Born January 10: Sal Mineo

Although later he was twice nominated for an Oscar, Sal Mineo's career peaked when he was sixteen, playing Plato, Rebel Without a Cause's universal everyman, for who hasn't harbored an crush on James Dean? As if it wouldn't be exhilarating and nerve-wracking enough to be a gay sixteen year-old acting opposite the bi twenty-four year-old superstar and Natalie Wood, Mineo was also having an affair with the director, Nicholas Ray, who was forty-four. Well, it was all downhill from there. He was praised for his roles on stage and in Exodus and Who Killed Teddy Bear? and he recorded a couple albums with two Top 40 hits, but he had been typecast and that moment had passed. Unfortunately, the movies' sensitive, gay teen devolved into television's deranged psycho killer, with guest starring roles on Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, S.W.A.T., Police Story, and Ellery Queen. When he was thirty-seven, walking at night through an alley near his home in West Hollywood, he was stabbed once in a botched mugging, and died. John Lennon offered a cash reward to find his killer. Many people, including Mineo's family, believe the courts convicted the wrong man, who had confessed and recanted, was released in 1990, and reincarcerated for parole violations. Two books have been written about Mineo's life and death, the better one is H. Paul Jeffers' biography.