Perhaps no film actor is as emblematic of his own era as is James Dean of his. Certainly, no screen-idol image has been as widely disseminated—his brooding, enigmatic, and beautiful face has sold everything from blue jeans to personal computers, and 45 years after his death, his poster-size image was still gracing the bedroom walls of millions of teenage girls and beaming down on the customers in coffee bars throughout America and Europe.

Whether or not he intended to take it to its logical and tragic conclusion, James Dean's credo was to live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse. Thus, his legendary legacy is comprised of only three major motion pictures (though he had small roles in three others prior to this), a handful of seldom-seen television dramas, and an admired Broadway stage performance seen only by a relative handful of people...