New Plaza Cinema will screen Rebel Without A Cause on Sunday, December 29th at 4:45pm, followed by a Talk Back with director Nicholas Ray's daughter Nikki, filmmaker Brian Vincent (Make Me Famous and an upcoming documentary on James Dean), and historian/author Foster Hirsch ("Hollywood Movies of the Fifties").
Brian and wife/co-producer Heather Spore are currently in production on their Dean doc, aiming to reclaim the Hollywood icon as a New Yorker with a devotion to art. A longtime resident of the Upper West Side, Dean kept an apartment at 19 West 68th Street (one block from New Plaza) until his untimely death in 1955. Along with acting, Dean was devoted to the fine arts, sketching, sculpting and snapping photographs during his short life.
In 1953, New York City was home to live TV; on any given week there were dozens of television shows in need of actors. James Dean acted in nearly 30 of these TV shows. He also became the youngest member ever admitted to the Actor's Studio and starred in two Broadway shows. All of this led to Elia Kazan, with carte blanche in casting decisions, to choose him for Cal in East of Eden.
Said Dean: "I decided to move to New York. Every actor I cared about, Brando, Clift, even Whitmore, all worked in New York. New York was big and lonely. I loved it. I was dead broke, didn't matter, cause I was home."