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Dead Cool: Seven Lost American Legends
Seven American icons who lived fast and died young in high style.
Words Christian Barker
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Jimi Hendrix
Having served as a US Army paratrooper for a time, it’s apt that the look guitar ace Jimi Hendrix is best known for was military in bearing — 19th-century British dress uniform coats purchased, in all likelihood, from iconic Swinging London vintage emporium I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet in Notting Hill (Eric Clapton, The Beatles and Stones sported military regalia from the same store.) Hendrix famously fell afoul of British bobbies while wearing one such specimen on the streets of South Kensington, he and his girlfriend confronted by affronted constabulary shouting: “Do you realise that our soldiers died in that uniform?!” The guitarist cooly replied, “What? In a Royal Veterinary Corps dress jacket?” Hendrix escaped harm in that fraught situation, but died just a few years later aged 27, overdosing on barbiturates and choking on his own vomit.
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Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen’s sartorial attire in heist classic The Thomas Crown Affair is surely amongst the most rakish garb ever committed to celluloid, but let’s face it — almost anyone can look great with the aid of a talented tailor and deft Hollywood wardrobe designer. No, it was McQueen’s ability to appear effortlessly stylish in everyday life, in clothing of his own choosing, that truly cemented his rep as one of the best dressed men of the 20th century. Whether in trim chinos, desert boots, button-down and tweed sportscoat, biker’s ‘double denim’ and leather, basic t-shirt and jeans, dad-tastic shawl-lapel sweater, or his signature Baracuta G9 ‘Harrington’ jacket and Persols, the actor (who died of cancer aged 50) was the King of Cool onscreen and off.
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John F. Kennedy
A cool, youthful, preppy president, John F Kennedy’s administration marked a new period of hope and change for America — politically and stylistically. Eschewing headwear, JFK struck the death knell for countless milliners, liberating men to let their pomaded quiffs fly free. Hanging with Sinatra’s Rat Pack, the Prez easily matched the Chairman of the Board in the sartorial stakes, while during his down-time yachting off the fam’s Hyannis Port estate, Kennedy was the picture of laid back patrician cool — a shining inspiration to countless midcentury American men to up their style game. The 46-year-old JFK’s life was ended in 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald (conjectured to be a pawn of the CIA, Mafia, Soviets, or perhaps, disgruntled trilby manufacturers) popped a cap on the man who’d whacked the hat.
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Gram Parsons
Material success eluded Gram Parsons throughout his all-too-short musical career with The International Submarine Band, The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and as a solo artist. But being the rich-kid scion of an enormously wealthy Southern fruit farming family, Parsons could nevertheless afford to live the high life of a rock star proper on the proceeds of his patrimony, going toe to toe, dollar for dollar, hit for hit with pals such as Rolling Stone Keith Richards, with whom Parsons enjoyed a debauched stay during the recording of Exile on Main Street on the French Riviera. Lacking Keef’s legendary resilience, however, Parsons descended into bloated alcoholism, cocaine and heroin abuse and died aged just 26 in 1973, leaving behind several hugely influential alt-country albums and a legacy of audacious alt-country style (see: his iconic ‘Nudie’ suit, emblazoned with pills, poppies and weed leaves).
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River Phoenix
Handsome — no, more accurate to say beautiful young bohemian actor River Phoenix sure scrubbed up well. GQ described him and late-’80s girlfriend Martha Plimpton as “the coolest couple ever to attend the Oscars… pre-grunge style gods… dressed like aristocratic hippie royalty”. But River could also throw together a mean casual ensemble — a random sportscoat, unbuttoned flannel shirt, tee, jeans and All-Stars, topped off by intellectual Lennon granny specs and that perfectly flippy midlength hair. Chilled, but the guy looked smart. And — to go back over old interviews — he was smart. Immensely talented, too. His death from multi-drug overdose in 1993, aged only 23, was a real loss.
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Lenny Bruce
The apellation ‘hipster’ has been twisted recently to identify earnest bearded dudes obsessing over obscure craftsmanship goods. (Wait a minute, dear reader, that sounds uncomfortably familiar...) Sharply attired in skinny-lapel suits and narrow ties, comedian Lenny Bruce may not have looked like a contemporary hipster — well, not until his bedraggled, hirsute later years at least — but the father of modern-day stand-up certainly lived up to Beat Generation contemporary William S Burroughs’ definition of hip: “Someone who is ‘with it’… Someone who knows the score.” Bruce also knew where to score, and unfortunately died of a heroin overdose at his Hollywood Hills home in 1966. The uncompromising comic, repeatedly arrested for profanity, was eulogised by Playboy thus: “One last four-letter word for Lenny: Dead. At forty. That’s obscene.”
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James Dean
We kinda hesitate to include James Dean here. It’s so predictable as to be clichéd to feature the quintessential example of ‘live fast, die young’ on a list such as this. But the man’s iconic style moments — the Western twang of Giant, the archetypal American teen of Rebel Without a Cause, all those smokin’ offduty shots in specs, tuxedos and overcoats — and the undeniable if deadly cool of the Porsche 550 Spyder automobile that claimed his life, aged 24 in 1955, make Dean impossible to omit.
America The Beautiful, Dead Cool, Gram Parsons, icons, james dean, jimi hendrix, John F. Kennedy, Lenny Bruce, River Phoenix, Steve McQueen
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