James Dean: Fifty Years Ago
Although Stock has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1951 and his work has been collected in numerous books (California Trip;Jazz Street), he remains best known for his unforgettable b&w photographs of Dean, which soared beyond routine celebrity shots. Stock's photo essay inLife, "Moody New Star," attracted attention the same weekEast of Edenopened in 1955, and in the years since, his photos of Dean have resurfaced in magazines, books and exhibitions. Published on the 50th anniversary of Dean's death, this collection of 80 duotones recaptures the few weeks in 1954 Stock spent with the actor in New York and his Fairmount, Ind., hometown before the two flew back to L.A. for the filming ofRebel Without a Cause. Hyams (James Dean: Little Boy Lost) calls the haunting shot of Dean alone in a rainy Times Square "one of the foremost iconic images of the 20th century." A surreal scene at the Fairmount farm shows Dean banging bongo drums for an audience of cows and pigs, and a peek inside an Actors Studio session is a rarity since Lee Strasberg "almost never let anyone photograph his classes." Stock's own brief memoir of his friendship with Dean is well written, evocative and insightful.(Aug.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.