Customer Reviews (1)

safe, but fascinating prelude
This penetrating little book, published in 1975, during the enormous revival of all things Dean, was author John Gilmore's first effort in addressing the life of his friend, James Dean. While not as lengthy or in depth as his formidable and revealing '97 book, Live fast, Die Young, it nonetheless exhibits Gilmore's talent for memoir-style writing. One reason, I feel, that traditional-minded fans can't stomach Gilmore's accounts of Dean's life is because he never follows the long established blueprint for celebrity biography. As I alluded to in the review for Live Fast..., he's a noir writer, specifically he is a visionary on the nature of L.A. pop culture,Hollywood and the symptoms of fame and, though it hasn't anything to do with Dean, Gilmore is an expert on true-crime. There is no comparison to other bios of Dean, with the exception of his second Dean work, or the progressive, far-reaching books by Val Holley and Ron Martinetti. Aside from John's noir stylings, there is the credential of having known and hung around Dean sporadically from 1953 until Jimmy's death in September of '55. Gilmore's love of the subject and determination to bring the real Dean to the forefront are obvious what with his loving photo captions, vivid anecdotes and the inclusion of historical reviews and the detailed chronology of James Dean's career. It's regrettable that the publisher felt the need to push the sensational envelope with its cover blurb,"..as he (Dean) really was-a lover of men as well as women", which Gilmore had nothing to do with. Compared to Gilmore's second Dean book this is a safe, but fascinating prelude to a longer tale of emotional complexity and restless humanity. After Gilmore had seen and heard about the burgeoning Dean renaissance, by way of earlier books by Dalton, Herndon and others, he decided to stand up and have his own say about a man whom he actually knew. The result is this slim, literary dagger that cuts to the quick much of the over-wrought mythologizing and legend-making that hit the stands in the early to mid seventies. There's an intimacy and gritty clarity to Gilmore's prose and how he presents his memories and the vital anecdotes he obtained. David Dalton did not dig deep enough in numerous ways, for his bio of Dean, but a trivial example might be Gilmore obtaining a photo of Dean's beloved mother, Mildred, which Dalton wrote was unobtainable. Other interesting photos include a shot of Gilmore in the '50's taken by Dean himself, as well as a haunting photo of John's duplicate of the famous Warner Bros. life mask of Jimmy. Also, there's the cool newsphoto of Gilmore, in '75, with Dean's leather motorcycle jacket.Again, not as revelatory as the '97 book, but I applaud his gallant original effort in revealing the turbulent, tortured life of the enduring icon.Paul Waters ... Read more

Product Description
The Death of James Dean Sparks A Curse!

Deep in the heart of Los Angeles in a Hollywood studio, a small group of sound engineers and actors watched rushes of a just completed major motion picture.

The dark room was filled with the smell of cigarettes as nearly everyone smoked.

The Director sat behind a desk by the controls and hadn’t spoken a word since the projector had started nearly an hour before. No one was sure what he thought about the images on the screen. Silence usually meant something was terribly wrong.

The movie had been filmed in the small west Texas town of Marfa and after months of back breaking work, the film was finished and ready for editing.

The projector room was dark when suddenly the phone rang. The screen came to a halt, freezing the picture. Lights went up.

Everyone turned and looked at him, telephone dangling in his hand. The Director looked like he had seen a ghost, his skin had changed colors right before their eyes. Slowly he stood up, his voice coming from a place far away when he said, “There’s been a car crash. James Dean has been killed”.

Several hundred miles away, a mangled 1955 Porsche Spyder was hoisted onto a flatbed truck while workers gathered smaller pieces of the vehicle’s remains, a headlight here, a door hinge there. Little did they know, a part of the car was missing.

Someone had taken a piece of the James Dean Porsche Spyder and then disappeared.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Novel or Short Story?
Great story, but it was so short, I felt cheated. A hard cover of this couldn't have run more than 50 pages.

