James Dean: The Television Years
The early 1950s were what historians now referred to nostalgically as the «Golden Age of Television.» Drama was one of its «staple diets,» and James Dean was one of the many young actors who took advantage of the opening casting calls. These teledramas may have been «cheaply made, underrehearsed, poorly designed, flatly lit and crudely staged,» but they were an excellent training ground for an inexperienced performer eager to make a name for himself in the acting business. Between 1951 and 1954, Jimmy acted in over 30 television plays, appearing in works by John Drinkwater, William Inge, George Roy Hill, Rod Serling, and adaptations of Sherwood Anderson and Henri Bernstein. His roles on television tended to be crazy mixed-up kids, teenage delinquents on the run, vagrants, convicts, safe-crackers, counterfeiters and killers, although occasionally he was also cast as a farm boy, a bellhop, a lab assistant, a French aristocrat, an apostle, and even an angel. Jimmy quickly develope...