Customer Reviews

Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean: A Love Story

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book clearly deserves many more than five stars! It is one of the best books I have read in many years.

Romantic novels and love stories are not my first choice for fiction, usually because the authors cannot carry off the stories in effective ways. To enjoy these novels and plays, you usually have to overlay your own sense of romance . . . because the authors don't provide enough of their own.

Imagine my pleasure when I found this "true" romance that exceeds all but a handful of fictional ones. What a great treat!

"A long time ago . . . I fell in love with Jimmy Dean and he fell in love with me." You can see the fairy tale quality of the book in this simple sentence. What woman who felt a closeness to James Dean can help but be attracted by this opening? Liz Sheridan has the great gift of being a romantic person, and of being able to write about that perspective in a way that brings the reader into the relationship.

As a man who admired James Dean's acting, I was curious to learn more about his life as an aspiring actor and was greatly rewarded. Dean was even more interesting in real life than he was on the stage and screen.

Together, Liz (Dizzy) Sheridan and James (Jimmy) Dean were unbelievably alive and in love . . . in a way that almost anyone can admire and perhaps even envy a bit. "It was 1951, and he hadn't yet become James Dean, public property . . . the Rebel, the Icon." They would sing corny songs together, split a beer and talk until the bar closed, and dance down the streets like Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain. Two talented theatrical people were always on-stage with each other, finishing each other's lines and hugging with laughter.

They had almost no money, and met by accident while Dean was waiting to get some food from a new friend in Dizzy's chaperoned boarding house. Dean borrowed her umbrella, probably to have an excuse to see her again the next day. Within hours, they were inseparable. The physical, emotional, and psychic bonds were powerful. "He was shy and broke and he mumbled. And I adored him." In fact, one of the charms of the book is that it portrays the transforming power of love. Dizzy's emotional and financial support meant a lot to Dean at a time when he was prey to those who wanted to exploit him, and he went to unsuccessful audition after unsuccessful audition.

Dizzy was a dancer, who often appeared in an Apache trio. She has a kinesthetic and open approach to everything, which made her a perfect fit for Dean. Whatever mood came over him, she was ready . . . whether this was becoming lovers, dropping everything to hitchhike to Indiana, or scraping up the money to move in together. "Someone needs to remember the Jimmy who was warm and fuzzy, sweet and polite, and capable of profound love."

Dizzy has to speak for them both, because Dean was dead in four years after a brief, but spectacular career that would leave him as one of the central performing legends of the 20th century. In doing so, she is writing a "duet for one."

But a duet for one was perhaps unavoidable because Dean was so shy. But, "his shyness was irresistible."

The book is full of romantic sequences, like practicing bullfighting with each other (Dean was the matador and Dizzy was the bull). Dean also liked to sketch, and loved to share his perspectives with Dizzy about the difficulties of capturing an egg perfectly because of the quick way that natural light shifted.

Dean had incredible charm, and you will be thrilled to read how he related to a blind street person and each person in Dizzy's family.

With time, the passion cooled and Dean became obsessed with his career. When he got a role in the play, The Jaguar, all he wanted to do was rehearse. "I just don't have any time for you. I'm working!"

Dizzy handled it about as well as anyone could whose love has grown away from her. The places they used to haunt suddenly didn't seem so beautiful anymore. The poignance of her time in the West Indies is remarkably bittersweet.

One of the last things Dean ever said to her was, "I'll always love you." "And I believed him."

Although her mourning was long and difficult, she eventually came out of it. "I knew Jimmy would be laughing in the stars, just as he always promised."

Get out your hankies, you'll need plenty of them.

After you have finished this wonderful story, think about how you could make your life more romantic.

Be spontaneous and be in love!

I have been a James Dean fan for several years. I was excited to hear about the writing of this book. I liked this book for many reasons. First, it showed James Dean in a new light. It didn't focus on the rebel quality that so many other books do. It gave me a better insight as to what James Dean, the person, was like, rather than the actor. Secondly, it was a beautiful love story. I found the book easy to get caught up in, and hard to put down. I am so thankful that Dizzy shared her story with everyone!! I would recommend this book to all of James Dean's fans, and for anyone who enjoys a good love story!!

Dizzy & Jimmy is Sheridan's memoir of her affair with James Dean, which lasted only about one year and ended just as Dean's career began to gain momentum. The book concentrates on the details of their relationship as seen through Sheridan's rose-tinted memories, whose accuracy are sometimes questionable, as in her recounting of the visit she and Dean made to Dean's gay mentor, Rogers Brackett.

