Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien's Auctions, said: 'James Dean is quite the icon today yet he was only in Hollywood for five years.
He made three movies and two of those came out after his death. It's amazing that in 2013 he is still such a memorable icon.
'This is a candid photo and was taken by the photographer from Dean's station wagon in front. Dean was on his way to a car race and it looks like they were all having fun.
'It is a forever powerful and compelling image, with Dean clasping his mechanic's hand in a gesture of anticipation and triumph. As it is one of the last photos ever taken of him, it is most poignant.'
Photographer Roth first met Dean on the set of the 1956 film Giant and the pair became friends. Roth took some iconic pictures of Dean both on the set of that film and afterwards in Los Angeles.
Dean was the first ever actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award
nomination for Best Actor, for his role in East Of Eden in 1955.
He is also the only actor to receive two posthumous Academy Award
acting nominations, as he had a second one the following year for Giant.The photograph, which is being auctioned alongside other images of Dean taken by Roth, is set to fetch £500 when it goes for sale on April 5.
James Dean is buried in Fairmount, Indiana, near his uncle's farm where he grew up. In 1977, a Dean memorial was erected in Cholame, California.
The sculpture was made of stainless steel around a 'tree of heaven' growing in front of the former Cholame post office building.
His acting career took of after he graduated from high school and moved back to Los Angeles to live with his father.
While studying at UCLA, he was picked to play Malcolm in Macbeth. He dropped out of the university in January 1951, to pursue an acting career full-time.
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Angelika
(Daily)
