How Luke Perry Became an Iconic TV Heartthrob

When Brandon and Dylan first meet on 90210, Brandon asks Dylan if he wants to go grab a bite to eat. Dylan scoffs at him, not realizing the offer is genuine, and says, mockingly, “Yeah, let’s do lunch.” (Even though his jacket, worn over a white t-shirt, was black and not red, the Rebel Without a Cause vibe was unavoidable.) It takes him a beat before he senses that Brandon is the real deal.

“I think, in a way, if they make the association strong enough, I’ll have to pay the price for the fact that he checked out, and I don’t want to, you know,” Perry reflected again on the James Dean comparison on Today in 1992. “I hope to be still working when I’m 30, and 40 and 50, and for ever how long I want to. I think when I can no longer fulfill that James Dean fantasy for them, they’ll look and get it from someone else and I’ll be gone.”

He also said, “When my time here is up, I don’t want to look back and see that I didn’t do anything. And by that, I mean [that] I didn’t have an effect on anything else. I see a lot of people that let their life happen to them, and I want to happen to my life. I don’t want my life to happen to me.”

Fatefully, the role of Dylan McKay fit Perry like a glove and turned him into an iconic celebrity, and on his own merits.