DEAN JAMES: (1931-1955) Lot n° 734

DEAN JAMES: (1931-1955) American actor, an Academy Award nominee (the only actor to have been nominated posthumously twice). An excellent A.L.S., Jim (twice), two pages, slim 4to, n.p. (Burbank, California), n.d. (19th May 1954), to his girlfriend Miss. Barbara Glenn ( ´Darling´). Dean commences his letter with potentially heart-breaking lines, ´I haven´t written because I have fallen in love. It had to happen sooner or later´, although immediately reveals the subject of his affection, ´It´s not a very good picture of him, but that´s "Cisco the Kid", the new member of the family´ and explains ´He gives me confidence. He makes my hands and my heart strong. He´s a very spirited horse but well trained. That´s my trainer in the picture. Throughbred (sic) Palomino (black main (sic) and tail)......He shakes hands and everything. May use him in the movie´, Dean continues to write in a more personal vein, ´I´m very lonely. Your card smelled so good, please don´t do that (dirty tricks, I´m still a Calif-virgen. I hate this place. [Elia] Kazan and everybody but Cisco can go fuck themselves. Don´t call because I haven´t got a place of my own yet. Just keep writting (sic) Honey those are the nicest, sweetest letters in the world. Oh, the terrible doubts an artist is given to!´ and also reveals ´I miss the souls of good men and bad men´, before concluding by inviting Glenn to come and see him sometime and remarking ´There´s not much we can say on the phone´. In a signed postscript Dean asks to have the photograph returned, adding ´By that time I will have had some good ones taken´. Accompanied by the original envelope hand addressed by Dean. Together with the original 3 x 5 photograph of Cisco the Kid referred to by Dean in his letter, the image depicting the handsome horse standing in a field with his trainer crouched alongside. A wonderful, personal love letter from Dean to his girlfriend, displaying a number of the actor´s personality traits and emotions from his tongue in cheek sense of humour to his tenderness and loneliness, although also demonstrating his youthful, rebellious nature, particularly towards the director Elia Kazan. Autograph letters of Dean are of the utmost rarity and the present example is written at a particularly significant moment in the actor's brief career. A few very light, extremely minor creases to the letter and the photograph with a couple of vertical surface creases and some minor staining to the white borders. G to VG, 2 Dean´s letter is written just over a month after the actor left New York City for California, having been cast by Elia Kazan in his lead film debut as Cal Trask in East of Eden , an adaptation of John Steinbeck´s novel of the same title. East of Eden was the only film starring Dean released in his lifetime and the actor was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. It is understood that Barbara Glenn was first introduced to Dean in New York by their mutual friend the actor Martin Landau in late 1940s/early 1950s. Dean and Glenn's romantic relationship was believed to be an intense one involving multiple break-ups and reconciliations, and represented Glenn's first serious, mature relationship.