Death of James Dean

Racing career background

Dean Jeffries, who had a paint shop next to George Barris | Barris, did the customizing work which consisted of: painting '130' in black non-permanent paint on the front hood, doors and rear deck lid. He also painted "Little Bastard" in script across the rear cowling. The red leather bucket seats and red tail stripes were original. The tail stripes were painted by the Stuttgart factory, which was customary on the Spyders for racing ID.

Car crash

On September 30, 1955, Dean and his Porsche factory-trained mechanic, Rolf Wütherich, were at Competition Motors in Hollywood preparing the "Little Bastard" for the weekend sports car races at Salinas. Dean originally intended to tow the Porsche behind his Ford station wagon, driven by Hickman and accompanied by professional photographer Sanford H. Roth, who was planning a photo story of Dean at the races for Collier's magazine. Because the Spyder did not have enough "break-in" miles prior to the race, Wütherich recommended that Dean drive it to Salinas to get more "seat time" behind the wheel. The group had coffee and doughnuts at the Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine Street across from Competition Motors before leaving around 1:15 p.m. PST. They stopped for gas at a Mobil station on Ventura Blvd. at Beverly Glen Blvd. in Sherman Oaks around 2:00 p.m. The group then headed north on the Golden State Freeway and then over the "Grapevine" toward Bakersfield.
At 3:30 p.m., Dean was stopped by California Highway Patrolman O.V. Hunter at Mettler Station on Wheeler Ridge, just south of Bakersfield, for driving in a zone. Hickman, following the Spyder in the Ford with the trailer, was also ticketed for driving over the limit, as the speed limit for all vehicles towing a trailer was. After receiving the citations, Dean and Hickman turned left onto SR 166/33 to avoid going through Bakersfield's slow downtown district. SR 166/33 was a known short-cut for sports car drivers going to Salinas, called "the racer's road", which took them directly to Blackwells Corner at U.S. Route 466. At Blackwells Corner, Dean stopped briefly for refreshments and met up with fellow racers Lance Reventlow and Bruce Kessler, who were also on their way to Salinas in Reventlow's Mercedes-Benz 300 SL coupe. As Reventlow and Kessler were leaving, they all agreed to meet for dinner in Paso Robles.
At approximately 5:15 p.m., Dean and Hickman left Blackwells Corner, driving west on Route 466 toward Paso Robles, approximately away. Dean accelerated in the "Little Bastard" and left the Ford station wagon far behind. Further along on Route 466, the Porsche crested Polonio Pass and headed down the long Antelope Grade, passing cars along the way toward the junction of Route 466 and Route 41. At approximately 5:45 p.m., a black-and-white 1950 Ford Tudor driven at high speed was headed east on Route 466 just west of the junction near Shandon. Its driver, 23-year-old US Navy veteran and Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, made a left turn onto Route 41 headed north, toward Fresno. As Turnupseed's Ford crossed over the center line, Dean apparently tried to steer the Spyder in a "side stepping" racing maneuver, but with insufficient time and space, the two cars collided almost head-on. A witness, John Robert White, reportedly saw the Spyder smash into the ground two or three times in cartwheels, and landing in a gully beside the shoulder of the road, northwest of the junction. The velocity of the impact sent the much-heavier Ford broad-sliding down Route 466 in the opposing lane. The collision was witnessed by several passersby who stopped to help. A woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse in his neck, but according to the woman, "death appeared to have been instantaneous".
California Highway Patrol Captain Ernest Tripke and his partner, Corporal Ronald Nelson were called to the scene. Before Tripke and Nelson arrived, Dean had been extricated from the Spyder's mangled cockpit, his left foot having been crushed between the clutch and brake pedal. He was severely injured as his vehicle took the brunt of the crash, suffering a broken neck and massive internal and external injuries. Nelson witnessed an unconscious and dying Dean being placed into an ambulance, and a barely conscious Wütherich, who had been thrown from the Spyder, lying on the shoulder of the road next to the wrecked vehicle. Dean and Wütherich were taken in the same ambulance to the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, away. Dean was pronounced dead on arrival at 6:20 p.m. by the attending emergency room physician, Dr. Robert Bossert. The cause of death listed on James Dean's death certificate is listed as a broken neck, multiple fractures of the upper and lower jaw, both right and left arms broken, and internal injuries. Warren Beath wrote that Dean had died in the arms of his friend, Bill Hickman. Despite reports of Dean's speed being around, Nelson estimated that the actual speed was around, based on the wreckage and position of Dean's body.
Wütherich survived with a broken jaw and serious hip and femur injuries that required immediate surgery. Turnupseed was only slightly injured with facial bruises and a bloodied nose. After being interviewed by the CHP, Turnupseed hitch-hiked in the dark to his home in Tulare. Hickman and Roth arrived at the scene approximately ten minutes after the crash. Hickman assisted in extricating Dean from the wreckage. Roth took photographs of the crash scene later acquired by Seita Ohnishi, a retired Japanese businessman who erected a memorial near the site.
Some sources give Dean's last known words — uttered right before the impact when Wütherich told Dean to slow down as the Ford Tudor pulled into their lane — as, "That guy's gotta stop ... He'll see us". Raskin believes that any report about Dean and Wütherich communicating prior to the crash is pure conjecture. According to the coroner's deposition taken of Wütherich in the hospital, and later in a 1960 interview given to an official Porsche magazine, Christophorus, he could not recall any of the exact moments leading up to and after the crash.

