Rebel with a toothy smile
QUESTION Did the actor James Dean have false teeth?
FILM star James Dean shot to stardom in the 1950s with movie roles depicting youthful disillusionment.
In Rebel Without A Cause, he played troubled teenager Jim Stark; in East Of Eden, loner Cal Trask; and in Giant, surly ranch hand Jeff Rink.
In the decade that saw the birth of rock ’n’ roll, Dean became a cultural icon, even though as a child he had been seen as short-sighted, small and skinny.
In the words of his cousin, he was ‘never one to sit still’. He excelled at athletics, basketball and pole vaulting, and loved the speed and thrill of motor sport.
It was this constant restlessness that found him one day swinging from a home-made trapeze in a barn at the home of his aunt and uncle. Dean fell, knocking out his two front teeth. He later claimed that he had lost his teeth in a motorcycle accident.
He wore false front teeth in his movies, and in social situations would cause amusement by removing them unexpectedly. His love of speed and excitement contributed to his untimely death in a car accident at the age of 24.
He is unique in having been nominated posthumously for two Best Actor Oscars.
American dentists still mention Dean in their online advertisements as an example of how good dental care can set you on the road to movie stardom.
Ian MacDonald, Essex.
QUESTION Who coined the term Paris syndrome – the disappointment when a destination does not live up to your expectations?
PROFESSOR Hiroaki Ota, a Franco-Japanese psychiatrist at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Centre in France, coined the term back in 1986.
Later, physician Youcef Mahmoudia of the Hotel-Dieu de Paris hospital found Paris syndrome was ‘a manifestation of psychopathology related to the voyage, rather than a syndrome of the traveller’.
Up to 5% of Japanese tourists are hospitalised each year due to this syndrome, which can cause delusions, hallucinations and an accelerated heartbeat.
It can be thought of as a severe form of culture shock.
Imagine being told your entire life that there’s a wonderful place in the world where many of the fancy elements of your culture originated, only to then visit and find it is far dirtier and less organised than your own city.
It would be crushing to experience this for those already dissatisfied with their standard of living. The Japanese Embassy in Paris operates a 24/7 emergency helpline.
Emilie McRae, Wiltshire.
QUESTION Why is society going through an epidemic of depression and poor mental health? Or is it just that we’re talking about it more?
WE seem to be going through an epidemic of depression and other mental health issues, but these days, we’ re much more willing to talk about them, while treatment is easier to access.
So what is classified as an epidemic isn’t necessarily worse than it was in the old days, when these issues were rarely talked about and treatment was much less developed.
Having said that, Ireland has one of the highest rates of mental health illnesses in Europe.
A survey carried out in 2018 for the Health at a Glance report showed that Ireland was joint third in terms of how many people suffer from mental illnesses, out of 36 European countries that were examined.
Across Europe, one in six people has some form of mental illness, while here in Ireland, close to 20% of the population suffer from conditions such as anxiety, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia and depression, as well as conditions brought on by alcohol and drug abuse.
Figures have also revealed the North’s suicide rates are higher than in the rest of the UK.
Very often, mental illnesses are brought on by stresses and strains in the workplace.
A trade union report showed that a quarter of people working in the health service are suffering from some form of mental illness, such as anxiety or depression.
Frequently, the root cause is job stress, brought on by such issues as acute staff shortages and patient overcrowding.
But one of the reasons we seem to be suffering from an epidemic of mental illness is that the subject gets a huge amount of media exposure, a complete change from the old days, when people did their best to cover up such matters and not bring them to public attention.
In the US, it’s reported that there has been no change in the prevalence of depression. But many more people are seeking treatment, the subject is much more discussed in the media and it has become a phenomenon in popular culture.
Exactly the same pattern has emerged in Ireland.
As well as that, it’s become more common to define depression in such a way that it confuses genuine depression with intense, but normal, states of sadness.
So while we are much more aware of mental health issues and there have been many advances in treating them, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are suffering from an epidemic, although it often appears that way.
John Ryan, Co. Tipperary.
QUESTION When drovers took livestock to market, how many miles a day could they be driven?
THE earlier answer recalled the centuries-old practice of herds of cattle, sheep, pigs and geese being driven along Welsh roads for 15 to 20 miles a day.
A branch of my mother’s family were drovers, natives of the Myddfai area near Llandovery. They used the droving route from Llandovery to the markets of South Wales, following the Vale of Towy before turning east just past Llandeilo.
Sometime in the 19th century, they established a holding on the mountainside above the Swansea valley, which became a dairy farm.
When I was born in 1944, it was being farmed by my widowed great-grandmother. As a small girl, she had accompanied her father on the droving route.
Is there a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, DMG Media, Two Haddington Buildings, 20-38 Haddington Road, Dublin 4, D04 HE94. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.