Rebel Without a Cause virtually defined our concept of what it means to be young. For the first time, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel, tells the complete story behind the movie Rebel Without a Cause. Set against the backdrop of the Atomic Age, the blacklist and America's burgeoning hot rod mania, the book narrates how 43-year-old director Nicholas Ray, buffeted by a shocking personal scandal, set out on a journey to make the defining film about young people. Live Fast, Die Young follows Ray as he hangs out undercover with L.A.'s most notorious juvenile gang, presides over auditions of young actors that often turned into violent mêlées and engages in a psychosexual exploration of his three young stars—James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo—along the way creating a film that would have a seismic effect on American culture. Co-authors Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel pored over thousands of pages of documents and interviewed virtually every living member of the cast and crew of Rebel Without a Cause (including some who had never before spoken publicly about the film), as well as friends and colleagues of James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Nicholas Ray. Live Fast, Die Young includes more than 1,300 endnotes, citing nearly 500 sources, and 30 photographs, including 10 rare Dennis Stock photos taken on the film's set. It is the definitive account of the story behind the movie Rebel Without a Cause, while providing a portrait of the studio system on the verge of collapse and America on the brink of social upheaval.
