Dean Bio’s Got a Firm Foundation

Forty years after the death of 24-year-old actor-turned- rebel-legend James Dean, two competing screen biographies are in the works, one featuring Oscar-nominated Leonardo DiCaprio, the other a young TV and film actor, Damian Chapa. And as is usually true in Hollywood, the behind-the-scenes stories of the development of these projects are as colorful--and in this case, Byzantine--as any film that may result.

A full-page ad in The Times on April 16 announced a July 1 start date on “James Dean: An American Legend,� the only authorized film biography of Dean, who died in a car crash on Sept. 30, 1955, after having completed only three motion pictures: “East of Eden,� “Rebel Without a Cause� and “Giant.�

This film, sanctioned by the James Dean Foundation, is being written and directed by Alan Hauge, who lists the TV special “The Late Great Planet Earth� as his main credit. (Hauge also owns the rights to Lorena Bobbitt’s story and says he plans to make a “behind-the-scenes� film about her. Hauge acted as Bobbitt’s media representative after her arrest in the maiming of her husband and during subsequent trials.)

According to attorney Mark Roesler of Curtis Management Group in Indianapolis, which represents the Dean Foundation, “The family has worked with Alan for a number of years to get a true-to-life screenplay of James Dean.�

The family had previously turned down perhaps as many as 60 overtures to depict Dean on screen, Roesler said. Marcus Winslow Jr., Dean’s cousin--who heads the foundation--gave the go-ahead to Hauge’s latest draft (his seventh), deeming it accurate, Roesler says. “You can rest assured that there won’t be anything about him (Dean) being a homosexual.� He reiterates this point several times.

Roesler says that Winslow has been bothered by some recent biographies of Dean, especially the recent “Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times and Legend of James Dean� by Paul Alexander, which asserts that Dean had numerous gay encounters. Still, Roesler insists that Hauge’s biopic will not be sanitized. “If we did that and portrayed him as someone he wasn’t, it would in some way damage his legacy.�

And the Dean legacy is important to Roesler, who represents all licensing rights to Dean’s name and image, as he does for others, such as the Malcolm X family. The Dean Foundation owns the exclusive rights to any commercial depiction of the actor, based on a 1992 ruling by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, which turned back a $120-million lawsuit by Warner Bros. against the family.

At the time of his death, Dean was under contract to Warners, which produced his three films. The studio had been seeking remuneration, claiming it and not the Winslow family (which raised Dean) controlled merchandising rights attendant to the late actor’s image and name.

H auge says that his film is budgeted at between $25 million and $27 million, but declines to specify the source of financing.

He distances himself from the late producer John Emr, who, according to an article in the May issue of Premiere magazine, had once agreed to finance Hauge’s film. (Emr was killed by a former employee in 1991.) Emr was just one of several potential financiers for the film over the years, Hauge says.

And after exercising his option and buying the rights from the Dean family late last year, Hauge will say only that his funding is coming from “a foreign bank against collateral being provided in this country. Right now, it’s confidential.� More important, Hauge says, a plethora of product licensing and merchandising tie-ins have been attached to his film, but he again declined to specify.

Hauge did confirm a distribution deal with a new company called Theafilm for the film’s planned late-December premiere and subsequent wide spring 1996 release. Based on exhibitor commitments, Hauge says, Imperial Bank has pledged marketing and other release money.

The film’s star, Chapa, appeared in “Under Siege,� Taylor Hackford’s “Bound by Honor� and as Lyle Menendez in the CBS miniseries “Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills.�

“I went through 2,200 people over several years and Damian looks exactly like Jim,� says Hauge. Additional roles will be cast with a number of “major talents,� Hauge says. “Some are Oscar-winning people.�

The Premiere article, written by Fred Schruers, disparages Hauge’s script, calling it a “bowdlerized, if melodramatic, saint’s-progress story.�

“I don’t know where he (Schruers) was quoting from,� Hauge says. “I never spoke to him or showed him a script. He might have seen an earlier draft.� Schruers confirms that he read an early draft of the script.

The screenwriter says that his insights about Dean are the result of being allowed access to the actor’s letters and diaries. At the core of what he calls a “powerful and heartwarming story� is Hauge’s contention that Dean became a victim of Stanislavski’s Method acting. “By his (Dean’s) own design, he created the icon we now call James Dean,� Hauge says. “He started acting one day and never quit.�

M eanwhile, producer Marvin Worth is going ahead with his still-untitled Dean bio starring DiCaprio, which is also expected to begin shooting this summer, from a script by playwright Israel Horovitz.

Director Michael Mann (“The Last of the Mohicans�) dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts, but Worth says he’s about to sign another director. “We’ve got a green light from Warners,� says Worth, who has been working on his Dean biopic for more than two years.

Apparently the rights issue isn’t a concern for Warners. “We have the right to use likenesses to promote our movie and anything related to our movie,� says Rob Friedman, Warner Bros.’ president of worldwide advertising and publicity.

As for Dean merchandising, even though the Dean family has not read Horovitz’s script, Worth is confident Warners will work out a merchandising arrangement with Roesler. The gay angle will also be missing from Worth’s project on Dean, he says, although there will be a certain amount of dramatic license in the film. “You can’t just do a fact-driven biography. Then you just have a chain of events. It’s boring.�*