Is there a Baby Boomer worthy of the name that hasn’t seen Rebel Without a Cause? Doubtful, James Dean in that red jacket has become an everlasting icon of teenage angst and ambivalence.

But here are a few things about that classic film you may not know:

The title comes from a 1944 book – Warner Brothers purchased the rights to a book about a juvenile delinquent named Harold who wound up in the federal pen in Pennsylvania, For years, they tried to work into an acceptable screenplay. In fact, one of the first writers to try was a guy named Theodore Geisel – or as we know him better – Dr. Seuss.

None of the screenplays proved acceptable. Then, in 1954, director Nicholas Ray brought Warner Brothers his idea for a film about affluent juvenile delinquents called The Blind Run. Warners liked Ray’s ideas but wanted him to combine it with the book they’d already purchased. By the time the final script was completed, about the only thing left from that 1944 book was the title: Rebel Without a Cause.

Marlon Brando almost played the lead – Back when Warners was trying to adapt the original book, they thought they were close to being ready to start shooting. So, in 1949, they began the process of casting the film and approached Marlon Brando to play the lead. Ultimately, that version of the film fell through and Brando had to wait until 1953’s The Wild One before he’d be given his chance to play an iconic bad boy.

Natalie Wood was romantically involved with both Dennis Hopper & Nicholas Ray while the movie was filming – Natalie came into the film when she was dating Hopper. However, she soon began an affair with Nicholas Ray, the film’s director, as well. Hopper found out and challenged Ray to a fistfight. Ray declined the fight but retaliated by reducing Hopper’s role in the film to a non-speaking one.

There was an actual gang member in the cast – The part of gang member Crunch was played by Frank Mazzola, who was a member of a real “social club” called the Athenians at Hollywood High School. Mazzola told director Ray that many of the elements of the script as well as costumes and cars were phony. He even took Dean and Ray to an actual gang meeting where members of the gang roughed up the director and star a bit. After that, Ray gave Mazzola an office at the studio and had him doing double duty as a consultant on all the gang-related aspects of the film. It was Mazzola who picked out Dean’s 1949 Mercury for the drag race scene.

Is the script more Shakespeare or fairy tale? – Director Ray often told people he based his vision of the story on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. But the guy who did the final version of the script, Stewart Stern, said he was basing his version on James Barrie’s Peter Pan with Dean as Peter, Natalie as Wendy, and Sal Mineo standing in for all the Lost Boys.

The film was supposed to be in black & white – Both the director and screenwriter thought the movie would work best in black and white, just as Blackboard Jungle and The Wild One had been shot. But Warners wanted the film to be shot in Cinemascope and there was a clause in Cinemascope’s contract with the studio that demanded all Cinemascope features be shot in color. So that was that.

Nicholas Ray virtually handed over the director’s chair to James Dean – All of the principals involved in the shoot said that Ray pretty much let James Dean call his own shots on the scenes he appeared in. That included giving Dean plenty of room to improvise and to give instructions to the other actors appearing in scenes with him. Dean once flew into a rage when Ray yelled “Cut” during a scene, telling the director that Dean would be the one to decide when the cameras should cut.

All 3 of the film’s stars met tragic, untimely deaths – Of course, the most famous one was Dean’s himself, who was killed when he lost control of his car just two weeks before the film opened. But Sal Mineo was also murdered outside his home at the age of 37 and Natalie Wood drowned in what are still mysterious circumstances at the age of 43.

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Wham-O was the unquestioned king of kid fads during the 1960s. They started hot with the Hula Hoop and finished even hotter with the Frisbee (a fad that never, ever went away). In between, they gave us the SuperBall!

The SuperBall was a compact little piece of toy dynamite. When dropped, it rebounded to nearly 100% of the original height. When thrown with a little (or a lot) of force, it could sail over houses and even reach high enough to shatter lights in school gymnasium ceilings. The ball will also bounce in crazy ways if you put spin on it.

The ball was invented by chemist Norman Stingley in 1964. He created a complex batch of synthetic rubber he named Zectron. He offered his invention to his employer, the Bettis Rubber Company. They couldn’t see much use for it and told Stingley he was free to shop it elsewhere.

