James Dean fills up in the Valley on Sept. 30, 1955. Photo by Rolf Wütherich
By Stephen Sachs
It is one of the most historic gas stations in Los Angeles. Seen by millions across the globe in an iconic photograph of a Hollywood legend. The destination for fans and followers worldwide as if on pilgrimages to a religious site. And it has now been torn down.
The gas station at the corner of Beverly Glen and Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks, where James Dean filled up the tank of his new 550 Porsche Spyder for the last time and then drove into immortality, has been demolished. One of the last remaining locations connected to Dean's final day is gone.
If you're a Dean fan, the gas station and the famous photograph snapped the final morning of his life are well known.
Originally named "Casa de Petrol," the gas station opened in 1948 as an adjunct to the landmark Casa de Cadillac dealership next door. At the time, the intersection on Ventura Blvd was known as "Casa Corner," and included a Casa burger stand and a "Casa de Cascade" car wash. Only the dealership remains and is still in service.
Sixty-one years ago today, on the morning of Friday, September 30, 1955, James Dean woke and had coffee. He was living in a log cabin-styled rented house on Sutton Street in Sherman Oaks a few blocks behind the La Reina Theatre, not far from the gas station. He had recently completed filming on "Giant" and was taking his new Porsche Spyder to Salinas for the car races that weekend. Mechanic Rolf Wütherich, stunt man friend Bill Hickman, and photographer Sanford Roth would go with him.
The group met that morning at Competition Motors in Hollywood, on Vine Street near Fountain Avenue, to give the Spyder one final check. Dean's father and uncle arrived at the shop for a visit. While the Porsche was being serviced and prepped for the race, the group walked across the street to the Hollywood Ranch Market for doughnuts and coffee.
Dean and Wütherich at Competition Motors that day.
The car was ready around 1:30 p.m. Dean slung himself into the driver seat of the Spyder, now dubbed "Little Bastard." Wütherich dropped into the passenger seat. They pulled out of Competition Motors and turned northbound up Vine Street, Hickman and Roth following behind in a Ford station wagon. To get to Route 99 (now the I-5), the group headed west down Ventura Blvd.
Dean needed to fill up the gas tank for the 345-mile drive to Salinas. He pulled into the gas station on Ventura at Beverly Glen, near his house, at approximately 2 p.m. He hoisted himself out of the Porsche to gas up the tank. Wütherich hopped out, grabbed Dean's camera and snapped a now-famous photo of Dean standing at the service island.
At approximately 2:15 p.m. Dean climbed back into the Porsche. He gunned the engine, with Wütherich beside him, and turned right on Ventura, then right on Sepulveda Blvd. on their way to Route 99 North and over the "Grapevine." Around 5 p.m, they stopped at Blackwell's Corner, a roadside café and gas stop in Lost Hills, to top off the tank, stretch their legs and grab a snack before heading on to Salinas. But Dean would never make it.
Dean was killed near Paso Robles at approximately 5:45 p.m, at the junction of Route 466 (now 46) and Route 41, when a 23 year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, driving a black-and-white 1950 Ford Tudor, crossed into the highway intersection and slammed into Dean's Porsche. Turnupseed and Wütherich survived the crash. Dean became a legend. He was only 24 years old.
Many years before launching the Fountain Theatre, I was an actor. I became a Dean fan as an acting student at Los Angeles City College. Like generations of young actors before me, I was galvanized by James Dean. I was riveted by his films and read many books about him, studying the brooding photographs. I was thunderstruck. Not only by his raw, hypnotic acting. By him. His charismatic look, his outsider persona, the way he embodied an ache of loneliness twisted with a tormented, artistic intensity. He was cool.
When you're a passionate college acting student in your 20s, still figuring out who you are, Dean was the guardian angel of the troubled, misunderstood young man. Like millions of young male actors, he was "me." Or who I wished I was. I analyzed his acting, his posture, his walk, his manner. Researching his troubled life, he seemed like a vulnerable wounded man/child, perpetually reaching for something just out of grasp. The way he died sealed it. So young, so talented, so cool, enigmatic and beautiful. The low-slung sleek silver Porsche shooting down the dry, barren highway toward the sun. The metal shards and shattered glass exploding like a bursting star.
Dean and Wütherich on Sept. 30, 1955.
After ten years, I stopped acting. I began writing and directing plays. Running theatre companies in Los Angeles. I launched the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood in 1990. Married, became a father. Moved to the San Fernando Valley. No longer a young actor. I was soon a middle-aged husband and a dad with two sons. But I was still a Dean fan.
After dropping one son off at school at Sherman Oaks Elementary on Greenleaf Street, I would sometimes drive one block over to Sutton Street and stare at Dean's last home address. The house he rented there is gone, burned in a fire many years ago. A new modern home now hides behind a metal gate to keep onlookers out. But the tree-lined street looks much the same. It's easy to imagine Dean stepping out that bright morning on the last day of September, on what would be his final day.
