wary, bless his heart. As he should have been. He was lean and muscular, muscular arms and

defined pectorals. He had a strong handshake, and those gunsite Lee van Cleef kind of eyes. He wouldn?t talk

to me about it, and both our fates were sealed. If he had opened up it might have satisfied my curiosity. As it

was I kept pursuing the thing and eventually wrote three books about it.

He was probably offered a lot of money for interviews.

He didn?t need any money, though. He was wealthy, I think his business did about 15 million a year. He took it

over at about age 44. His wife and father both died the same year, months apart, 1977. But he didn?t need the

money and if he had consented to an interview I believe he would have relinquished his right to privacy. I was

born about ten miles from Tulare where Turnupseed lived. I am from those sort of people and grew up in that

sort of environment. The little community respects privacy and pulls the wagons in a circle against outsiders.

You?ve probably met some interesting people.

Corey Allen. He?s great, he said I knew more about James Dean than he did. I thought I?d impress him by

mentioning this movie he did, Teenage Jungle. Turned out he wanted to forget that movie. But we got over that

chill. We watched the Rebel wardrobe test together. He was neat. And Leonard Rosenmann, he?s very

charming and interesting. Joe Hyams and Lew Bracker came to the house when Hyams was doing the book.

Wish he?d brought his wife, Elke Sommer.

Whose fault was the accident in which Dean died?

James Dean was driving too fast, and Donald Turnupseed thought he could beat him across the intersection.

Two young men in their early twenties gambled and took a chance and both lost.

There was an inquest.

A policeman who testified said that there would not have been an inquest had the victim of the accident been a

lesser luminary than James Dean.

You think the local officials might have wanted some publicity?

When you read the inquest, it was a strange affair. For instance they elicited and admitted testimony about

Dean?s driving manners and that sort of thing, when all that was relevant was what happened at that

intersection at the time of the accident. And they seemed to want to imply Dean was not wearing his glasses

at the time of the accident. I am working on an annotated edition of the inquest, the transcript, with notes that

would bring out biographical things about Dean and Turnupseed and the various people involved, and

illustrated with documents and photos.

Was the sun in Dean?s eyes at the time of the accident?

Greg LaBorde told me he has confirmed there was no Daylight Savings Time in that location in 1955. So the

accident actually happened at about 6:45 in DST.

So the people who go out to Cholame this year to observe the anniversary will be waiting for the incorrect

time to commemorate the event?

(Laughs) It will be interesting.

What do you think about all the marketing and hoopla around the fifty year-anniversary?

I?m glad East of Eden is coming out on dvd. That?s a beautiful movie. But a lot of the products are really

strange. Who would want to wear cologne because it?s James Dean cologne? I was really surprised by the

Perry book, the authorized book, because the heirs co-operated with it and it mentioned homosexuality and all

that. I thought the family was repressing that. Things have changed. When my book came out, the lady who

ran the museum was circulating a petition for signatures urging that my book be banned. Now they are selling

it on the official James Dean website. The new book catalogs some of the weirder and kitschier Dean

products they are putting out.

It?s called James Dean: An Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon.

It was fun to collect together a lot of the weird but interesting expressions of adoration that have proliferated

since his death. It documents the posthumous craze.

But it revisits the death of James Dean you wrote about in the eighties.

Updates it in a lot of ways. There will be unpublished documents and pictures, and it paints a picture of the

evolution of the culture of death of which Dean has become a godhead, accident reports, litigation, cookie jars

and water clocks. The history of the red jacket.

Where is the red jacket? Dean had it on in the car when he died?

He didn?t. That?s another myth. It was variously reported at a museum in Paris, and in the possession of

Sammy Davis Junior.

Would you recommend any of the documentaries on James Dean?

Mostly talking heads, aren?t they? I like the A and E thing, but I was in that. The ones that bother me are where

they dig up someone who claims to have been an old girlfriend and take her out to the accident site. When you

see these old gals with granny-arms and wrinkles, it?s like watching your parents have sex, you don?t want to

think about it.

Your favorite Dean memory?

I was eighteen, and sitting on the porch of the farmhouse in Indiana talking to Marcus Winslow. He was a very

nice man and smoked Marlboros, the red fliptop box. And when he finished one he would stamp it out and

shred the filter.

All rights reserved. Copyright Warren Newton Beath, 2005

The Death of James Dean

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[cherrypine]

I found it, the article is down near the bottom about the condition of the body:

Warren Beath and Crash Mysteries

The Car

There is controversy over how fast Dean was driving at the time of the wreck. And computer

simulations. But they differ from your 1986 book because you say the car "flew up" rather

than spun.