He found a buyer at the Wham-O toy company, who instantly saw its potential. They worked with Stingley to improve his formula and created compact bouncing balls about 2” in diameter under 3,500 pounds per square inch of pressure. When Wham-O first released their SuperBall in 1965, it was an instant hit. By December of that year, the company was cranking out 170,000 of the little devils a day!

Wham-O quickly expanded their line of SuperBalls to include different colors – and especially – different sizes.

Believe it or not, the little ball also gave our biggest sporting event its name. Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs noticed his kids playing with a SuperBall and wrote a letter to the committee supervising the newly created championship game between the NFL and the AFL suggesting they use the name "Super Bowl." They turned him down. But reporters loved the name and began using it in their stories. The name caught on with the public and by the 3rd year, pro football officially adopted "Super Bowl" as the name of their big game!

Meanwhile back at the fad, SuperBalls had two drawbacks – irate parents tired of seeing household item smashed (and kids with bruises and black eyes) from getting in the way of a SuperBall and the fact that SuperBalls had a tendency to suddenly shatter after only a few days of play.

Other competitors jumped in with their own versions, although Wham-O has a patent on the exact formula for their ball, and the company claims the ones they manufacture today last longer than the 1965 model. But like most fads, sales of SuperBalls fell off as quickly in 1966 as they rose the year before.

That’s just the way the SuperBall bounces!

Okay, you know nobody in the band was named Herman and that the lead singer, Peter Noone, is still active and performing today. But here are a few facts you may not know about those British Invasion fave raves:

It was Peter Noone’s resemblance to JFK that got them their first recording session – The group’s management had been trying unsuccessfully to get British super producer Mickey Most to record the boys. Finally, Mickey said, “Send me a picture” of the group. When the photo arrived, Most thought Noone looked like a young JFK and so decided to take a chance on the group.

“I’m Henry the VIII” was written in 1910 – Their fastest-selling single was the catchy and hyper-British ditty “I’m Henry the VIII” (or “Henery” as Noone would sing it). The song was actually first performed in English music halls as far back as 1910. The Brits themselves thought the song and Noone’s overdone Cockney accent were a little too corny, so the song was never as big in the UK as it was in the USA.

Half of Led Zeppelin played on lots of Herman’s Hermits’ records – You probably know that Jimmy Page was one of England’s most sought-after sessions musicians. And yes, he’s the one playing lead guitar on many of the group’s hits (like “Silhouettes”). What you may not know is that the band didn’t think much of their own bass player, Karl Green, and so he was replaced on nearly ALL of the group’s recording by John Paul Jones who also did double duty arranging the music for most of the group’s sessions.

“Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” was actually a cover song – The tune was written for a 1963 British TV show called “The Lads.” The original version was recorded by the show’s star Tom Courtenay, but it never went anywhere.

As we age, many of us develop cataracts. However, many of us aren’t even aware it’s happening. Here are a few tips to keeping your eyes healthy:

1.) Cataracts most typically become a problem for people in the 60s and 70s, but doctors say they can develop much earlier, so be mindful of that once you get past 50.

2.) Because cataracts develop slowly, most people don’t realize how cloudy their vision has become. Make sure your see your optometrist regularly.

3.) One of the key symptoms that indicate you may have a problem with cataracts is if you see halos around lights. Again, always check with your optometrist.

Finally, cataract surgery has made tremendous strides in recent years. It is not painful. It may feel a bit uncomfortable because we’re hard-wired not to like anybody messing around near our eyes, but 4 out of people who’ve had the surgery say it was easier than they thought it would be.

Medical researchers are proving something the Italians have known for centuries – cooking in olive oil can be the healthiest choice!

Studies show that extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) can help clear toxins from the brain that contribute to Alzheimer’s and other dementias. However, be careful when shopping as most oils marketed as “extra virgin” don’t really get the job done. Expert recommend buying your olive oil from California growers because that state has imposed a stricter standard for labelling olive oil “extra virgin.” They also recommend buying oil in darker bottles as light can breakdown the healthy components in EVOO.

They also recommend a small taste test. If the olive oil produced a slight burning feeling at the back of your throat – that’s good! It means that oil is high in the stuff that helps keep you brain clear.

While you’re at it, it’s also recommended that when you cook with oil, make it olive oil as it produces less harmful chemicals than other oils (like canola and peanut)when subjected to heat.

