Customer Reviews

Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times and Legend of James Dean

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

It's quite frustrating to read all the negative reviews here. Paul Alexander has written other critically acclaimed biographies and from this background there is no reason to believe he was just some lousy reporter interested in writing a badly researched, scandalous tabloid biography, although this is just what some reviewers here wrongly claim.

There are two rather detailed (homo)sexual scenes, and that's all. Of course one wonders how Alexander recreated them (he doesn't list his sources in footnotes and just mentions how he tried to recreate dialogue and scenes through in-depth interviews) but they are in no way the common theme of the book.

Alexander's prose is elegantly clear, empathic and evocative. What seems to annoy some reviewers is that he tries to bring to light elements of Dean's life biographies back then (this book was originally published in 1995) - and maybe even today - tried to avoid or probably suppress. From this point of view this is still an informed and reasonably balanced piece of work and in no way the lurid scam it is depicted to be in some reviews here. Some "fans" probably hate their romantic myths about Dean shattered or are too uncomfortable with homosexuality to see it mentioned in a James Dean biography.

What is strange, though, is the fact that the recently published book by Willam Bast, which probably deals more with Dean's (homo)sexuality than Alexander's book, doesn't get as many negative reviews as this book here. Maybe times have changed.

Anyway, I think there is no such thing as "the" James Dean biography. If you want to seriously know more about him you should read several biographies to get to know different points of view. But Paul Alexander's work should not be missed.

This book can best be described as "lurid," with a sort of "oh, wow" attitude. It venerates Dean at the same time that it wants to cut him down to a common street hustler. Alexander is a terrible writer. His style is choppy and he often uses the wrong everyday word. Also, some of his facts are wrong, such as having Dean and friends hitchhike to Indiana via Des Moines. Not even a badly-educated actor would do that! The reader will find this startling at times but not very informative

I knew pratically nothing about James Dean's life besides he was hot, so this book was very insighting and throughly shocking when Alexander continously arises questions on Dean's sexuality. Some of the scenes are so descriptive that its easy to concluded that most likely the author's own amourous feelings towards Dean most likely plays a role in the writing of this book.

Oh, NAKED PIC OF JAMES DEAN IN THE BOOK!!!!!!!!! :o) FOR THAT IT GETS 5 STARS ALONE!! lol

Alexander attempts to pass speculation off as fact, assumption off as research, and pages of garbage off as a book. The sole focal points of this wretched attempt at biography are to "out" Dean as gay, deify his mother, vilify his father, and that's pretty much it. Subtitling it, "The Life, Times and Legend of James Dean" is a joke, since I learned more about Alexander than the movie icon. It's one thing to be interested in the sexuality of others, and another to desperately twist and grasp at whatever is available to prove an unprovable point. Alexander is obsessed in a childish, amateur way.

Where were Penguin and its editors in the process of bringing this book to market? Alexander's writing style is torturous. Unsubstantiated stories are disguised as fact without any backup whatsoever. The word "seems" appears too many times to count. Comma abuse abounds, as do poor grammar and sentence structure. It is an excruciating, arduous read.

So sit down, grab a nice cup of coffee and a good book, and use this one as kindling.

This book should fall to the bottom of any list of James Dean biographies. Not because the book is bad, but because it is unresearched. Alexander makes claims that cannot be proven and doesn't even attempt to prove them. He takes the word of anyone who claims Dean was homosexual and disregards everyone else. Dizzy (Liz) Sheridan who wrote in her own autobiography of her relationship with Dean is given little time and Alexander claims she was only a platonic friend. (I wonder what she has to say about that). Dean's romantic relationships with women, most notably Pier Angeli and Ursula Andress are explained as coverups created by the studio to hide his homosexual lifestyle. Alexander needs to take a good look at some of the Dean-Angeli photos that exist out there because it's hard to believe they weren't truly in love. I for one don't care if Dean was gay, straight, both, neither, etc. etc. etc. but Alexander needs to prove whatever he is trying to say. Also he will spend two pages describing every thought and feeling Dean had during a few hours when he was alone. I guess Alexander is Dean reincarnated. If you want an unresearched, undocumented, unproven history on the life of James Dean and you are eager to delve into the homosexual nature of his bisexuality then go for it, just be ready to be disappointed.

