The manner of Dean's death has become as much a part of his legend as his bright red jacket and the cigarette that always seemed to be hanging limply from his lips. In the months before his demise, Dean had become obsessed with automobile racing and was quickly becoming proficient at the sport. In order to increase his chances of winning in upcoming races, Dean purchased a new Porsche Spyder for $3700 just weeks before his death. This silver roadster, which Dean had customized with the number 130 painted on the doors (the significance of which is unknown) and the words “Little Bastard” painted on the back, would become the instrument of the young actor's death. But was the car itself cursed? And did some of Dean's friends and associates sense the automobile's deadly potential?

In their book LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG: THE WILD RIDE OF MAKING REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, authors Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote:

“Over the years, as Dean's final days became shrouded in myth, a number of people would come forward o say that they sensed something ominous about the car. Dean's friends Eartha Kitt... and Ursula Andress both claim to have had eerie premonitions about the Spyder. Perhaps the oddest encounter with the automobile occurred when Dean was having dinner with Lew Bracker at the Villa Capri a week before he died. British actor Alec Guinness, spending his first night in Hollywood, walked in and, seeing no free tables, walked out again. Dean noticed Guinness and ran out after him, offering him a seat at his table. Before they went back in, Dean showed him his new car. Guinness would later write in his autobiography that when he saw the Spyder, “I heard myself saying in a voice I would hardly recognize as my own, 'Please never get in it.' I looked at my watch. 'It is now ten o'clock, Friday the 23rd of September 1955. If you get in that car you will be found dead in it by this time next week.'” Of Guinness's Obi-Wan Kenobi-like premonition Bracker says, “It's absolutely true. When Guinness came back he was ashen.” [p. 232]

The prophecy was fulfilled on September 30, 1955, when Dean ran head-on into a 1950 Ford driver by a college student named Donald Turnupseed. His now infamous last words, as remembered by his mechanic Rolf Wutherich who was riding shotgun, were “That guy up there's gotta stop. He'll see us.”

Although both Wutherich and Turnupseed escaped the impact with relatively minor injuries, Dean was killed immediately, his head and chest caved in by the force of the crash. The Porsche was smashed in a twisted lump of silver metal.

The Greater Los Angeles Safety Council trotted the car wreckage around as part of a morbid public service campaign to encourage people to drive safely. The wreck disappeared in 1958 under mysterious circumstances and has not been seen since.

THE DEAN DEATH PHOTOS
When James Dean met his fate on a rural road in 1955, there were four witnesses: his mechanic Rolf Wutherich; the driver of the other car Donald Turnupseed; stunt driver Bill Hickman; and photographer Sanford Roth. The latter two were following behind Dean and Wutherich in a station wagon when they saw Dean's silver Porsche Spyder smash into Turnupseed's Ford. By the time Hickman and Sanford had stopped their own car and ran to help, Dean was drawing his last breath. Sanford immediately began snapping photos of the crash site, including close ups of the mangled actor, but to this day not a single image has ever been seen. Sanford confessed to creating the images up until his death in 1962, but told friends that he would never make them public because they were so grotesque. Since no trace of the photos have ever been found, it is widely assumed that Roth destroyed them prior to his death.

A HAUNTING FOR JAMES DEAN? HOW ABOUT SEVERAL?
There are several Hollywood personalities who are in eternally high demand for ghostly appearances. James Dean is certainly one of them. In fact, there are at least three different venues he has been said to haunt over the years, with the first being the same cursed sports car in which he died. In fact, the curse seemed to continue long after Dean's death and as the Porsche toured the country as part of a macabre display on auto safety tragedy was close behind. The warehouse in which the car was stored burned to the ground, but miraculously the “Little Bastard” received no additional damaged. Later, the car fell off its display platform and broke an onlooker's leg. Some of those who viewed the car later whispered about an eerie presence that seemed to hang over the wreck. Perhaps the “Little Bastard's” mischievous nature appealed to Dean's spirit.

Other locales for Dean's ghost have been the Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana, where the actor is buried; and a large tree near the intersection of Highways 41 and 466 outside of Cholame, California. Fairmount is an annual pilgrimage site for thousands of Dean devotees. The local museum has an amazing repository of the actor's artifacts and the James Dean Festival runs every September. Many of the visiting fans claim to have felt Dean's presence lingering around the simply grave, but no one has yet to produce any tangible evidence of the alleged haunting. Motorists make similar claims about the intersection where Dean died. There are persistent stories here of ghostly headlights that cruise the area at high speeds, presumably Dean recreating his fatal last ride.

[This information was originally transmitted as an enewsletter on September 20, 2006.]