James Dean (me), in full James Byron Dean, (I was born February 8, 1931, Marion, Indiana, U.S.—and regrettably died September 30, 1955, near Paso Robles, California), I was an American film actor who was enshrined as a symbol of the confused, restless, and idealistic youth of the 1950s. Although I made few films before my death in a car accident when I was 24 years old, my performances, perhaps most notably in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), have proved enduring.