cigarettes and a squint

As I may have mentioned before James Dean is one of the few truly great icons of the 20th Century. The actor come photographer come racing driver had indelible style and you'll struggle to find an image of Dean where he is looking anything less than.. well.. iconic. This is partly because Dean died before he was 25, leaving him no time to make a bad film or get fat or develop a penchant for tracksuits, and partly due to the great marketing job that was done for his image and films. Nonetheless there is no cigarette smoke without fire and marketing job or not Dean looks phenomenal on the screen and in print. He had a roguesque charm that was rough yet not scruffy, you can't imagine Dean in a suit yet you can't imagine him being turned away for dress code. Whether true or not you get a feeling that Dean didn't think too much about his look, it just sort of came together for him- the cigarettes, the squint, loose shirts and work boots. It's entirely possible that he had a personal stylist preening him into this carefree look, however I like to think that a man with that much charisma was capable of simply being that shit hot.







Dean also adds weight to the argument that to become an icon you have to do three things brilliantly then die. Kurt Cobain and Bruce Lee both followed the formula and Marlon Brando wishes he did. Instead Brando got fat and left an ugly corpse and unfortunately despite his younger days being studded with glittering performances he will always be remembered as the chubby, slurring Don Vito or the fat, reclusive Kurtz. So kids if you truly want to become iconic make three brilliant albumns/films/art works and then die, we're all waiting for Pete Doherty to.