They're all adorable when they’re young! Like this future rock & roll troublemaker...

Rock & Roll had only gotten a toe-hold on American television until the debut of Shindig, the first prime-show dedicated solely to rock music and Baby Boomers!

Prior to this, the only time you’d see a rock act in prime time was on The Ed Sullivan Show, but Ed would keep rock quarantined to a single act per show – and always intermingling with opera singers, plate spinners, Borscht Belt comics and singers who appealed to your mom and dad.

Yes, we had American Bandstand, but that aired in the late afternoon along with other “kid shows” like Huckleberry Hound. Shindig was the first time an entire 30-minute block was given over to appealing to the Baby Boom generation on a weekly basis.

Read on to discover more fascinating facts about this ground-breaking TV series!

Put together by British entrepreneur, Jack Good and L.A. deejay, Jimmy O’Neill, the show was launched on September 4, 1964. It was an immediate hit. By January, the program expanded to 60 minutes. The show never took a break or aired a rerun. They cranked out 52 editions of the show in that first year!

The style of the show came as close to Top 40 radio as they could get. Songs slammed into each other at a breakneck pace without any announcing in between – the name of each act simply appearing on screen. The end of the show generally featured all the artists from that episode joining together – creating some once-in-a-lifetime pairings (like Sam Cooke and the Everly Brothers as you can see in the picture to the left).

When the second season started in the fall of 1965, they made their first mistake. They broke the show into two editions, running for 30 minutes on Thursday and Saturdays. The big problem was – there were damn few teenagers who were staying home on Saturday nights. That edition of the show had terrible ratings.

Shindig also got almost immediate competition when NBC launched Hullabaloo in January of 1965. 90 minutes of rock music a week proved to be too much of a good thing. Shindig was cancelled in the middle of its second season – ironically replaced with another 2-night-a-week show, Batman! Hullabaloo held out for a few more months but was also cancelled at the end of the 1965-66 television season.

While Shindig featured incredible performances by legendary singers and musicians, the show had only a few “best of” VHS tapes released and, to date, no DVDs – although there are some grainy bootleg sets floating around, if you know where to look.

Here are some more interesting facts about Shindig:

The show simply couldn’t book enough big-name talent each week to fill up each show. Instead, they relied on a stable of “house artists” who contributed to every show by singing covers of other people’s hits. Pulled from the ranks of L.A.’s top session singers and musicians, they included several performers who found fame a little later:

• The Righteous Brothers
• Bobby Sherman
• The Blossoms (whose lead singer was Darlene Love)
• Leon Russell
• Glenn Campbell
• Donna Loren (who went on the be featured in the Beach Party movies)

Because rock was so new, while the British Invasion acts were the show's main focus, Shindig featured lots of the Founding Fathers of Rock, even though most were already past their peak in teen appeal. These included:

• Chuck Berry
• The Everly Brothers
• Roy Orbison
• Del Shannon
• Neil Sedaka
• Gene Pitney

There was a pilot episode filmed but never aired that featured Little Richard. Little Richard never appeared on the show was it went to broadcast.

The Shindig Dancers became almost as popular as some of the house singers. Terri Garr and Toni Basil danced in some of the early episodes and one dancer, Carole Shelyne, became extremely popular when she was given a pair of horned rim glasses to wear while performing (she didn't really wear glasses). Her popularity was so great that she recorded a song “The Girl with the Horned Rim Glasses” to capitalize of her noteriety. She went on to a very successful acting career after the show ended, changing her name to Carolyne Barry and including a memorable role on the first Star Trek series.

The show really took off when the Beatles appeared on the 4th episode. Although their manager, Brian Epstein, appeared on Shindig’s competitor, Hullabaloo, the Beatles never did.

We all remember the Stridex pimple cream commercials that Jimmy O’Neill did. What we didn’t know then was that those “typical teenagers” all came from central casting. In fact, a young Tim Matheson (still a few years away from Animal House) was one of the kids who discovered that his pancake make-up would indeed wipe off on the Stridex pad, making it look like it could really do a job on zits!

Because the show ran on ABC, the network used it to try and promote the singing careers of young performers who were appearing on other network shows: like Patty Duke, Paul Petersen and Shelly Fabares.

Especially in its early episodes, the show would often mix in undiluted gospel and country music next to the rock acts.