By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/p>\n
This Saturday in Southern California, fans of the legendary film star James Dean will have a chance to meet face-to-face with the California Highway Patrol<\/a> officer who was first on the scene of the head-on\u00a0car collision that took\u00a0Dean’s life\u00a0more than fifty years ago\u00a0— as well as the officer who investigated the accident and\u00a0a third CHP\u00a0officer who had ticketed Dean for speeding two hours before his death.<\/p>\n What’s more,\u00a0fans will\u00a0get the inside story on James Dean’s last meal,\u00a0which according to local legend, was eaten\u00a0during a quick stop at Tip’s Coffee Shop in what’s now known as the Santa Clarita Valley, just north of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n The occasion is a\u00a0screening of\u00a0Dean’s famous “Rebel Without a Cause”\u00a0and a panel discussion of Dean’s last days and hours, sponsored by the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. Panel speakers will include Warren Beath, author of The Death of James Dean,<\/em>\u00a0Chris Epting, author of James Dean Died Here, <\/em>and Tony Newhall (my brother-in-law!), author of a 1985\u00a0Newhall Signal\u00a0article detailing Dean’s stop at Tip’s, which\u00a0featured interviews with former coffee shop employees.<\/p>\n Thanks to some heavy sleuthing through old telephone books, the Historical Society located both the CHP officer who responded to Dean’s accident near Cholame<\/a>, California, on September 30, 1955, as well as the officer\u00a0who participated in the inquest that followed. The two men are still alive and living in California. Also located — the CHP officer who ticketed Dean for speeding near Bakersfield (65 in a 55 mph zone in his Porsche Spyder nicknamed “Little Bastard”).<\/p>\n Armed with video cameras, the Historical Society people drove to three different cities and interviewed each of the three officers. The resulting video will be\u00a0premiered at the panel discussion.<\/p>\n But that’s not all. “Now they’ve just learned that possibly these three ex-CHP officers want to attend this program,” my brother-in-law reports. “So they may all be there too.”<\/p>\n