William Bast And James Dean
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He contributed to many of the most popular series on US television
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Bast: a dedicated Anglophile, he kept a flat in London as a base for his epic theatre-going
William Bast was a prolific screenwriter for television and feature films. In a six-decade career he contributed to many of the most popular series on US television including such famous shows as Hawaii Five-O, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dr Kildare and The Waltons. But there were particular strands to Bast’s career which gave him a more special claim to fame.
In 1985 he became creator and chief writer of the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys. Its stellar cast was headed by Barbara Stanwyck, Charlton Heston and Stephanie Beacham and like its predecessor it became a prime time hit. In 1986 it was voted the most popular show on US television.
In the 1960s, Bast had established himself in London, following the launch of the first British commercial TV stations. He worked for both the BBC and ITV; it was for Granada that he adapted The Tiger at the Gates, an allegorical study of the threat of war by the French playwright Jean Giraudoux. Also for Granada he wrote an original and intensely personal drama, The Myth Makers, inspired by the funeral of James Dean, whose grotesque trappings, as he saw them, had been largely driven by the Hollywood publicity machine.
What Bast did not fully reveal in his screenplay was his own intense friendship with the rebellious young star. They had been room-mates met at UCLA and both went to New York, Dean to seek acting roles, Bast to look for work writing for TV, again sharing an apartment. Bast chronicled their relationship in two books, James Dean: a Biography (1956) and Surviving James Dean (2006).
This second book presented a far more candid account of their association; Bast felt that he could at last deal honestly with the fact that he and Dean had been sexually involved. The Myth Makers was adapted again for ABC under the title The Movie Star. In 1975, again for NBC, Bast wrote and produced a further drama, James Dean: Portrait of a Friendship.
Bast was born in Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, the eldest of eight siblings whose father was a chiropractor. He studied at the University of Wisconsin then at UCLA, in theatre arts, when his family moved to Los Angeles. After following Dean to New York Bast got his first job in the PR department of CBS but soon found himself, aged 23, turning out scripts for a new sitcom, The Aldrich Family. Back in Los Angeles Dean had been cast in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden which rocketed him to stardom and created around him that potent cult of youthful vulnerability and revolt.
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After Bast had returned to Los Angeles to rejoin him Dean made two further films in quick succession, Rebel Without A Cause and Giant. “Jimmy was on location a lot but we got to spend time between pictures,” Bast wrote. “It was an amazing period, Jimmy suddenly a film star, me inching along in television. Then just as suddenly it all ended.” Later Bast complained that he had never quite escaped from the shadow of Dean’s fame. “He has remained a constant backdrop to everything I do and has often, at times too often, taken centre stage.”
Not long after Dean’s fatal car crash Bast left for Europe, to live in Paris, then in London. It was during his first stay in Britain that he wrote several episodes of The Prisoner and a BBC Sunday-Night Play, “The Test”. On a later visit he was commissioned to write two feature films, The Valley of Gwangi, and Hammerhead, starring Judy Geeson and Diana Dors. But by far his most important feature was The Betsy (1978), adapted from Harold Robbins’ best-selling study of a pioneering car tycoon (based on Henry Ford), and starring Laurence Olivier, Tommy Lee Jones and Katherine Ross.
Bast received many awards. The Legend of Lizzie Borden, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, a drama based on the female axe murderer of American folklore, received the 1976 Edgar Allan Poe Award, while his adaptation of The Man in the Iron Mask from the Alexandre Dumas novel starring Richard Chamberlain received two Emmy nominations. His version of The Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews as the elusive Sir Percy received the Christopher Award while The First Modern Olympics won him an Outstanding Script Award.
Bast was a handsome, voluble man of authoritative presence and manner who expressed his opinions, sometimes with amusing acerbity, on all aspects of his craft. As fastidious in appearance as he was in his writing, he always presented an immaculate façade, perfectly groomed and stylishly attired. In the mid-1960s he had acquired an attractive hacienda-type house in the Hollywood hills, its rear windows looking directly on to the letters of the Hollywood sign. But as a dedicated Anglophile he always kept a flat in London, his base for regular West End theatre-going on an epic scale.
