Neal Cassady
| Neal Cassady | |
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Neal Cassady, left, with Jack Kerouac in 1952. Photograph by his wife Carolyn.
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| Born | Neal Leon Cassady February 8, 1926 Salt Lake City, Utah |
| Died | February 4, 1968 (aged 41) San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| Occupation | Author, poet |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Beat poetry |
| Literary movement | Beat |
| Notable works | The First Third |
| Spouse | Carolyn Cassady (1948–1963; divorced) |
| Children | 4 |
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 that book. In many of Kerouac's later books, Cassady is represented by the character Cody Pomeray.
Cassady was born to Maude Jean (Scheuer) and Neal Marshall Cassady in Salt Lake City, Utah. His mother died when he was 10, and he was raised by his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado. Cassady spent much of his youth either living on the streets of skid row with his father or in reform school.
As a youth, Cassady was repeatedly involved in petty crime. He was arrested for car theft when he was 14, for shoplifting and car theft when he was 15, and for car theft and fencing when he was 16.
In 1941, the 15-year-old Cassady met Justin W. Brierly, a prominent Denver educator. Brierly was well known as a mentor of promising young men and was impressed by Cassady's intelligence. Over the next few years, Brierly took an active role in Cassady's life. Brierly helped admit Cassady to East High School where he taught Cassady as a student, encouraged and supervised his reading, and found employment for him. Cassady continued his criminal activities, however, and was repeatedly arrested from 1942 to 1944; on at least one of these occasions, he was released by law enforcement into Brierly's safekeeping. In June 1944, Cassady was arrested for possession of stolen goods and served eleven months of a one-year prison sentence. He and Brierly actively exchanged letters during this period, even through Cassady's intermittent incarcerations; this correspondence represents Cassady's earliest surviving letters. Brierly, a closeted homosexual, is also believed to have been responsible for Cassady's first homosexual experience.
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