Long before James Dean became the archetypal image of the restless young man in Hollywood, a young woman in Indiana saw something special in her son and she nurtured it. She encouraged him to dance, to play the violin, to make up stories and to be himself in any way he wanted to. Her name was Mildred Marie Wilson Dean, and she never lived to see her son become a movie star, but her influence was with him all his life.
By Allan R. Ellenberger
Mildred was born September 15, 1911, in Grant County, Indiana, the daughter of John Wilson and Minnie Slaughter. She grew up in the Gas City area (a small industrial and farming community just south of Marion). Very little is known about her childhood, her schooling or her aspirations. Later recollections of her describe her as a slim, dark haired young woman with a very active imagination and a real love of the arts. She was a member of that generation of Midwestern women whose lives were essentially all about the family and the home, even if their interests and talents were very much in the wider world.
On July 26, 1930, Mildred married Winton Dean, a young dental technician from nearby Fairmount. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression, and the newlyweds were just like so many other American families of the time. Their only child, James Byron Dean, was born February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment building in Marion. The family then moved to Fairmount where Jimmy spent his early years in the company of relatives and the usual small town Indiana routine.
Mildred found motherhood to be a great joy. The bond between mother and son was very close. Rather than put the brakes on his natural curiosity or try to steer him into some traditional notion of what a boy should be, she was all in favor of exposing him to the world of music and performance and make believe. She got him on the violin and tap dancing, encouraged his interest in drawing and they even put together a little puppet show out of cardboard. They invented characters, did little sketches and recited poetry. The James Dean Museum have credited Mildred with spotting and encouraging the artistic imagination that would ultimately become the defining quality of her son as an actor.
These were more than just pleasant pastimes. They gave him an early exposure to performance and the freedom to try out all sorts of characters and emotions. He learned that with a bit of imagination you could turn any room into a stage and that you could express feeling through movement, music and story. All of that would be recognizable in the very personal performances of the actor decades later, though Mildred would never see it all develop.
In 1936, when Jimmy was five, Winton took a job as a dental technician at the Veteran's Administration hospital in Sawtelle, West Los Angeles. The family moved from Indiana to Southern California and settled in Santa Monica. For Mildred, it was a move from the known surroundings of Grant County to a burgeoning coastal city right next to the motion picture studios. Jimmy went to school in the Brentwood area and Mildred continued to foster his artistic interests.
The California years were fairly short but had a very definite impact. Mildred and Jimmy carried on with their games of make believe and later accounts of the family describe a mother who was extremely attuned to Jimmy's emotional needs. There's one particular story of a bedtime game where Jimmy would put a wish in writing under his pillow. Mildred would come and get it while he was asleep and would do her best to make that wish come true the next day.
Mildred and Winton Dean with their infant son, James Byron “Jimmy” Dean.
By 1939 though, the Deans' happiness was in danger through a very serious illness. Mildred got cancer and the illness progressed very badly. For a young mother, it must have been absolutely terrifying. She had a young son and the idea of leaving him behind was no longer just a possibility but a very real prospect. In September 1939, she was diagnosed with carcinoma of the uterus. She had the illness for ten months and died at home at 1422 23rd Street in Santa Monica on July 14, 1940.
The former site of the Dean family home at 1422 23rd Street in Santa Monica, where Winton, Mildred, and young Jimmy lived and where Mildred died on July 14, 1940. The house has since been demolished, and the property is now a parking lot.
For nine-year-old Jimmy, it was a massive blow. His mother had been his closest companion, the person who had fed his imagination and who seemed to understand Jimmy's particular sensitivity. Winton reportedly found it extremely difficult to prepare Jimmy for what was coming. In a contemporary account published many years later he admitted how hard it was to tell the boy about the death.
Following Mildred’s death, arrangements were made to return her remains to Indiana. Her body was shipped to Marion on July 16, 1940, through the Price Daniel Company of Los Angeles.
Jimmy accompanied his grandmother, Emma Dean, on the journey east, traveling aboard the train that carried his mother home for the last time. Funeral services were held on Saturday, July 20, at 2:30 p.m., at the home of Marcus and Ortense Winslow on Fairmount Pike, with the Reverend Ora Simmons officiating. Biographer John Gilmore recounts a particularly heartbreaking moment when Jimmy approached his mother’s open coffin, gently straightened her hair, and clipped a lock to keep as a remembrance. Mildred was laid to rest at Grant Memorial Park in Marion, not far from the community where she had grown up.
After the funeral, the family had to make another difficult decision. Winton was still working in California and couldn't just go and look after his son. His sister Ortense Winslow and her husband Marcus offered Jimmy a home on their farm near Fairmount. Winton has on occasion been described as having abandoned his son, but Dean's cousin Marcus Winslow Jr. later made it clear that Mildred's illness had effectively bankrupted the father and that he thought the arrangement would be better for Jimmy. The Winslow’s brought him up as their own.
Mildred's influence didn't end with her death. In 1948, seventeen-year-old Jimmy wrote an autobiographical essay for his Fairmount High School principal, Roland DuBois. In it he said, “I never knew the reason for Mom's death; in fact, it still preys on my mind.” He spoke of his childhood violin lessons, his dancing and his love of making things with his hands. He'd given up both music and dance when he'd come back to Indiana but his interest in art had never waned.
Seven years later, James Dean was an international star with East of Eden (1955), Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). His career was over by September 30, 1955, when he was killed in a car crash at the age of twenty-four. He was buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount (about eight miles from where his mother was buried). Mildred had been dead fifteen years when he died but the creative base she had laid was absolutely integral to his story.
James Dean's high school photo.
For years, people would know Mildred's name primarily through the biographies of her famous son. That all changed in 2015 when a historical marker in her honor was placed at Grant Memorial Park. It's situated about thirty yards east of her grave and it acknowledges her role in encouraging Jimmy's interest in music, puppetry and dance, and how those early experiences ultimately led to his three major films. The marker lists her year of birth as 1910, although her original death certificate states 1911.
Above: Mildred Dean’s gravestone at Grant Memorial Park in Marion, Indiana. Right: The historical marker honoring her life and legacy, erected approximately thirty yards east of her grave. (Findagrave)
Mildred Wilson Dean never had a documented professional career, never appeared in a movie, never enjoyed the kind of fame that eventually did come to her family name. Her life was very much a normal one, spent in the day-to-day grind of being a wife and a mother. What she did give her son was something that no acting school or Hollywood studio could have given him; the confidence to imagine, to try things out and to create.
When people think of James Dean, they tend to think of the brooding young man in the red jacket, the tragic misunderstood son in East of Eden or the ambitious Jett Rink in Giant. There was a young man in Santa Monica who used to share a cardboard puppet theatre with his mother. Mildred never saw him grow up, but she was the one who kindled the imagination that would eventually lead to all of that. In that respect her contribution goes way beyond the rather unremarkable grave in Indiana.
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Behind the legendary James Dean was a devoted mother whose life was tragically cut short. My latest article tells the touching story of Mildred Wilson Dean, the woman who nurtured Jimmy’s creativity but never lived to see his extraordinary success. Please leave a comment, rate the article, and share it with fellow classic Hollywood enthusiasts. Your support helps keep these often-overlooked stories alive!
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