LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sal Mineo: James Dean
built 274 days ago
Sal Mineo refused to live by Hollywood's rules. Mineo was born November 10, 1939. He grew up tough and moved fast - from the Bronx to Broadway to Hollywood, from street crimes to stage plays to an Oscar nomination, at the age of sixteen, for his portrayal of the doomed teenager in the 1955 James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause.
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Born October 1939, January - Actor Sal Mineo enjoyed great success as a teen idol during the late '50s, shooting to fame opposite James Dean in the perennial Rebel Without a Cause. Born January 10, 1939, in the Bronx, NY, Mineo was an incorrigible youth, tossed out of parochial school and by age eight a member of a street gang.
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In 1976, Mineo was cast in a Los Angeles production of James Kirkwood's P. S. Your Cat Is Dead. As he returned to his West Hollywood apartment from a rehearsal on February 12, 1976, he was stabbed to death. The murder remains cloaked in mystery. A suspect who initially confessed later recanted, but was ... convicted.
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Believing it was time to branch out, Mineo decided to try his hand at directing. He chose a play, Fortune and Men’s Eyes, that would operate as a vehicle for his own "coming out." Set in prison, the play has an onstage homosexual rape scene. As well as directing, Mineo cast himself as a prisoner who rapes a convict played by Don Johnson. It ... gave Mineo an opportunity to express his deep feelings for the late James Dean: The program dedicated the play to him.
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In his provocative analysis, Robin Wood argues that Rebel without a Cause is the only film in which Mineo's character is clearly coded as gay. The film deals with a disturbed teenager, Jim (James Dean), who moves into town with an ineffective father (Jim Backus) and a domineering mother (Ann Doran) and becomes friends with two confused adolescents, Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Mineo).
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In the interim before the release of Rebel Without A Cause and Dean’s death, both Dean and Mineo worked on Giant. Mineo’s role was small but his name appeared on advertising to lure in his many, often female, fans.
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