Depp, Dean, McQueen

(Moving Pictures Icons issue, June/July 2006)

Is it timing and circumstance or inherent charisma that transforms a mere mortal to an indelible icon? Take a quick look with us at a trio of the free-spirited.

Johnny Depp: Looking Up to Johnny
By Aurelia Bakevicius

There are numerous fan-sites devoted to the actor born 43 years ago (this June 9) as John Christopher Depp III. One of the pre-eminent collections of Depp media is www.depp.ca. Site founder Aurelia Bakevicius began the Canadian-based endeavor six years ago and offers us the ultimate fan's look at her idol... Is Johnny Depp an icon? Not yet. Does he create iconic characters? Definitely.

It's funny how someone you don't know can influence you in so many ways. Watching Johnny's movies, it seems like there's a subconscious understanding, a subconscious message, in every character he has portrayed. Hence, he deserves all the respect an actor could ever earn.

Some people realized early on that he was special, One is director Tim Burton, with whom Johnny has collaborated on Edward Scissorhands (1990), Ed Wood (1994), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (2005) and The Corpse Bride (2005). Burton once said, "I think everyone has had a delayed reaction to Johnny. He's a big star now, but some of us knew it all along." A look at the risk inherent in some of these movies and the complexity of the characters Johnny has created is reflective of Johnny's selectivity in his choice of roles; he does it on his own terms.

Johnny's working world is one in which many are overwhelmed by the glamour, get comfortable with it and then concern themselves with remaining in that zone. Johnny, instead, pushes the boundaries and remains true to himself. He is unselfishly exceptional at making the character the star of the show, no matter how small the part. He constantly surprises audiences and critics with diverse and offbeat roles; his lack of regard for his good looks in creating the physical traits of the character only adds to his characters' depth.

Like James Dean, with whom he shares initials and is often compared, Johnny has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar® in two consecutive years (for Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Neverland, 2003 and 2004 respectively). Johnny has also been nominated for a Golden Globe on six occasions. His popularity with the public is assured, and is evidenced by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a set of hand- and footprints in the cement in front of Graumann's Chinese Theater. Popularity with his peers is evidenced by his Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Jack Sparrow. With actors constituting the majority of Academy voters and two more installments of Jack Sparrow on the way, logic suggests that the Academy should start engraving.

Besides being an actor, Johnny is also an exceptional musician, director and father. He has done so much in the industry - and he has done it in such a way that he doesn't leave you feeling he has sold out.

Published with companion articles:
"Pirates of the Caribbean: The Ride"
"Satire on the Plank - Hollywood's Pirate Parodies"

James Dean: Giant Without a Cause
By Emanuela Del Zompo

James Dean's 1950's myth still resonates with artists and audiences. Somehow, Dean's small frame embodied courage and recklessness; a man and a kid at the same time. Actress Christine White has said, "He could look in a delicatessen window and suddenly start waving at a bowl of prunes like they were alive. He was childish in a charming way." Often depicted as the typical rebellious male, he played the scoundrel, mocking and irreverent, who expected to have everything from life.

Although unrefined, Dean had the advantage of a winner's physique that granted quick accession in the world of Hollywood. Slightly boastful, he bested giants such as Clarke Gable, John Wayne and Rock Hudson with his simple and seemingly unaffected style. Simultaneously a ruffian and a nice guy, his energy is unforgettable and his legacy remarkable for a figure who passed through the public's eye so quickly.

John Lennon was quoted as saying that former band-member Stuart Sutcliffe "was really into the James Dean thing. He idolized him. Stuart died young before we made the big time, but I suppose you could say that without Jimmy Dean, The Beatles would have never existed." Now, in our sophisticated age when people often resort to artificial images, who will keep this inconvenient heritage?

Dean once said "Being a good actor isn't easy. Being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I'm done." He is also attributed with the self-reverential, "Only the gentle are ever really strong."

