To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle.

Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift whom both men and women find sexy. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film Rebel Without a Cause (1955) in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark.

100 Stars list.