Floyd
Antediluvian
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Also, Dean (and Brando) came before, or were the start of, the 'teenager' as we know it today.
Up until then ,things had been pretty staid really.
Spooky James Dean
- Thread starter KeyserXSoze
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Up until then ,things had been pretty staid really.
escargot
Disciple of Marduk
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Reminds me of what my older sister says about the Beatles; they were so fascinating because at the time there was nothing like them.
Floyd
Antediluvian
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It's amazing how many famous musicians say that it was seeing them on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964 that got them into doing music for a living.
ramonmercado
CyberPunk
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Fred Otash again.
by JASON COLAVITO
Now that The Fixer, Josh Young and Manfred Westphal’s biography of L.A. private eye and fabulist Fred Otash, is out, and its claims about James Dean the subject of a People magazine feature, I can add a new detail to the analysis I provided back in January of the many reasons Otash’s story about catching Dean shoplifting caviar at the Hollywood Ranch Market is a likely fake. Be sure to click the link and read through for the details. The short version is that Otash’s published claim is chronologically confused and reflects incorrect information about Dean that was popularly believed in the 1970s but not before or after.
My initial analysis was based on Otash’s 1976 book Investigation Hollywood!, which was ghostwritten for him, allegedly from his interviews and notes. Young and Westphal have collated the text with what they claim were transcripts of Otash’s field notes used in production of the book. But, in the case of Dean, this only made things worse. In his 1976 book, Otash seemingly placed the events in 1954 or 1955, a time when he knew and recognized Dean as a celebrity. We know this because Otash states that he knew Dean was “some kind of idol” and asserts that he was unwilling to charge Dean with shoplifting because “I don’t want to be the guy that killed Santa Claus,” meaning the person who tarnished Dean’s celebrity image. Dean wasn’t a well-known celebrity until the summer of 1954, when he was 23.
However, when collating Otash’s book with his working notes, Young and Westphal produced a different account. According to them, Otash began moonlighting at the Hollywood Ranch Market grocery store in 1950, during a 60-day suspension from the LAPD for gambling. They claim, somewhat incredulously, that within days he had revolutionized store security by installing five two-way mirrors to catch shoplifters, of which there many, and immediately caught James Dean: ...
https://jasoncolavito.substack.com/p/the-fix-is-in
The Fix Is In
A credulous new biography of private eye Fred Otash makes some dubious claims about the detective's likely fictitious run-in with James Dean.
by JASON COLAVITO
Now that The Fixer, Josh Young and Manfred Westphal’s biography of L.A. private eye and fabulist Fred Otash, is out, and its claims about James Dean the subject of a People magazine feature, I can add a new detail to the analysis I provided back in January of the many reasons Otash’s story about catching Dean shoplifting caviar at the Hollywood Ranch Market is a likely fake. Be sure to click the link and read through for the details. The short version is that Otash’s published claim is chronologically confused and reflects incorrect information about Dean that was popularly believed in the 1970s but not before or after.
My initial analysis was based on Otash’s 1976 book Investigation Hollywood!, which was ghostwritten for him, allegedly from his interviews and notes. Young and Westphal have collated the text with what they claim were transcripts of Otash’s field notes used in production of the book. But, in the case of Dean, this only made things worse. In his 1976 book, Otash seemingly placed the events in 1954 or 1955, a time when he knew and recognized Dean as a celebrity. We know this because Otash states that he knew Dean was “some kind of idol” and asserts that he was unwilling to charge Dean with shoplifting because “I don’t want to be the guy that killed Santa Claus,” meaning the person who tarnished Dean’s celebrity image. Dean wasn’t a well-known celebrity until the summer of 1954, when he was 23.
However, when collating Otash’s book with his working notes, Young and Westphal produced a different account. According to them, Otash began moonlighting at the Hollywood Ranch Market grocery store in 1950, during a 60-day suspension from the LAPD for gambling. They claim, somewhat incredulously, that within days he had revolutionized store security by installing five two-way mirrors to catch shoplifters, of which there many, and immediately caught James Dean: ...
https://jasoncolavito.substack.com/p/the-fix-is-in