JAMES DEAN LITTLE BASTARD CRASH

James Dean Little Bastard 130 MERCHANDISE

JAMES DEAN TRIUMPH MOTORCYCLE

James Dean Little Bastard
130 TEE SHIRT

THE ICONIC JAMES DEAN

The Classic Red Baracuta Harrington Jacket

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955)

was an American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage

disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the

title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955),

in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other

two roles that defined his stardom were loner, Cal Trask in East

of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).

Dean's enduring fame and popularity rest on his performances

in only these three films.

Dean's premature death in a car crash cemented his

legendary status. He became the first actor to receive a

posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and

remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting

nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him

the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's

100 Years...100 Stars list.

James Dean was born at the Seven Gables apartment house

at the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion,

Indiana, the son of Winton Dean and Mildred Marie Wilson.

His parents were of mostly English ancestry, with smaller

amounts of Scottish, German, Irish and Welsh. Six years after

his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean

and his family moved to Santa Monica, California. He was

enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood

neighbourhood of Los Angeles, but transferred soon afterward

to the McKinley Elementary school. The family spent several years there, and by all

accounts, young Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael De Angelis, she

was "the only person capable of understanding him." In 1938, she was suddenly struck with

acute stomach pains and began to lose weight quickly. She died of uterine cancer when

Dean was just nine years old.

"TITTER YE NOT"

******************

Found out today the A-team actor I was trying to remember for ages is Dirk Benedict

It's great to be able to finally put a name to the Face.

******************

Dennis: "How many legs has a rooster got, Dean?"

Dean: "Two?"

Dennis: "Correct. How many ribs has a cat got?"

Dean: "I've got no idea."

Dennis: "So... You know all about cocks and nothing about pussy."

******************

Vin Diesel - American

actor or cheap French wine from Aldi?

********************

Do you think a male porno actor has ever thought

'Fuck this shit, I'm calling in work sick today?'

********************

Sean Connery is most famous for playing James Bond and was given a knighthood "for services to acting".

Roger Moore is most famous for playing James Bond and was given a knighthood for "services to charity".

Has there ever been a more polite way to tell someone they're a shit actor?

********************

Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his sister Ortense and her

husband, Marcus Winslow, on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in a

Quaker household. Winton served in World War II and later remarried. In his adolescence,

Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd. DeWeerd seemed to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theatre. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years." Their alleged sexual relationship was earlier suggested in the 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams:

The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean by Paul Alexander. In 2011, it was reported that he once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.

His overall performance in school was exceptional and he was also considered to be a popular student and having played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, Dean moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester, and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.

Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola television commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast

in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch.

Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies:

as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets!, as a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware, a Paramount comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and as a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? While struggling to get jobs in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay.

Dean decided to eerily to pose inside

of a coffin at the local department

store in Fairmount.

In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore's

and his mentor Rogers Brackett's advice, Dean moved to New York City.

There he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but

was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also

appeared in episodes of several CBS television series, The Web, Studio One

and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the legendary Actors

Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. Proud of this

accomplishment, Dean referred to the Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as

"The greatest school of the theatre. It houses great people like Marlon

Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock. ... Very few get into

it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest

to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker,

with whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).

Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early

1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery

Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric

Theatre. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in

the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later immortalize in Rebel Without a Cause. (This summer 1953 program was also notable for featuring the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. ) Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as "Bachir", a pandering North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist, led to calls from Hollywood.

In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of ' Cal Trask ', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. The lengthy novel deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s. In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.

Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested the relatively unknown young actor, James Dean. Dean met with Steinbeck who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.

Much of Dean's performance in the film is unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The most famous improvisation of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Raymond Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film. Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from a father figure.

For the 1956 Academy Awards, Dean received a posthumous nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in East of Eden, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was unofficially nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.

Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American (Warner Color) drama

film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers

filmed in Cinema scope. The film stars James Dean, Sal Mineo

and Natalie Wood.

Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and

an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban

slum environments. Over the years, the film has achieved

landmark status for the acting of cultural icon James Dean, fresh

from his Oscar nominated role in East of Eden and who died

before the film's release, in his most celebrated role. This was the

only film during Dean's lifetime in which he received top billing. In

1990, Rebel Without a Cause was added to Library of Congress's

National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically,

and aesthetically significant".

The film was a ground-breaking attempt to portray the moral decay

of American youth, critique parental style, and explore the

differences and conflicts between generations. The title was

adopted from psychiatrist Robert M. Lindner's 1944 book, Rebel

Without a Cause :

The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath.

The film itself, however, does not reference Lindner's book in any

way. Warner Bros. released the film on October 27, 1955.

Giant, which was posthumously released in 1956, saw Dean play

a supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. This was

due to his desire to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager

like Cal Trask or Jim Stark. In the film, he plays Jett Rink, a

Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy. His role

was notable in that, in order to portray an older version of his

character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair grey and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.

Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Dean mumbled so much due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited. Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.

Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, (1956), he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. Fifty years after Dean's death, he stated that their friendship had included some sexual intimacy.

While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love.":

They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function:

"Jimmy saw red. He grabbed the fellow by the collar and threatened to blacken both of his eyes,"

she said.:

Dean had also remained in contact with his girlfriend in New York, Barbara Glenn, whom he dated for two years. Their love letters sold at auction in 2011 for $36,000.

Rebel Without A Cause

is a film that sympathetically views rebellious,

American, restless, misunderstood,

middle-class youth.

Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the

studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons

with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of

Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean

together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the

men as an 'eligible bachelor' who has not yet found the time to commit to a single

woman:

"They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."

Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli,

whom he met while Angeli was shooting The Silver Chalice on an adjoining Warner

lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an

interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times

together:

We used to go together to the California coast and stay there secretly in a

cottage on a beach far away from prying eyes. We'd spend much of our time on the

beach, sitting there or fooling around, just like college kids. We would talk about

ourselves and our problems, about the movies and acting, about life and life after

death. We had a complete understanding of each other. We were like Romeo and

Juliet, together and inseparable. Sometimes on the beach we loved each other so

much we just wanted to walk together into the sea holding hands because we knew

then that we would always be together.

In his autobiography, East of Eden, director Elia Kazan dismissed the notion that

Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered

hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan has

been quoted saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends."

Actress Liz Sheridan details her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952.

Speaking of the relationship in 1996, she said that it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy :

My Life with James Dean; A Love Story in 2000.

Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in. At the time, Andress was also dating Marlon Brando.

is about a wayward young man

while seeking his own identity,

vies for the affection of his

deeply religious father against

his favored brother.

In 1954, Dean became interested in developing an auto racing career. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 motorcycle and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made this dream impossible.

Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955 . He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.

Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean was scheduled to compete at a racing event in Salinas, California on September 30, 1955. Accompanying the actor to the occasion was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder " Little Bastard " car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m. Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.

As the group travelled to the event via U.S. Route 466, at approximately 5:15 p.m. a 1950 Ford Tudor was passing through an intersection while turning, ahead of the Porsche. Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the driver's side of the Ford resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. The driver of the Ford, Donald Turnupseed, exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries. The accident was witnessed by a number of passers by who stopped to help. A woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.

Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955 at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his mutilated corpse. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession.

"Suedehead" Single by Morrissey from the

album Viva Hate.

An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the Paso Robles City Hall, where a coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, said the "wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph".

American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when James Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star." Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised youth of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected on screen.

Dean's "loving tenderness towards the besotted Sal Mineo in Rebel Without a Cause continues to touch and excite gay audiences by its honesty. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the male gay icon of all time." His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine.

Morrissey is a big fan of James Dean. In his youth, Morrissey was drawn to the lonesome and rebellious nature of James Dean. In 1983, he wrote a book entitled “James Dean is Not Dead” about Dean's career.

Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his "experimental" take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. There have been several claims that Dean had sexual relationships with both men and women. When questioned about his sexual orientation, he is reported to have said, " No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back." By the 21st century, Dean was considered by many to have been gay. In 2005, Germaine Greer wrote, "Looking back over half a century to the meteoric career of James Dean, the one thing that now seems obvious is that the boy was as queer as a coot." She based her opinion partly on the then-new revelations of William Bast, one of Dean's closest friends.

William Bast, Dean's first biographer with James Dean:

A Biography (1956), subsequently published a revealing update of this book, in which, after years of successfully dodging the question as to whether he and Dean were sexually involved, he finally stated that they experimented. In his second book, Surviving James Dean (2006), Bast describes the difficult circumstances of their involvement and also deals frankly with some of Dean's other reported gay relationships, notably the actor's friendship with Rogers Brackett, the influential producer of radio dramas who encouraged Dean in his career and provided him with useful professional contacts. Bast also documents knowledge Dean had of gay bars and customs.

Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon include an entry on James Dean in their book on gay and lesbian history, while journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears or have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Val Holley notes that according to Hollywood biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, gay Hollywood columnist Mike Connolly "would put the make on the most prominent young actors, including Robert Francis, Guy Madison, Anthony Perkins, Nick Adams and James

Dean." However, the " trade only " notion is debated by Bast and other Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow biker and "Night Watch" member

John Gilmore claims he and Dean "experimented" with gay acts on one occasion in New York, and it is difficult to see how Dean, then already in his twenties, would have viewed this as a "trade" means of advancing his career. James Bellah the son of James Warner Bellah who was a friend of James Dean "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act..."

