Was James Dean a great actor?
 

Would his method carried him thru a life time career? Great car guy, but was he a great actor? I like his three movies overall, but some of his emotional scenes are
just too much........

Legitimate question. He certainly had talent but was also a major scenery-chewer. He may have improved greatly, (others have), or not. Most people don't really know the difference, so he may have worked forever regardless. I think that he would have drank himself to death by about 1965, myself.

Paul Newman was not a great actor by any stretch, he even knew it. But he worked forever and was much loved. Steve McQueen actually was great, IMO.

no

No, he was not.

I think he could have evolved into a very good actor, perhaps even a great one. But at the time of his death, I would say not a great actor.

He was however, a great Hollywood STAR and that would have carried him by itself until his acting developed. Sometimes, even back then, being a Hollywood STAR was not necessarily synonymous with being a great actor.

angela

Compared to some of the "actors" today that get paid 20 mil a picture and they are mostly box office flops.....he wasn't too bad!

Pretty much agree with Speeder the guy would have flamed out like Marilyn.

A better way to judge Deans acting skills would be to watch his TV acting roles...there would be more range

Yes, a Star.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305569253.jpg

Famous, he was.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305569408.jpg

Type cast. And good at what he knew.

If Dean was not was Montgomery Cliff? Same style...Cliff didn't changed much thru many more movies.

Paul Newman was a very believable actor...meaning good

It's Montgomery Clift and he could mop the floor w/ Dean, acting-wise. Still, Dean had talent...

Within their range I thought Dean (and Clift) were both very good actors (Clift was far better IMO- he could have been great I thought but I don't recall ever seeing it). Of their contemporaries only Newman and Lee Remick stand out as great in my mind though. Except for On the Waterfront I don't even think Brando showed much in the way of greatness- but that's just my opinion.

Great to me means you forget who they are- and they "become" the character- no matter who they're playing. Currently I think Russell Crowe, Andrew Oldham and Meryl Streep have all shown greatness. But there aren't many others that I can think of. Most of them fit very narrow roles and IMO that's all Dean could do. Maybe he would have grown but we'll never know.

current actors...Clooney old bro and Michael Clayton, "Markie mark" I don't think he has done a bad movie yet, Kevin Bacon, Matt Damon makes a very believable spy, plays a large range.

I agree with On the waterfront that was Brando one good one.

No, he just died early, at the peak of his career...

Monty Cliff in "From Here To Eternity" was very good indeed.

Johnny Depp is very versatile agree with Oldham,... Denzel, Cheadel, Seymore, Whitaker, Brolin, Bridges, Dicaprio, Damon..Downey

Google Mark Waldman and you'll find out that he is/was a racist. He beat an Asian guy in his "hood" so badly, the guy lost an eye. Happenednduring his "Markie Mark" days.

What does that have to do with anything ?.... I guesss thats beside the point now..........so I guess, If a white guy gets into a fight with another race he is a racist......what does that make the none white guy? Oh of course white guys start all the fights, and other races are incompatible of being 1st class a holes.

Thread offically highjacked.

Have to agree on the current actor list. Matt Damon, especially, if you see The Informant and his cameo in Entourage, can play humor (the hardest role there is) to perfection. He has a hell of a range.

Brando was good in just about everything he did, IMO. Streetcar, Godfather, Wild One... a little over the top in Last Tango, tho.

I think Dean was great in his two earlier films. Did not like him at all as the older Jett Rink in Giant. Maybe it's hard for a 20-something to play a 50-something, but I was unconvinced.

I'd pay to watch Kevin Spacey read the phone book. Whatever that is...

To stay with the Dean theme, I had an interesting conversation with an older Japanese waiter in the 80s. He said that the day James Dean was reported to have died that there was so much emotional distress among the students in his school in Japan that they had to close the school that day. Dean was already an international star, based on just two films (Giant was released after his death, adding to a contemporaneous rumor that Dean wasn't really dead.)

I recently saw "Giant" for the first time, and I really liked it. I would have liked to see more of his films. I don't know how anyone can say whether he was a good actor or not based on so few performances, one of which was really great.

If typecasting is for bad actors, then guys like Clooney, Deniro, Duvall, and Gene Hackman are all bad actors. Which I would disagree with. I don't personally think "range" or the ability to play a lot of different characters is what makes acting great. One of the best actors of our times, Jack Nicolson, has limited "range". And there are actors who I really like in a particular genre. Clint Eastwood in Westerns, and Lee Marvin in war movies, for example.

Not knowing who Mark Waldman was, I googled him as directed... I still don't know who he is.

Are you thinking of Mark Wahlberg perhaps? :p

No, Clooney has played comedy -- notably in O Brother Where Art Thou. He can be hammy, but I think his range is great. DeNiro has become something of a self-parody, unfortunately. Seems to be following the paychecks.

I think when you refer to typecasting or Nicholson/Marvin, you're talking about "movie stars" who bend their characters to their personalities, rather than vice versa. I don't think that's considered good acting... though it certainly rings the register at the box office.

Dean played variations of the disaffected adolescent in all three of his major films. Whether he could play a non-tormented part is up for debate. Certain "types" like Dean and Clift were just tossed into role after role playing variations on the same character. That's the way Hollywood works. Predictability sells tickets more often than surprises do.

The car before the 550...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305592983.jpg

That's an interesting point about bending the character to their personality. And you're right, that's not "acting" if you believe that playing various characters is virtuous.

What I was saying is that "range" is over rated. Typecasting is fine. Otherwise, Hugh Jackman is the best actor of all time. Johnny Depp, DiCaprio, and Heath Ledger would be among the all time greats due to range.

Marky Mark is Mark Wahlberg.....

Dean might have been famous...rumor he was as gay as Rock Hudson.....not that there was anything wrong with that.

I hear Vinnie Babarino has been seen in the bathhouses.....