I've read several James Dean books and this is by far the worst book on the actor I've ever read in terms of its content and style. It seems to me that the author was on a mission to "prove" that James Dean was gay. However, there's a lot of conjecture in the book, making his work highly suspect. People who KNEW James Dean considered Dean experimental or bisexual. The emphasis and vulgar description on Dean's purported homosexual affairs is written like a trashy gay novel. Much of the rest of the information in this book is common knowledge to any Dean fan.

For great books on James Dean's life, I recommend John Gilmore's "Live Fast-Die Young: My Life With James Dean" and Jay Hyams "James Dean: Little Boy Lost"

Paul Alexander came up with a very clever angle to sell his cut and paste bio of James Dean - Alexander would dwell on Dean's sex life, asserting that Dean was primarily homosexual in his inclinations but had some relationships with women to camouflage his real sexual identity. The problem is that Alexander has the loosest standard of what constitutes proof, demonstrated by his publishing a fuzzy picture of a young man sitting in a tree, exposing himself, which Alexander claims is Dean. It isn't, as Donald Spoto documents in a footnote in his book Rebel. Alexander grabs anything he can to make his case, speculates on one page, then treats his own speculation as fact later on. Some of the most salacious stories come from unnamed sources. Alexander completely ignores Dean's well-documented sexual relationships with Dizzy Sheridan, Barbara Glenn, and actresses Betsy Palmer, Lili Kardell and Arlene Sachs.

There is nothing new or insightful about Dean's film, television, or theater roles here. Alexander says he spent hours interviewing John Gilmore, which shows that Alexander was desperately fishing for sex stories from Gilmore, who claims to have indulged in some sexual experimentation with Dean. Alexander shows no such zeal in pursuing original, deep research into other aspects of Dean's life.

I would highly recommend Val Holley's James Dean: The Biography instead.

I've only recently become interested in James Dean. a week ago in fact. So I went out and bought this book, the only book on James Dean stocked at Waterstones in London, Picadilly.

I found the book mostly very interesting, extremely well written and well paced. I will, however, bring up two aspects that made me go 'meh', and lose a little trust in the author.

Firstly, the author occasionally chooses to include dialog within the narrative. One page of dialog, when Jimmy is talking to his friend on a bus, comes to mind. Whilst it says at the beginning of the book that none of the dialog is imagined, I couldn't help but question its authenticity. The writer even goes as far as to identify pauses and breaths in the speech, which got on my nerves from time to time.

The second thing that made me question the truthfulness of the biography was the author's extremely in-depth descriptions of Jimmy having sex. The only way the author could possibly back up the detail he has drawn out in the various sexual encounters of Jimmy's life is if he had actually been there at the end of the bed, taking notes. I urge you not to mistake my criticism for a simple reaction of disgust or offence, for I feel neither of these; that would just be silly and immature.

Here is a tiny extract as an example: "Jimmy's erection was huge, he wanted Jonathan so badly. Next, Jimmy had Jonathan lie down on his stomach on the bed. His pale skin looked even whiter in the room's darkness." - I mean, really. How could the writer possibly know the intricate series of events that amounted to Jimmy and Jonathan having sex. It just made me go 'meh' really. Just 'meh'. While I appreciate that he may have wanted to set a mood, I don't like the way the writer tells us that Jonathan's pale skin looked even whiter in the room's darkness... I mean, come on. He's no more qualified to state that fact than I am to tell you that the Queen of England looked rather off color as she brushed her teeth last night. And, by the way, I have researched Jonathan (one of Jimmy's boyfriends in the book) and have found no record of him talking to the writer or any other media source about how his body looked in the dark of the room or how Jimmy laid him down on his stomach. And why should I? I can't see that coming out in a candid, jovial chat on Letterman.

It's simply the writer's over confidence and clear desire to write a fiction book as soon as he's finished that tarnishes an otherwise fascinating, well written biography. I would still recommend you buy the book... just skip over the dialog and take the sex scenes with a pinch of salt.

This is a horrible biography of James Dean. I didn't feel like I could believe half of the stuff that was written. I would not recommend that anyone read this. Especially if you are new to James Dean..do not start with this!!

Honestly, the book isn't as bad as the others have said about it. I'll admit at times the book was getting too graphic in some of the descriptions of Dean's sexual life, but I wouldn't consider Alexander's portrayal of Dean's enigmatic lifestyle as being tastelessly done. Since Dean's death and his past encounters with the various people mentioned in the book remain a mystery, you should judge for yourself whether or not the book is factual. Overall, it was a really fast read and I recommend this book if you want to read up more on the tragedy of James Dean.