James Dean's Fatal Crash and the Cursed Porsche
Movie heartthrob James Dean would have turned 95 this Sunday, if he hadn't been tragically killed at the age of just 24 in a horror car crash. In 1955, the star died when the silver Porsche 550 Spyder he was driving hit another vehicle on a road in California. A bizarre theory has since emerged that the tragic incident wasn't just bad luck – his car was cursed.
Only days before James Dean's fatal trip, the star of movies like Rebel Without a Cause met Alec Guinness at a Los Angeles restaurant and proudly showed him his new, sporty Porsche. The British actor warned him: “If you get in that car you will be found dead in it by this time next week.” Sure enough, Dean, who was travelling to a racing competition, would die when his car – nicknamed Little Bastard – was in a collision exactly a week later.
At 5.45pm on September 30, it smashed into a Ford Tudor, driven by student Donald Turnupseed, which was turning into another road on US 466 near Cholame, California. The Spyder cartwheeled before ending up mangled in a ditch. Dean suffered multiple injuries including a broken neck. His passenger, mechanic Rolf Wütherich, survived, as did Turnupseed.
The Curse of Little Bastard
Parts of the Porsche, including the engine, were used in other vehicles said to have been involved in more fatal accidents, leading to claims of a curse. The restored wreck later went on show, only to mysteriously disappear.
Albert Camus: Accident or KGB Assassination?
French novelist Albert Camus perished when the Farcel Vega car he was travelling in left a road in Northern France on January 4, 1960 and hit a tree – the impact broke his neck. The irony was that in the writer's pocket was a ticket for a train journey back to Paris. At the last minute he'd decided to accept a lift from his publisher Michel Gallimard, who was also killed. Camus, also a philosopher, had once said: “The most absurd way to die is in a car crash.”
But was it just an accident? In 2011 it was claimed that in a diary entry, a Czech poet had revealed a well-connected source told him that KGB spies had murdered Camus in a reprisal for the author's outbursts at the Soviet regime. The agents had apparently tampered with the car's tyres. Chillingly, Gallimard's wife, who survived the crash, said the car had suddenly “wobbled” before calamity struck.
Grace Kelly: Stroke or Mafia Hit?
American beauty Grace Kelly, star of films like High Society and To Catch a Thief, amazed Hollywood when she quit showbusiness, aged just 26, to marry Monaco's Prince Rainier. Even more shocking was her death in 1982, at 52, after her car plunged 100ft off a French mountain. It was initially wrongly claimed that the brakes of her Rover P6 3500 had failed, but it later emerged she'd probably had a stroke while at the wheel and navigating the treacherous hairpin bends of the D37.
Her youngest daughter, Princess Stephanie, who was with her in the car, survived. She has since denied rumours that she was the one driving. Oddly, Kelly usually used a chauffeur, but chose not to on that day. One wild, unproven theory is that the mafia murdered Kelly because of her opposition to their activities in Monaco.
Princess Diana: Conspiracy Theories Persist
Just after midnight on August 31, 1997, Princess Diana died aged 36 when the Mercedes Benz she was travelling in crashed into a pillar inside a Paris tunnel. She passed away in hospital from her injuries. Her partner Dodi Fayed, 42, was also killed in the accident as was driver Henri Paul, while Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. No-one in the car was wearing a seat belt.
In the years that followed, investigations ruled that Paul, who had been drinking and taking prescription drugs, had lost control of the car while fleeing paparazzi. But Dodi's father, businessman Mohammed Al-Fayed, led conspiracy theories around the tragedy. Diana had famously split from Prince Charles and Al-Fayed alleged that MI6 and the Royal family had somehow been behind the crash. Authorities have since found no evidence to back up his claims.
Jackson Pollock: Drunk Driving and a Cult's Influence
Abstract artist Jackson Pollock was famed for his splatter paintings, but came to a messy end when he was killed in a car crash on the night of August 11, 1956. The 44-year-old American was drunk at the wheel when his Oldsmobile convertible flew off the road and flipped at 70mph in Springs, New York, just a mile from his home. Pollock died along with another passenger, while the painter's mistress, Ruth Kligman, was thrown clear and survived.
In 2023 a book blamed a therapy cult called the Sullivanians for encouraging the artist to keep drinking to address his problems, despite Pollock's attempts to get sober.
Jayne Mansfield: Satanic Curse?
Blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield made her name in 1950s flicks like The Wayward Bus and Too Hot to Handle. But the thrice-married mum-of-five would sadly die, aged just 34, in a car crash. On June 29, 1967, she and her boyfriend Sam Brody, along with a driver, her four dogs and three of her children were packed into a Buick Electra travelling from Biloxi, Mississippi to New Orleans.
At 2am the car, going at up to 80mph, crashed into the back of a lorry which had slowed down while passing a truck spraying insecticide. The top of the vehicle sheared off killing Mansfield and the other two adults in the front seat. Her children, who were sleeping in the back, miraculously survived. Gossip that Mansfield was decapitated in the accident was false, but it was true that she had recently become very close to Anton LaVey, head of America's Church of Satan. He claimed to have put a curse on a jealous Brody just before the crash.
Marc Bolan: An Eerie Prediction
Glam rocker Marc Bolan, frontman of the band T-Rex, might have owned a white Rolls Royce, but he was afraid of driving and never got a licence. So, on the night of September 16, 1977, it was his second wife, backing singer Gloria Jones, who was at the wheel of a purple Mini 1275 GT travelling through Barnes, South London after a party. Bolan, 29, was sitting in the passenger seat, without a seatbelt on. At 4am the car came off the road and hit a tree, killing Bolan instantly. Jones survived.
But did the star predict his own death? His 1972 song Solid Gold Easy Action contained the lines “Life is the same and it always will be, Easy as picking foxes from a tree.” Creepily, the Mini's numberplate was FOX 661L. The star always thought he'd die young and even once said: “I'd like to die in a Mini.”
