James Dean was not very tall-he was less than average height. He had thick, light brown hair and blue eyes. He was so near-sighted that he could hardly see anything without his glasses.      He came to Hollywood when he was eighteen, hoping to get into the movies. At first, he was not successful at all, and for a time he was so short of money that he had to live entirely on dry oatmeal. Then he went to New York. He got a part in a play and was seen by the great director Elia Kazan. Kazan was planning the movie East of Eden and realized Dean would be perfect for one of the main roles.      By this time, Dean already had a reputation for being odd and difficult to work with. He then went back to Hollywood to make East of Eden and then made two more movies, Rebel Withhout a Cause and Giant. He almost always wore the same overcoat and jeans and he had hardly any friends at all. "If he didn't like you, he wouldn't even give you the pleasure of his anger. You could be in the same telephone booth with him, but you wouldn't exist," someone who knew him said later.      In spite of his poor eyesight, he loved driving fast motorcycles and even faster sports cars. A few days after he finished Giant, on September 25, 1955, Dean went for a drive in his new Porsche. It was evening and the light was poor. Dean was not wearing his glasses. Suddenly, he saw a car in front of him. It was slowing down and trying to turn off the highway. Dean tried to slow down too, but it was  too late. He hit the car at high speed and was killed immediately.      Two German girls killed themselves when they heard the news because "life would be unbearable without him." A few years later, a New York salesclerk wrote a book called Jimmy Dean  Returns in which she claimed that she was in contact with Dean from the other side of the grave. Half  a million copies of the book were sold. It was only the beginning of a strange legend  that goes  on, even today. What does the passage intend to tell us?
The death of James Dean. James Dean's movies. The beginning of a legend. The life of an actor.