Hometown with a Cause

Fairmount, Ind. (pop. 2,992), boasts more than its fair share of famous former residents, including Garfield creator Jim Davis, CBS national news commentator Phil Jones and Robert C. Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Service.

But none of them influenced popular culture like actor James Dean, who starred in film classics such as East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, then died at age 24 in a California car crash nearly 51 years ago, on Sept. 30, 1955. At the time of his death, he'd been pegged as a Hollywood leading man in-the-making; afterward, he ascended to the status of a live-fast, die-young American icon—a "rebel” on a motorcycle, or in a hot rod convertible, headed toward the horizon and setting his own course.

Each year, Dean's hometown honors his legacy with the Fairmount Museum Days/Remembering James Dean festival, sponsored by the Fairmount Historical Museum. On Sept. 21-24, nearly 50,000 fans are expected to swell the streets of the Hoosier town where Dean spent his formative years, though he actually was born in Marion, Ind.

Fairmount has grown—slightly—in the years since Dean walked its streets. It now boasts a "Giant” bar (festooned with a mural of Dean), as well as a supermarket, two gas stations, two banks and a laundromat. But the town is mostly unchanged from the days when photographer Dennis Stock took his now-famous pictures of a brooding Dean at home in Indiana. And fans wouldn't have it any other way.

"I think it amazes most of us that (fans) do come each year, that this has lasted,” says Melba Root, president of the Fairmount Town Council. "And a lot of them come back because they just like this regular, little, early American town.”

They also like to pore over the Dean exhibit at the museum, which is the world's largest repository of the actor's personal belongings, including his motorcycles, boots, bongo drum, letters to his family, and several pieces of Dean's artwork as both a student at Fairmount High School (class of 1949) and shortly before his death.

Museum president Gale Hikade says the actor probably wouldn't know what to make of the festivities in his name. "I think he'd have a big grin on, just put his head down and shake it the way he did in the movies when he didn't have anything to say but still wanted to say something,” Hikade says. "I think he'd get a big bang out of it.”

Chances are, the actor also would get a kick out of fans who enter the James Dean look-alike contests (one for kids, another for adults), watch the James Dean Rod Run of vintage cars, attend a memorial service at the Back Creek Friends Meeting Quaker church that Dean attended as a boy, and visit his grave at Park Cemetery outside of town, where hyper-zealous pilgrims—known as "Deaners” by local police—have stolen his pink granite tombstone three times. Often, luminaries such as actor Martin Sheen or singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright attend.

Phil Zeigler first came to Fairmount to pay homage to his hero in 1977. He is now 75, the same age Dean would be had he lived. A city dweller all his life, Zeigler was so struck by Fairmount's quiet, laid-back atmosphere and friendly people that he began visiting each year beginning in 1983. In 1996, he moved to Fairmount after retiring as an optometrist in York, Pa. Today, Zeigler lives in the house once occupied by Dean's father next to the family farm north of town in Jonesboro (pop. 1,887). He earned that privilege by striking up a friendship with Dean's first cousin, Marcus Winslow Jr., who grew up with the film star-to-be.

"I told him when I retired I wanted to move out here, and he said, ‘Well, we'll see if we can't find a place for you,'” Zeigler recalls. Now he helps Winslow and members of the museum staff organize the town's annual events in memory of its most famous citizen.

"I think it will go on forever,” Root says. As long as there are movies and people who love them, she says, "they'll come. And we'll be glad to see 'em.”

Visit www.jamesdeanartifacts.com for more information.

Alanna Nash, a contributor to American Profile, lives in Louisville, Ky.

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