[The fun thing about The Death Clock is that you can cheat. For instance, change yourself from someone who drinks alcohol daily to a teetotaler … see what a difference it makes to your life expectancy. I was able to get mine as high as 100 years, but who wants to live that long. I’d rather “live well, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse.” (a few notes below on where that phrase originated). SB SM]
https://www.death-clock.org/results.php
Who Said It?? James Dean? John Derek? Willard Motley? Irene L. Luce? J. M. O’Connor? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: James Dean was a charismatic young movie star and an icon of rebellion when he died in a car crash. I have always connected him to this motto:
Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse.
But I was told this saying was used in the 1949 movie “Knock on Any Door” starring John Derek and Humphrey Bogart. Here is another version of the statement:
Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse.
Would you please trace this fashionable slogan of self-destruction?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The first part of the saying has a very long history. In 1855 a newspaper printed a precursor while criticizing the high-living aristocracy. To construct a definition for “aristocracy” the word was split into segments for analysis. Boldface has been added to excerpts:1
Racy—fast. They live fast and die fast.
In 1870 an article in “The New England Farmer” wistfully described the new generation of electrified Americans:2
In these fast days of steam and electricity, mankind, and particularly Young America, have become electrified, and they must “get up and get,” or there is no enjoyment. Live fast and die young is the principle.
The earliest instance of the full motto located by QI appeared in a 1920 newspaper account3 of a proto-liberated woman in a court case:4
Letters from Mrs. Irene L. Luce, to Oscar B. Luce, won a divorce for the husband here today.
“I can’t be bothered with a husband,” one letter said.
“I intend to live a fast life, die young and be a beautiful corpse,” Mrs. Luce wrote.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1921 the slogan was featured in a drama titled “These Wild Young People” by J. M. O’Connor a University of Washington student playwright:5
Cyrillo. What do you consider wild?
Patricia. Oh, to play around and be petted a lot, smoke in public and all that. I read in a paper once about a man who got a divorce from his wife on the strangest grounds. She said she couldn’t be bothered with a husband, intended to lead a fast life, die young, and be a beautiful corpse. I think that’s a fascinating philosophy. It’s my program.
In January 1924 the saying was printed in the Monmouth College Oracle, a student periodical in Illinois. But now the philosophy was ascribed to men, and “beautiful” was replaced by “good-looking”:6
Creed of a College Man.
Live a fast life, die young, and have a good-looking corpse.
In July 1924 the motto was printed in the syndicated column “The Office Cat” by Junius where it was applied to men and women:7
The Young Folks’ Creed
Live a fast life, die young, and have a good-looking corpse.
In May 1925 a variant with “live well” instead of “live a fast life” appeared in a California newspaper:8
Little Patty’s creed: Live well, die young, and have a good-looking corpse.
In July 1925 an instance closer to the modern version was published with “live fast” instead of “live a fast life”:9
A CREED
Live fast, die young, and be a good looking corpse.
In 1930 another variant appeared with “live hard” substituted for “live fast”:10
There was an old cowboy proverb (it is probably forgotten in these lizzie days of pure-bred Herefords, irrigated alfalfa fields, and Sears, Roebuck riding breeches) that it was glorious to “live hard, die young, and make a hell of a good-looking corpse.”
In 1947 the book “Knock on Any Door” by Willard Motley was reviewed in the New York Times and the creed of the main character, Nick Romano, was shared with newspaper readers. This novel was made into a movie under the same title in 1949 with John Derek playing Nick Romano, and this helped to further popularize the motto:11
How does handsome Nick react? Conscious of what reform school did to him, conscious of his wicked ways, he is still enamored of easy money and easy sex. He deliberately rejects conscience, boasts of his creed—“live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse”—achieves all three objectives.