James Dean memorabilia auctioned

DALLAS -- The white, cotton T-shirt with the $15,000 price tag has a Hollywood pedigree, having once hugged the torso of actor James Dean during the filming of "Rebel Without a Cause."\nThat makes it a valuable collectible to some of the quarter million registered customers who could bid on it during online auctions scheduled for Friday and Saturday.\nThe shirt is one of more than 1,800 items up for sale in the latest pop culture offering from Heritage Auction Galleries. The Dallas-based auction house specializes in the trivial -- from Fred Astaire's top hat to Dean's undershirt.\nDean, who grew up near Fairmount, Ind.., is the star attraction at this auction. An Indiana museum featuring all things Dean closed earlier this year, and Heritage secured the rights to unload the memorabilia.\nHeritage's director of music and entertainment memorabilia said the Dean mystique should help the upcoming auction match or exceed its last sale, which totaled nearly $1.6 million. "This auction, I think, trumps all the other ones," Doug Norwine said.\nThe Dean trophies range from the mundane to the macabre. The brown suit he wore in "East of Eden" reveals how slight the actor was -- just 5 feet and 8 inches. It could fetch $18,000. On the morbid side is a belt buckle-sized piece of the silver Porsche Spyder Dean was driving when he collided with a station wagon near rural Cholame, Calif., on Sept. 30, 1955. He died instantly at age 24.\nThe estimated worth of the car fragment is $5,000.