"A witness to the accident, he was driving behind Turnupseed, was struck by how the Ford went up

almost perpendicular. And Turnupseed had the impression at the collision that he was looking down into

the car. Maybe because the Ford's rear came up, or because the Porsche tipped up. Or both. The point

being that for the Ford to have been turned in the road that way,

it must have absorbed a lot of energy and impact from the Porsche even though the

collision was a headon-sideswipe as I believe it says in the police report.."

Your point being ...

"The fact that the Porsche landed only 45 feet away is not necessarily indication that it was

not speeding. Lee Raskin is finishing a book on this and he has also authored an article on it."

There is a mystery about all the supernatural events involving the death car.

"It had a life of its own after the accident, didn't it? Most of them are not true. Some of the components

were cannibalized and placed in cars later involved in accidents and even a death, but that is not

unheard of in the world of sports car racing, is it? But I don't believe it fell off its mounts, and broke

legs, and cut people and gave them infections and that sort of thing. Maybe it's a mystery wrapped in

a mystery."

What do you mean?

"Why would anyone get rid of the car? Unless it was no longer a car. What went on tour was merely

the tires and crushed aluminum, and that was so fragile a sort of sheet-metal can was built around it,

you can see it clearly in the pictures. Because the car was falling apart and would not hang together for

the rough handling as a touring public exhibit. And in March of 1958 there was a fire in the police garage

where it was being stored in Fresno. Two tires were destroyed and the paint was singed. But I believe the

damage was extensive enough that it would have been throwing good money after bad to try and restore

it. Unless someone had appreciated its cultural significance into the next century."

And no one did?

"I don't think they were tuned into that. I'm looking forward to Lee Raskin's book. He has spent more time

researching the car and its history than anyone. He will have some answers."

The Blood

What is the greatest mystery

involving the death of James Dean?

"To me. It's not the car or a curse,

it's the blood. What happened to the

blood?"

What do you mean?

"The coroner says, (reading) 'CHP

were given the blood for the blood

alcohol test, however Kuehl says

there was not too much blood left

in the body for this purpose.' Officers

I've spoken with have found this very

odd, it only takes a small quantity of

blood for a blood alcohol test. Yet

according to this, the body was almost

evacuated of blood."

What were his injuries?

"Don Dooley recalled that he felt like

Dean was flailing to stay in the car

after the impact, and when the car

landed he was flung on top of the

barbed-wire fence and back into the

car. The left side of his face was

damaged, the impact was on his

side of the car. His upper and lower

jaws were fractured, and of course

his neck was broken. Particles of glass

embedded in his face, thought at the time

to be from the windshield."

But maybe from his glasses?

"Which were never found. Though Don

Dooley says he saw a part of some

glasses at the scene, though he has

also mentioned goggles."

So what happened to the blood?

"I don't know. Witnesses say his face was almost muddy with dirt and blood, a horrible scene. But Bill

Hickman saw him later after he had been cleaned up and did not feel the I injuries were that disfiguring.

And the mortician said that it could have been an opencasket funeral had it been anyone other than

James Dean, meaning I guess that there was such a distinct conception of how he looked that any

anomalies might have appeared exaggerated."

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All rights reserved. Copyright Warren Newton Beath, 2005

Mysteries

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Report prepared by anonymous coroner's department pathologist

who examined the body of James Dean prior to embalming

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[cherrypine]

Here is the website location. My computer dosen't print pictures so there lots of pictures and lots of spaces on my printed pages.

http://www.jamesdeanindeath.com/Events.html

[Warren Beath]

[

http://www.jamesdeanindeath.com/Events.html

Thanks for the mention of the site and the book-- and the interest in the whole bloody business. I ran across it while surfing. Warren

[Waspie_Dwarf]

I didn't know for sure what category this would fall under so I tried to put in the best. Cryptology wouldn't be right.

Given the subject matter and the implication of cover ups the Conspiracies section may be a better place for this topic than Extraterrestrial Life & The UFO Phenomenon.

[cherrypine]

A body may not have blood on the outside of it (this is understandable) what is weird is they wanted to do a test on the body for alcohol consumption and probably other things and they found out by attempting this that there was hardly any blood in the body to do this. Not from blood loss at the accident is my understanding as I don't think there was much blood and evidentally not in his case.