Inquest and aftermath

The official sheriff-coroner called for an inquest, held at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo on October 11, 1955, where Turnupseed told the jury that he did not see the low-profile Spyder until after he was turning left onto Route 41. After other testimony by the CHP and witnesses, the coroner's jury came back with a verdict of "accidental death with no criminal intent", finding Turnupseed not guilty of any contributory wrongdoing in the death of Dean.
Although not charged with any offense, Turnupseed had nevertheless been dealt a devastating blow that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He granted just one interview to the Tulare Advance-Register newspaper immediately following the crash, but after that he refused to speak publicly about it. Turnupseed went on to own and operate a very successful family electrical contracting business in Tulare. He died at the age of 63 from lung cancer in 1995.
Wütherich, after having several complicated surgeries on his hip and femur, went back to West Germany in 1957 with psychological and legal problems. He worked for Porsche's testing department and international rally and racing teams during the 1960s. He died in July 1981, in Kupferzell, West Germany, in another auto collision when he lost control of his car and crashed into a residence. Like Dean, Wütherich had to be extricated from the wreck and died at the scene. He was 53 years old.
While filming Giant, Dean also filmed a short public service announcement with actor Gig Young for the National Safety Council. It featured Dean dressed as the young "Jett Rink" talking about how driving fast on the highway can be more dangerous than racing on the track. At the end of the segment, instead of saying the catchphrase "The life you save may be your own", Dean ad-libbed the line "The life you might save might be mine".

Funeral and memorial

Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal the severe injuries to his upper torso and face. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside the church during the procession. Dean's body is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, less than a mile from where he grew up on his aunt and uncle's farm.
In 1977, a memorial to Dean was erected in Cholame, California. The stylized sculpture is composed of stainless steel around a tree of heaven growing in front of the former Cholame post office building. The sculpture was designed in Japan and transported to Cholame, accompanied by the project's benefactor, the aforementioned Seita Ohnishi of Kobe. Ohnishi chose the site after examining the location of the crash scene less than a mile away. The original Highway 41 and 46 junction where the collision occurred is now a pasture, and the two roadways were realigned over the decades to make them safer. On September 30, 2005, the junction at Highways 46 and 41 was dedicated as the James Dean Memorial Junction as part of the State of California's official commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death.
The dates and hours of Dean's birth and death are etched into the sculpture, along with a handwritten description by Dean's friend William Bast of one of Dean's favorite lines from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince: "What is essential is invisible to the eye." It also includes an infinity symbol next to the date of his death, showing that he will never be forgotten.
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"Curse" of Dean's car