Many years have passed. My sons and I have gotten older. The gas station where James Dean fueled up for his final ride became a flower shop in the 1980's. But they kept the original building intact. The service bays, filling pump islands, classic awning — all still there. Over the years, running errands with my wife and kids — chatting over play dates and summer camps and which detergent to buy at the grocery store — we would happen to drive by the old gas station in our family car. Silently, secretly, I'd shoot a glance at the empty service bay island and see Dean and the Porsche, filling up one last time.
Then, last week, came a shocking surprise. After dropping off my older son for an appointment, I drove by the old gas station. I couldn't see it. It was hidden, encased by heavy green construction fencing and iron scaffolding. Tractors, haulers and earth movers standing ready.
Casa de Petrol in 1961.
I frantically parked my blue Honda on Moorpark Street and dashed to the site. Found a gate in the fence and pushed in. The old gas station stood in front of me like a haunted abandoned relic surrounded by dirt, a large pile of rubble nearby. Two construction workers, wearing hardhats and work gloves, stood near their equipment. I rushed quickly to them.
"Do you mind if I have a look?" I asked. "I won't get in the way. You see, this is kind of an important place -"
"James Dean." The husky guy on the left, construction manager Doug Thane, smiled. I was clearly not the first fan to appear at the site since demolition began. There had been others.
"I didn't know anything about it, " admitted Thane. "And then people started showing up. Taking pictures. Wanting things. Some lady took a piece of pipe."
Thane's wiry co-worker, Curtis Listerman, squinted into the midday sun. "James Dean was cool, man," he nodded, running his hand over his balding head. "I look just like him."
"What's this place going to be after they tear it down?" I wanted to know. "What will go up in its place?"
"I don't know," Thane shrugged. He then pointed across the street. "I think a strip mall. Like that."
"Folks are saying they should make it a museum or something to James Dean," chuckled Listerman, wiping the dust from his mouth.
The station last week.
Another construction worker, Dave Wiesing, stepped up. Wiesing was a bit older. He confessed he was also a Dean fan. He knew what the fuss was about. Several times, he and his wife had taken part in the annual James Dean Final Drive, a yearly event on September 30th that draws hundreds of people from all over the world to trace Dean's route from the site of Competition Motors in Hollywood to the fatal intersection in Cholame.
"Is it okay if I have a look around?" I asked. "Before it's all gone?"
As construction manager, it was Thane's call. He peered at me and grinned. "Go ahead."
The small glass-paned office was long empty with graffiti sprayed across its walls. On the front door of the old office, someone had spray-painted the letter "J" and a heart. A message to Dean and the world.
I walked over to the service island and stood in the exact spot where Dean fueled up his Porsche nearly sixty-one years ago. Much was still there, as it was. The metal columns supporting the tin decorative awning, the cement pedestal that held the three red Mobil gas pumps. The pumps themselves were long gone but the footprints were still visible in the cement.
Standing there was like stepping into the famous photo snapped by Wütherich that fateful day so long ago. Everything looked liked it did. Except now a yellow tractor was parked where Dean's Spyder once stood.
"You want to take something?" Thane offered cheerfully.
"Can I? Really?" I asked.
"Sure," he said. "What do you want?"
Listerman and Thane
I glanced around. There was nothing in the huge pile of rubble that seemed connected to Dean in any way. And what was still there from the photograph — the columns, awning — were impractical to take. Then it hit me.
"Do you have a sledge hammer?" I asked Thane. He nodded. I beckoned. "Follow me."
I lead Thane and his sledge hammer over to the service island cement pedestal where Dean had fueled his car. The cement was still untouched. Unharmed. Intact. As it was when Dean was here.
"That," I pointed. "I want a piece of that." I chose the exact spot of the cement service island pedestal where the Porsche had been parked decades ago, where Dean stood. "There. Right there."
Thane hoisted the hammer. Raised it above his head. And with a loud grunt and a glisten in the sun, the sledge hammer swung down and — for the first time in sixty-one years — broke off a large chunk of history.
I held the heavy piece of cement like a holy artifact. A smaller chip broke off in my hand. I examined it up close. Like it was going to tell me something. What am I going to do with it? I don't know. But I knew I had to have it. I guess it's kind of like the people who chisel a chip off his tombstone. They want to hold a piece of something — anything — that will make them feel that way again.
My older son is now twenty-four, the same age as Dean. And the twenty-four year old actor I once was, so long ago, is a memory. What we once were is no more.
The house Dean rented on Sutton Street is gone. Competition Motors on Vine Street is gone. The Hollywood Ranch Market is gone. Even the original highway intersection where the crash occurred in 1955 is not there. It was moved. The highway was realigned decades ago. The crash site now sits in a grass field.
But the gas station had remained. Still standing. Until now.
Instead of a Porsche Spyder, I stroll back to my Honda. I get in. Drop the heavy chunk of cement in the back. The smaller chip I gently place in the cup holder between the front seats. A piece of Jimmy beside me.
Everything changes, including ourselves. Like old buildings torn down. What remains, we hold on to. Like the chip of cement I now keep in my car.
A talisman of James Dean and the young man I once was.
I turn the ignition of my Honda. Start the car. Rev the engine, good and loud, just to show I still can. Shift the gear into drive. Point my car toward the sun. And the afternoon horizon.
Stephen Sachs is a playwright, director, husband and father, and the Co-Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood.
