James Dean was before my time, slightly. He died on this date, September 30, in 1955. I wasn’t even born yet. But I had four siblings already, ranging from 8 years-old to one month. No one in the house was ever a James Dean fan either. No posters of him, no big followers of his movies. Although, if I had to guess, I bet my brother Ed thought he was cute.
James Dean didn’t have very many movies, truth be told. At the time of his death, he had just released only one movie. That was “East of Eden.” He had two more in the can, which came out following his demise. They were “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant.” His death shot him into superstardom and made him an iconic legend.
His death. As I mentioned, this is the anniversary. He was 24-years-old at the time, and driving through Cholame, California, in his sporty, fast Porsche Spyder. He came upon an intersection where his car hit a Ford Tudor sedan. There were two other people in the crash. One was the driver of the Ford Tudor, a guy named Donald Turnupseed. He was a 23-year-old kid who was attending California Polytechnic State University. The crash left him a bit dazed, but completely uninjured.
The other person was Rolf Wutherich, Dean’s passenger, and also his mechanic. He was badly hurt, as was Dean, who died instantly of a broken neck and other injuries. Most people know the details that Turnupseed made a left turn into the path of the Spyder. But speed has always been a big question. Dean may have been driving too fast.
James Dean loved racing cars. That was a fact. On that day, he and his pal, mechanic, were on the way to a race in Salinas, 90 miles south of San Francisco. Obviously, they never arrived.
In his personal life, it seems that James Dean had been a troubled soul. He came from a broken home, for one thing. He didn’t take very good care of himself, hygienically speaking, and he was prone to mood swings. On top of all that, he was most likely a closeted homosexual.
All of that aside, the reason I write the story, is the back story. The thing behind the scenes. I am always very interested to hear about the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable. I believe this Universe is so far, wide, and expansive, we will never understand the things which are going on right under our very noses.
So back to Dean’s crash. He had nicknamed his car, “The Little Bastard.” And many people thought either that Porsche was cursed, or there was a bad bit of energy attached.
After the accident, there were some tragic things that happened.
• The wrecked car rolled off the back of a truck and crushed the legs of a mechanic standing nearby.
• After a used-car dealer sold its parts to buyers all over the country, the strange incidents multiplied.
• The car’s engine, transmission, and tires were all transplanted into cars that were subsequently involved in deadly crashes. All three.
• A truck carrying the Spyder’s chassis to a highway-safety exhibition skidded off the road, killing its driver.
• The remains of the car vanished from the scene of that accident and haven’t been seen since.
And then:
• Rolf Wütherich, the mechanic, had terrible feelings of guilt after the car accident. He couldn’t get past it. He tried to commit suicide twice during the 1960s. Then, in 1967, he stabbed his wife 14 times with a kitchen knife. It became a failed murder/suicide. Finally, he was drunk driving and died in a car accident in 1981.
• Donald Turnupseed, the other driver, took up heavy smoking. He died of lung cancer in 1995.
It brings back the age-old question about our existence. Is there such a thing as random coincidence? Or is everything orchestrated, a plan mapped out, and events happen exactly as they should?
Think about yourself, sitting there, reading these very words. Did the trillions of trillions of minutes leading up to this happen in exact order for you to be here? Or is it purely luck?
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“We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding. Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny.”
― David Richo, The Power of Coincidence
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“Coincidences mean you’re on the right path.”
― Simon Van Booy
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“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
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Dean and his crash, a big plan, or not?