Last September, the 50-year anniversary of Dean's departure was honoured with several events: The junction of routes 46 and 41 in California, where he crashed, was named the James Dean Memorial Junction; vigils took place at his bronze bust outside the Griffith Park observatory (atop Mount Hollywood); and, despite Dean never having been to Europe, the BBC ran a radio broadcast narrated by heir-apparent Johnny Depp.

James Dean was a frail male who loved danger and was scared by success. His mother's death sorely tried him, the shock evident in his words, "I went out at night to cry over my mother's grave and ask her why she had left me." And his father often left him in the care of other relatives. While family tragedies and stresses - required for success - were named as the causes of his neuroses, acting became his cure.

He began his career in theatre, and studied at the Actor's Studio before Elia Kazan took him West. Reportedly narcissistic, he loved to watch his photos. And although he's alleged to have had an affair with Italian actress Anna Maria Pierangeli, it is also said he loved men more than women and had adventures with both. It's of no doubt that he loved speed. On September 30, 1955, at the wheel of his car and accompanied by his friend Rolf Wuterich, he crashed into Donald Turnupseed's car. The latter was unhurt, Wuterich wounded and Jimmy Dean, well... Death made him a legend, and Hollywood has, forever since, mourned for its star.

Movie stars are burdened - in an industry fuelled on newness - with the inescapable fact that they remain themselves from one film to the next. Ironically, history fuels a train of thought that the sure-fire way to enter eternal popular consciousness is to live fast, make some films, then die. Few will argue that, among the most famous flames prematurely doused, are James Dean, the inimitable Marilyn Monroe and Steve McQueen.

When Brad Pitt mounts a motorcycle, Colin Farrell gets entangled in a sex-tape scandal or Russell Crowe throws a phone, they're channeling the McQueen who stole Ali McGraw from then-head of Paramount Pictures Robert Evans at the height of her Love Story fame, then married her in Cheyenne, Wyoming, reportedly because he liked the sound of the town's name.

"During the filming of The Getaway," McGraw wrote in her autobiography, "Moving Pictures," "there was that electric feeling you have when you are first in love - a kind of omnipotence and even madness that anyone within a fifty-foot range can feel."

Although McQueen died of lung cancer in 1980, death didn't dampen his legacy. Thanks in part to a boom in licensing images of iconic celebrities, McQueen's has been licensed more than thirty times, in everything from a Sheryl Crow video to a Ford commercial featuring clips of his legendary Bullitt car chase.

"When you tell younger buyers that something's cool, it's instantly not cool," said Ford marketing spokesman Miles Johnson in a 2004 article. "These younger buyers are... deciding he's cool on their own. They like the idea of going to the Internet or Blockbuster to find out who this guy is... The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Sand Pebbles and The Towering Inferno. When they put it all together, they'll say, 'Wow.'" In 2001, Ford produced 6,000 replicas of the car McQueen drove in Bullitt - the Mustang Bullitt GT.

In an age when more movie viewers get their fix from home theaters, portable DVD players and iPods, information about celebrities is so accessible that it strips away the mystery movie stars used to possess. And our awareness of the star-making machinery - publicists, photo-ops and love affairs - has created audiences so savvy that the moment someone new appears on the scene, they can hear the clock counting down on fifteen minutes. By dying when he did, McQueen may have orchestrated a perfect career move.

"Walk the streets of France, Italy, even Japan," McQueen's agent, Theresa Brown of the Corbis Agency, wrote in an email about McQueen's popularity, "His cult appeal is phenomenal... there's something about him not being overexposed that appeals to kids. Steve's punk rock. He never sold out in his career."

Ironically, the ‘King of Cool' didn't feel too collected inside. His was the usual Hollywood blend of childhood trauma, anger issues, insecurity and sensitivity poured into a movie star chassis. "My strong personal conviction is that his tragic illness was fanned by a lifetime of anger and suspicion, and that rage and pain caused the fatal cancer," Ali McGraw wrote. "How tragic it was that a man who had - or nearly had - absolutely everything could have spent a lifetime feeling wary of his friends, vindictive toward his enemies, and certain that the whole world was out to do him in."

Steve McQueen, to steal a line from Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year, wasn't an actor; he was a movie star. Still is. -MPM