Screenwriter Gavin Lambert, himself gay and part of the Hollywood gay circles of the 1950s and 1960s, described Dean as being gay. Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record as saying that Dean was gay, while author John Howlett believes that Dean was "certainly bisexual". George Perry's biography reduces these reported aspects of Dean's sexuality to "experimentation". In 2005, Giant was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Giant was the last of James Dean's

three films

as a leading actor

Halloween’s a good time to tell some scary stories. The scariest car story

out there is the story of James Dean’s Little Bastard 550, the Porsche

550 in which his ticket was eternally punched on September 30th, 1955.

It leaves behind a trail of wreckage much longer than just Dean himself.

The story begins on September 23, 1955, just a week before Dean’s fatal

crash. He’d purchased a Porsche 550 Spyder and brought to customizer

and legendary George Barris to have it personalized. He chose tartan

seats, the number 130 emblazoned on the hood, and the name “Little

Bastard” painted just under the Porsche emblem on the engine cover.

Monkee mobile builder Dean Jeffries did the lettering.

On September 23, 1955, while driving the car around Los Angeles, he

met up with British actor Alec Guinness outside a restaurant. He showed

the deeply superstitious Guinness the new Porsche. In Guinness’s

unpublished diaries and letters, he wrote:

"The sports car looked sinister to

me. . .Exhausted, hungry, feeling a little ill- tempered in spite of Dean’s

kindness, I heard myself saying in a voice I could hardly recognise as my

own:

Please never get in it. . . if you get in that car you will be found dead

in it by this time next week.' Dean laughed."

A week later, on September 30th, Dean and Rolf Wütherich — a former

Luftwaffe pilot and factory-trained Porsche mechanic — were at

Competition Motors in Hollywood preparing The Little Bastard for racing

that weekend at Salinas. The intent was for Dean to trailer the car to Salinas behind his 1955 Ford Country Squire, along with a photographer and stuntman Bill Hickman, stunt coordinator on the movie Bullitt, most famously. But the car needed some break-in miles on it, and Wütherich suggested driving the car to Salinas to not only break in the engine, but so that Dean could familiarize himself with the car that he had just purchased. Wütherich went along for the ride.

James Dean was nominated for an Oscar

for “Best Actor in a Leading Role”

for two consecutive years

(East of Eden,1955 & Giant 1956).

At Blackwells Corner on Route 466, the caravan stopped for drinks, and

met up with Lance Reventlow and Bruce Kessler, also competing in the

Salinas road races in Reventlow’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SL coupe.

At approximately 5:15 pm, Dean and Hickman drove west toward Paso

Robles. A half hour later, a black and white 1950 Ford Tudor coupe was

headed east on 466, driven by a 23-year-old Cal Poly student with

unlikely name of Donald Turnupseed. Turnupseed made a left on Route

41. As he crossed the centreline, Dean, who was estimated to be

traveling at 85 mph, tried to avoid the Ford, and the two cars met head-

on. The Ford coupe slid 39 feet down Route 466 in the westbound lane.

Soon afterward, an unconscious and dying Dean was placed into an

ambulance. Wütherich, who had been thrown from the Spyder, and was lying on the shoulder of the road next to the Little Bastard, was transported in the same ambulance to the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital almost 30 miles away. Dean was pronounced dead on arrival at 6:20 pm. Turnupseed walked away with a scratch on his nose.

George Barris purchased the wrecked Porsche for $2,500 (with the likely intent to sell tickets to look at it) and transported

the car back to his shop. The car slipped off the trailer and broke the leg of a mechanic. Barris sold the engine and drive train to Troy McHenry and William Eschrid. The two used parts to build cars of their own, and were racing against each other with those parts in place. Henry lost control and slammed into a tree, the impact killing him instantly. Eschrid was driving his car, and the wheels suddenly locked up for no apparent reason, sending the car rolling over in a turn. Eschrid was seriously injured in the crash.

Two tires from the Little Bastard were in

George Barris’s garage, untouched since

the accident that claimed Dean’s life. He

sold the tires, and both of them exploded

simultaneously, causing the driver to run

off the road.

In a piece that appeared on Jalopnik,

(Jalopnik is a weblog covering cars and

car culture,) the curse apparently

continued even further:

“Due to all the

incidents involving “ Little Bastard, ” Barris

decided to hide the car but was convinced

by the California Highway Patrol to lend

the cursed heap to a highway safety

exhibit. The first exhibit was unsuccessful

as the garage that housed the car caught

fire and burned to the ground.

"Mysteriously the car suffered virtually no

damage from the fire. The next exhibition

at a local high school ended abruptly when

the car fell off its display and broke a

nearby student’s hip.” Later, George Barkuis, was hauling the wreckage of the Spyder on a flatbed truck and was killed instantly when the Porsche fell on him after he was thrown from his truck in an accident.

Mishap after mishap continued until 1960, when the twisted debris was on loan to a safety exhibit in Miami. Following the exhibit, the wreckage and the truck that was hauling it mysteriously vanished on the way back to Los Angeles.

Neither have been seen since.