"The most definitive biography yet written.quite interesting without being sensational." --Booklist "Holley has produced a meticulously documented work that dissects Dean's personality as never before." --Publishers Weekly "Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, this is a worthy addition to the growing body of literature surrounding an actor whose life achieved mythic proportions as a result of his untimely death." - -Library Journal "The freshest, most revealing, and probably the most truthful account of [Dean] I have ever read." --Alexander Walker, author of Vivien: The Life of Vivien Leigh and Fatal Charm: The Life of Rex Harrison "Jimmy, Brando and Clift knew how to play the field; how to project a unique mixture of 'delicate macho'--'Save me, but don't come too close'" --Frank Corsaro, artistic director, Actors Studio "What's important about Jimmy is that in spite of his short life, he had really lived--and with his beauty, he acted in ways that other actors only dream about." --Terese Hayden, producer Carmino Real "We felt Jimmy was explosive and not party of the community. We were aware he marched to a different drummer than nintey-nine percent of Fairmont.

Some people in the town were glad to see him to go California." --Sue Hill, former Fairmont, Indiana, resident "Val Holley allows James Dean to be as wily, controlling, beautiful, seductive, sexually ambivalent, and actory as he apparently was. It's like suddenly having the gift of a fourth, posthumous movie to slip on the shelf." --Brad Gooch, author of City Pearl: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara "I was drawn in by its legwork and detail, suprising interview, sweet reasoning, and vivid characterization. This immortal of the screen stacks up as an American enigma" --Patrick McGilligan, author of George Cukor: A Double Life "Val Holley's James Dean is obviously a labor of lve, and very thorough." - -Washington Post Book World.