Great Story
I had heard that James Dean's car, the Porsche Spyder, was cursed and this ebook tells the story like none other. The characters were engaging and the story was fun. Uncle Marty was hilarious. Recommend this one to all my friends. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Hometown heroes
A neat idea, visiting the small towns whose famous sons became part of American life: James Dean from Fairmount, Indiana; Ronald Reagan from Dixon, Illinois and Mark Twain from Hannibal, Missouri.As well as the photos there a few pages in the three sections with writings by or about these three, fortunately, though, these don't take up too much space.

I was a bit disappointed with the eighty-eight duotones, especially when compared to Tice's other books.The benchmark for me is Paterson II, a book of stunning photos that has the advantage of printing with 600 screen quad tone (take my word for it, this is unprecedented quality) on incredibly smooth matt art paper (Hello Silk) and not far short of having an actual print in your hands.`Hometowns' is on reasonable paper but the photos are only in 150 screen and it shows.Also many of the street scenes have shadows that tend to pull the detail to a sort of mid-tone grey, basically the photos lack sparkle because of the paper and printing.

Still, the Tice eye for compositions is here.The three towns have street scene detail that he captures so well and I think these are the best photos in the book.The others: landscapes around the towns; interiors and close-ups (Dean's motorcycle, Reagan's 1928 Yearbook for example) sort of fill the pages between the lovely street shots.The book, twelve inches square, does have the advantage of presenting the photos centered on the page with wide margins in the best photo book tradition.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover. ... Read more

Product Description
A Life by the Sea seafood cookbook will help even the most beginner cook understand how to approach such an intimidating subject. The recipes are simplistic but impressive in nature, and most of the preparations are kept to less than 30 minutes. Beautiful photography of prepared dishes makes this the ultimate tool for creating a memorable seafood experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Nice but not South Florida food
I love the words written.
The recipes aren't anything that a South Florida chef would call "local" cuisine. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fascinating comic book
I liked this book much more than Defechereux's coffee table Dean book, From Passion for Speed to Immortality. However, I think I'd need to be more of an expert on Dean's racing exploits to better critique such a book. What I do know about that aspect makes this little book pretty accurate, as far as I can tell, and informative. All of the artwork, the various cars, racing sequences, other people in the story etc are exceptionally well rendered with one exception: most of the drawings of Jimmy himself come off looking like Jean Claude Van Dame, not James Dean. The story of the final day and the accident is very vivid and clear as to what happened and why. The excellent drawings, at least for me, provided better insight and understanding of how events/individuals moved and transpired. Several actual photos of Dean, seperate from the comic book-style story, were new to me, like the rare shot of Jimmy attending a Japanese kendo match with Bill Bast and a lady friend, the night before his death. The author's reverance for Dean photographer Sanford Roth, and fellow Dean enthusiast and Japanese business man, Sieta Ohnishi is obvious and appreciated.I only wish someone else could've rendered James Dean's face in the animated story section...., then it'd be a great little book. However, as it is, it's definitely worth having inone's Dean collection.
Paul Waters

review
The untold story,a passion for speed has revealed for the very first time striking images of a legend that never fades away. In specific details the philippe defechereuxhas reconstructedhis ephemeral journey on earth and finally the tragic accident that took his life at a very prime age. ThruthatJD was perceived at a new angle. Nota reckless driverwho exposedhis own life to danger butan unfortunatevictim caught in a twist offate. He even flagged awarning to careless driver a fewweeks before hisdeath.The talented artwork of illustrator JeanGraton has enhanced theimage of an idol who has captured the world's heart and deep regretlingers. This book is perfect for a tribute toabeloved idol whose legendstays immortal ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Jimmy Bio
This is not my favorite book on Jimmy, nor is it the most exciting, but it is well researched and solid.If you are a huge Jimmy fan like me, you will want to read every book on him you can. So if you find this, add it to your library. ... Read more