Sheridan barely remembered the encounter when Dean biographer Val Holley interviewed her, but she describes Brackett's building and apartment in detail in her memoir and says he had beige-colored hair. The only problem is that photos of Brackett published in Holley's and Ron Martinetti's books show that he had very dark hair.

This book amounts to a protracted magazine article, padded out with endless scene-setting descriptions and sidebars on Sheridan's mother, sister and father. The section on her post-Dean life in the Bahamas reads like something from a Harlequin romance and is of little interest.

Unless you have to have every Dean-related book, I'd read what Sheridan told Val Holley and Donald Spoto and skip this book.

This is the love story of James Dean and Liz Sheridan (she played Jerry Seinfeld's mother on "Seinfeld.") They met in New York when he was barely scraping by and not yet famous and she a dancer. She was quite a looker with a long ponytail and he was of course scruffy and hunched over with the ever-present cigarette hanging from his lips. I enjoyed reading about their short-lived romance as it shows a side of James Dean that I'm sure he did not reveal to too many people - very sweet and tender. If you are a James Dean fan you will enjoy this book.

I received this book for Christmas and I absolutely love it. I've already read it twice since Christmas.

This is the book for all the James Dean fans out there--young and old. Liz Sheridan writes about the James Dean that no one knew about except Sheridan and Dean. I must say that Sheridan does write about the TRUE James Dean without the limelight that is mentioned in the other books. Sheridan knew Dean for who he was on the inside, not because of his short career.

This story goes by really fast for a love story; I couldn't even put it down! If you want to read one book about James Dean, this one tops them all.

This book is written by the wonderful, funny, and deeply honest Liz "Dizzy" Sheridan. All of these attributes show up in this beautiful, wrenching love story about her time with James Dean. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who wants to read of the joyful glow and searing pain of love affairs, to step into Dizzy's heart, mind, and world--Manhattan in the early 1950s, and to gain unique insight into the real James Dean rather than the icon, who lived fully until his tragic death in 1955, to the beat of his own drummer, letting few others deeply tap that drum along the way. Dizzy was surely one of those few.

I bought this book online because I couldn't wait for it to come to the nearest Borders store. I received it earlier than expected and I was very excited. Elizabeth Sheridan describes to us a man who did not always appear to others the way she knew him. Many other books describe James Dean as being an angry, introverted, and selfish young man. All this may have been true about him, but he also had a sweet side to him which was not always seen. From this book, it is clear that it meant you meant something to him if he expressed his feelings, thoughts, and emotions to you. It portrays a young man who had a sense of humor and who was a hopeless romantic. Reading what Elizabeth Sheridan has said about him shows his fans that he was capable of love and that other books about him aren't 100% true, that he wasn't a cold-hearted person. This is a firsthand account of James, before he became a star and it truly captures the essence of who he was, who he was when he let his guard down and trusted others. By the end of the book, I started to tear up when they parted from each other because I myself wouldn't have been able to do that with someone I loved. I then broke down crying when it described how Sheridan found out about his death. Just reading the words about it made me feel so empty inside, as if I had known him personally, as if he had once been a part of my life. It's as if I had been there. This book is truly a heart-felt account of a misunderstood young man, who in the midst of all things, really wanted to love and be loved. I love this book and whoever reads it shouldn't be disappointed.

Its just love, thats all it is. Its not ment to BE a story about the great James Dean. Its truly about a girl named Dizzy and the boy named Jimmy who she fell in love with. Somehow you can drift into this book and become the characters, you can feel the love, you can remember how it feels to be in that kind of love, where nothing else matters and reality is just something other people talk about. I read this book over and over. I bought it because it was about James Dean and i am a fan. I love it because its about the kinda of love that everyone should get to experience at least once.

I am not alone in believing Elizabeth Sheridan's version of her romance with James Dean is very exaggerated and there are NO pictures of her and Jimmy in the book..another disappointment. Dizzy is mentioned in other James Dean biographies but their relationship was more on a platonic level, as his was with Eartha Kitt. Jimmy liked dancers and respected those with a love for the arts but his real love was Pier Angeli. I have a hard time giving all of Elizabeth's quotations credibility since there is no way anyone would choose this style of s
writing without telling a fictional story. This book just didn't work for me and became hard to finish since I just can't help but think it's bogus. Do the research on JD, read "Rebel" and other books on JD and you'll see for yourself.

Well, I read this in 24 hours, couldn't put it down. Pretty intense stuff. I cried .. more than once ..
too beautiful really.
And to the last reviewer up there ...
Liz kept journals of her early days in NY, so she took a lot of the quotes and memories out of there. So ease up!
This is the real James Dean.
I think this is probably the warmest book about him to date.
And you actually feel his energy and the times through her writing. It's a great world to get lost in for a while.