In London in 1962 he had met a young Englishman, Paul Huson, who returned to live with him in Los Angeles. Huson became not only Bast’s life partner but also his co-writer who was to share many of his credits. For the past seven years Bast had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. µ
William Edwin Bast, screenwriter: born Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin 3 April 1931; civil partnership 2002 with Paul Huson; died Los Angeles 4 May 2015.
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A beautifully written memoir, candid and definitive, that tells the story of Bast's five year relationship with the charismatic actor and American legend--James Dean. ...more
Published April 20th 2006 by Barricade Books
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Jul 29, 2013 Bob rated it it was amazing
This is a heartfelt and deeply moving autobiography and biography of the five-year relationship between the author, William Bast, and his best friend, James Dean. Bill describes himself as a closeted gay while Dean is less so. But as Bill’s love for Jimmy grows, so does the fear that a sexual relationship between the men will not end well. Still, Bill is finally ready to take that plunge when the two men consummate their love in a Borrego Springs hotel in the desert.
Dean wonders: “What took you ...more
This is an excellent autobiography (I'll call it that since it's about William Bast, but don't get me wrong, there is a-lot of James Dean to cover here). It might get too far into scenarios that lack interest, but maybe that's because it starts deviating away from Bast and James Dean, and I picked this book up to know more about James Dean! Anyway, that's a minor gripe, and I really appreciate William Bast after having reading this updated Biography (sort of). On to the good stuff! Bast cuts to ...more
I'm a big fan of James Dean so I've read quite a few biographies about him, but this one is by far the best. It was written by one of James Dean's closest friends, so I figure he knows the actual facts better than most. I cried when William Bast writes about receiving the phone call about Dean's accident; it was very moving and heartbreaking. ...more
Sep 13, 2014 Armand rated it it was ok
Scurrilous gossip. Smells like bullshit to me. A self-aggrandizing attempt by the author to attach himself to a legend.
I can't recall the last time any book - hell, any story - profoundly moved me like this one has.
James Dean is an image, a myth, an aspiration - and that has always bothered me for reasons I've never been able to put together. And yet I find myself instantly drawn in by stories of being struck by sudden tragedy - the sinking of Titanic, the destruction of Pompeii, stories like Gatsby or the American Civil War, etc. It goes on and on. So, logically, that applies to the life of James Dean as well. ...more
Biography of my teen idol, with details that couldn't be published back when, by his friend and lover. East of Eden was about, and shot in, my home town of Salinas. But the rest of the story wasn't really all that interesting. ...more
Apr 25, 2020 carol rated it it was amazing
"Stonewall, where were you when i needed you?"
don't talk to me, I'm crying!!!! ...more
Amazing look at the real man behind the myth. Reminded me of “City of night”.
This account of the author's friendship with James Dean has the ring of truth.
Bast knew James Dean from student days at UCLA until Dean's death. Bast and Dean were about the same age. While Bast became an insider at the TV networks, Dean became an increasingly popular actor, appearing on TV and, of course, in the movies.
Bast wrote two very good TV scripts in the seventies. One was for a TV movie about Lizzie Borden. I didn't know he wrote that until I read this book. So, I can say William Bast ...more
Surviving James Dean (2006) by William Bast, Dean’s roommate, gives an intimate portrait of Dean’s life through his accounts with living and meeting with Dean as a long-time friend, “lover”, and roommate. I guess for the book to focus on Dean, it must focus on Bast’s life, but I feel like it focuses too much on his life, making this only an empathetic caricature of Dean rather than a biography. Readers be warned, it is still a fantastic read for James Dean fans.
Apr 27, 2011 Clifton rated it really liked it
A fine memoir of William Bast's relationship with James Dean, interesting both on that account and on gay life in show business in the years they were friends/lovers and in the years following Dean's early death. Bast makes it clear why Dean probably never would have come out: his career came first. (Some things have not changed.) Then again, no one can really say. Far better written than the Paul Alexander biography of Dean, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," though it has its value too. ...more
Nov 26, 2010 Darren rated it it was amazing
Very informative and interesting. I couldn't put it down. I stayed at the same YMCA in NYC that James Dean stayed at when he first came to New York. ...more
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Author Casey McQuiston took the romance world by storm with her 2019 debut, Red, White & Royal Blue. A double Goodreads Choice Award winner...
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William Bast: Screenwriter who created The Colbys and wrote
Surviving James Dean by William Bast
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