Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. He was prominently featured as himself in the original "scroll" (first draft) version of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. He also served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in the 1957 version of the novel. In many of Kerouac's later books, Cassady is represented by the character Cody Pomeray.
Twenty years of fast living - there's just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up. Don't do what I have done. [Advice to a young friend, January, 1967]
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Fact
1
Cassady lived briefly with the Grateful Dead and is immortalized in the Dead song "That's It For the Other One." The title of another Dead tune, "Cassidy," might seem to be a misspelling of Cassady's name; in fact the song primarily celebrates the 1970 birth of baby girl Cassidy Law into the Grateful Dead family, though the lyrics also include references to Neal Cassady himself.
2
Is immortalized as the driver of Ken Kesey's psychedelic school-bus "Further" by Tom Wolfe in "The Electric Kool-Aid Acide Test." Kesey himself recreated Neal's death in a short story named "The Day After Superman Died" (collected in "Demon Box"), in which Cassady is quoted mumbling the number of ties he had counted in the rail (sixty-four thousand nine-hundred and twenty-eight) as his last words before dying.
3
On Saturday, February 3, 1968 Cassady met up with a wedding party in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and was invited to party. Although he was taking Seconals (the brand name for secobarbital, a barbiturate), he drank pulque, a fermented alcoholic drink made from the maguey plant (an agave known as the "century plant"), before wandering off at night. Alcohol and barbiturates are often a fatal combination, and as Neal walked on the railroad tracks to reach the next town, he passed out in the cold and rainy night wearing nothing but a T-shirt and jeans. In the morning he was found in a coma by the track and brought to the closest hospital, where he died a few hours later. He was 41 years old.
4
Was arrested for selling marijuana and sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin Prison in 1958. His friend (and some-time lover of Cassady's second wife Carolyn) Jack Kerouac, who had made him famous by writing of him as Dean Moriarity in "On the Road", felt guilty as he felt Neal's notoriety had made him none to narcotics cops in San Francisco. Actually, Cassady did little to disguise the fact that he was dealing, at one point boasting to friends of having given a narc two joints in a North Beach nitery. On their part, the narcotics police though Neal was part of a ring that was using the railroads to smuggle massive quantities of pot into the U.S., a charge that was never proven. He was released in 1960.
5
Became the driver of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters bus in his later years, during their "electric Kool-Aid acid test" days. He still grinned from ear to ear, and would flip a hammer to show his enthusiasm, when the Pranksters were around, but in private would sometimes drop the hammer and give old acquaintances a tired look.
6
Claimed to have literally been born "on the road", in the back of a car while his parents were traveling. Much of his "upbringing" came in pool halls and troubled-youth homes (or jail) around the Denver CO area; his mother wasn't around much after his birth, and his father only a little more.
7
Got acquainted with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in the mid-1940s (shortly after he got out of jail, and married the teenaged LuAnne), when he asked their help in "learning to write". More time was spent hustling Kerouac and his mother for food and drinks, and carrying on an affair with Ginsberg, than in his learning the art of writing, but it all seemed to pay off in the end; each became a legend in part through their relationship.
8
Usually referred to as "Dean Moriarty" or "Cody Pomeray" in Kerouac's (autobiographical) novels, while Allen Ginsberg referred to him as "N.C., secret hero of these poems" in his landmark "Howl" (titled by Kerouac) and other works.
9
Received a letter from second wife Carolyn (recounted in Kerouac's "On the Road") when their family was at a low point, that told Neal "It's the end of the first half of the century. You're welcome to spend the second half with us." He reconciled with Carolyn, but unfortunately it didn't last - and he only lived another eighteen years.
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Last Time I Committed Suicide
1997
letter
Soundtrack
Title
Year
Status
Character
Professor Norman Cornett
2009
Documentary writer: "Pull My Daisy"
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place
2011
Documentary
Himself
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
Love Always, Carolyn
2011
Documentary
Himself
Speak Out
2007
TV Movie
The Source: The Story of the Beats and the Beat Generation
1999
Documentary
Himself
Timothy Leary's Last Trip
1997
Documentary
Himself
The Beat Generation: An American Dream
1987
Documentary
Himself
What Happened to Kerouac?
1986
Documentary
Himself
Known for movies
The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997) as Writer
Professor Norman Cornett (2009) as Soundtrack
Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place (2011) as Himself
$13 Million
