James Dean on the set of ‘Giant’, 1955.
Giant is the movie where James Dean pulled back a little of the fabric of the universe and showed Dennis Hopper how things work on the planet Earth. One day the two were sitting around the set, just talking and bullshitting, and were a couple hundred yards away from where several fans - young women mostly, of course - were corralled off, thrilled to see their favorite heartthrob to eventually be played by James Franco in a TV movie in person, but all tingly at the mere, infinitesimal possibility of actually touching and/or talking to him. And then Dean turned to Hopper and said, “I’ve got to take a leak.” Hopper said whatever that day’s equivalent of, “Dude, TMI!” and Dean got up, walked a few feet away, and in full view of Hopper and all the gathered fans, unzipped, pulled out his fast car and urinated. When he finished, he zipped back up and came back over and sat down next to Hopper again. Hopper’s jaw was practically in his lap. “How the fuck could you do that?” Hopper asked him and I’m only kind of paraphrasing. “What made you think that was a good idea?” Dean just smirked and patted Hopper on the shoulder and said, “You know what, Dennis? I’ve always wanted to be the coolest guy in the world, and now I think I am. You know how I know this? You’d have to be the coolest guy in the world to take a piss in front of hundreds of people and just not give a shit, right?”
And for the first time in his life, Dennis Hopper didn’t know what to say to that.