The "curse" of James Dean's car, the "Little Bastard", has become part of America's cultural mythology. Warren Beath, a James Dean archivist and author, believes the source of the myth is George Barris, the self-described "King of the Kustomizers", who says he was the first to purchase the wrecked car. Barris promoted the "curse" after he placed the wreck on public display in 1956. Over the years, Barris described a mysterious series of accidents, not all of them car crashes, that occurred from 1956 to 1960 involving the "Little Bastard", resulting in serious injuries to spectators and even a truck driver's death. Raskin states many claims regarding the "curse" appear to have been based on Barris' 1974 book, Cars of the Stars.
Raskin's 2005 book James Dean: At Speed states that the wrecked Spyder was declared as a total loss by the insurance company, which paid Dean's father, Winton, the fair market value as a settlement. The insurance company, in turn, through a salvage yard in Burbank, sold the Spyder to a Dr. William F. Eschrich. Eschrich, who had competed against Dean in his own sports car at three race events during 1955, dismantled the engine and mechanical parts and installed the Porsche 4-cam engine in his Lotus IX race car chassis. Eschrich then raced the Porsche-powered Lotus, which he called a "Potus", at seven California Sports Car Club events during 1956. At the Pomona Sports Car Races on October 21, 1956, Eschrich, driving this car, was involved in a minor "shunt" with another driver.
Barris' Cars of the Stars states that a Dr. McHenry, "driving a car powered by the engine from Dean's car, was killed when his vehicle went out of control and struck a tree in the first race in which the motor had been used since Dean's mishap. Another doctor, of Burbank, was injured in the same race when his car, which contained the drivetrain from Dean's car, rolled over." Eschrich, interviewed a day after McHenry's fatal crash, said he had loaned the Dean transmission and several other parts to McHenry: "I don't believe he was using the transmission when he crashed, but he was using the back swinging arms which holds the rear end." McHenry appears to have the distinction of being the only bona fide victim of the "curse".
Raskin states that although Barris may have customized several cars for Rebel Without a Cause, he never customized any of Dean's personal cars and neither of his Porsches. Lew Bracker, Dean's best friend in Los Angeles and fellow Porsche racer, maintains that Barris was not involved with Dean's racing activities; he was never considered to be part of Dean's "inner circle" invited to go to Salinas on September 30, 1955. It is not known exactly how Barris knew Eschrich, but he was given the Spyder's mangled body after Eschrich had stripped out the Porsche. In 1956, Barris announced that he was going to rebuild the "Little Bastard", but that proved to be a Herculean task as the wrecked chassis had no remaining integral strength. Instead, Barris decided to weld aluminum sheet metal over the caved-in left front fender and cockpit area. He proceeded to beat on the aluminum panels with a 2x4 to try to simulate what would appear to be collision damage. Later in 1956, Barris loaned out the "Little Bastard" to the Los Angeles chapter of the National Safety Council for a local rod and custom car show. The gruesome display was promoted as: "James Dean's Last Sports Car". During 1957–1959, the exhibit was toured in various rod and custom car shows, movie theatres, bowling alleys, and highway safety displays throughout California.
There are a few stories associated with the "curse" that can be corroborated. For example, a wire service story on March 12, 1959, reported that the "Little Bastard", temporarily stored in a garage at 3158 Hamilton Avenue in Fresno, caught fire "awaiting display as a safety exhibit in a coming sports and custom automobile show". However, on May 12, 1959, The Fresno Bee, reported that the fire occurred on the night of March 11 and only slight damage occurred to the Spyder without any damage to other cars or property in the garage. No one was injured: "The cause of the fire is unknown. It burned two tires and scorched the paint on the vehicle." Later that year, the "Little Bastard" toured national auto shows and traffic safety exhibitions. Legend also holds that the "Little Bastard" mysteriously disappeared in 1960. According to Barris, the Spyder was returning from a traffic safety exhibit in Florida in a sealed truck. In Barris' book and in many TV interviews, he said the "Little Bastard" was being shipped back in a sealed boxcar. When the train arrived in Los Angeles, Barris said he signed the manifest and verified that the seal was intact—but the boxcar was empty.
Raskin believes that Barris' "Little Bastard" side show had lost its fan appeal just as the 1960s pop culture began to focus on "big block" Muscle Cars. Raskin also believes that Barris opted to misplace the "Little Bastard". The mysterious disappearance stories were Barris' way of perpetuating the Dean myth, especially on the milestone anniversaries of Dean's death.
Although the legendary "Little Bastard" seemingly has disappeared from sight, Historic Auto Attractions in Roscoe, Illinois, claims to have an original piece of Dean's Spyder on display that was pried off and stolen from an area near the broken windscreen while the Spyder was being stored in the Cholame Garage following the crash. Also, in 2005, for the 50th anniversary of Dean's death, the Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois, announced they were displaying what was purported to be the passenger door of the "Little Bastard". Volo and Barris offered $1,000,000 to anyone who could prove that they owned the remains of the "Little Bastard". No one came forth to claim the prize.
The 4-Cam Porsche engine, along with the original California Owner's Registration listing the engine number, is still in the possession of the family of the late Dr. Eschrich. The Porsche's transaxle assembly, is currently owned by Porsche collector and restorer Jack Styles in Massachusetts. Raskin originally documented and published all the serial numbers for the Spyder ; as well as for his 356 Super Speedster. To date, neither of Dean's Porsches have been located.

Documentary

On February 15, 2009, all three of the California Highway Patrol officers who dealt with Dean on the day of his death — Officer Otie Hunter, who ticketed Dean for speeding, and Officers Ernie Tripke and Ronald Nelson, who investigated the fatal crash — participated and shared their memories of that fateful day in an SCVTV documentary titled The Stuff of Legend: James Dean's Final Ride, co-produced by the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.

Citations