“James Dean was an unusual selection for ‘American Masters,'” explained Susan Lacey, who created the popular PBS biography-based series of the greatest artistic figures this country has offered. “We try to look at people whose body of work really changed our culture. But Dean made only three films – ‘East of Eden,’ ‘Rebel Without a Cause,’ and ‘Giant’ – and he died 50 years ago, before two of them were even released. Yet he has remained absolutely central to our imagination. So how do you do justice to Dean?”

On May 11 the “American Masters” answer will premiere on PBS, and for television it’s a daring one. “James Dean: Sense Memories” steers clear of the reliance on gossip and scandal that now pretty much embody the television “entertainment documentary” form. There are no “dramatic re-creations” of love affairs and fights, no tittering confessions of misbehaving from the interviewees, all of whom knew or worked with Dean.

“I made a conscious decision to emphasize the films,” says Gail Levin, who wrote, directed, and produced the “American Masters” show. “It’s not exactly a biography, although we do tell a good deal about the sources of his art in his life. A lot of people know the biography already, and it’s been tremendously sensationalized.”

The interlocutors include Martin Landau, then a friend and fellow struggling actor, as well as Lois Smith, who appeared with Dean in “East of Eden,” and Eartha Kitt, an early confidante. The documentary has some terrific photographs of Ms. Kitt and Dean together, taking a dance class and later sharing a cigarette. This was Ms. Kitt’s reaction the day Dean took her for a spin in the Porsche he’d just bought: “I told Jimmy I had a very bad feeling about this car – ‘You’ll die in this car.'”

The program concentrates on the actor’s legacy, his feature films, all of which have endured as important works of the 1950s. Although the 50th anniversary of Dean’s death doesn’t occur for another four months, PBS isn’t the only venue jumping the gun: From June 10 to 23, Film Forum will be showing all three of his films, in new 35mm prints. Warner Bros., which co-produced the “American Masters” documentary, is re-releasing the movies on DVD, in a big, boxed set as well as individually. And there will no doubt be more tributes.

“James Dean” opens the 19th season of “American Masters” on PBS. The series, however widely imitated (by the Biography Channel), or bastardized (by E!), simply cannot be matched in quality. It has collected 16 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series – five of them in the last six years.

Ms. Lacey herself won an Emmy for writing one of the series’ best efforts, last year’s “Judy Garland: By Myself.” There, too, the approach was unusual. The only onscreen image was Garland, acting and singing, waving in newsreels and joking bravely in television interviews, while colleagues and friends were represented solely by their voices – the living vestigial compared to the enduring vitality of a star dead 36 years.

In “James Dean: Sense Memories” Dean’s sexuality – whatever it was – is only gently alluded to. “Dean is, in this area, too, a special case,” Ms. Lacey said. “The discussion of Dean’s androgynous aura is in the film, because we needed it.” (Unfolding on the screen during this discussion is that moment in “Rebel” when Sal Mineo’s character shyly yet pointedly invites Dean’s character home for the night.) “But Dean’s sexuality is really not absolutely documented, and no one would cup to it. Whereas with Leonard Bernstein” – subject of a memorable, award-winning “American Masters” film – “we simply had to include it, and head-on, because he struggled with the issue his whole life.”

“American Masters” tackles this issue in another documentary this season, “Cary Grant: A Class Apart,” which airs May 25. What little we know about Grant’s long-term relationship with Randolph Scott is scrutinized alongside the testimony of two of Grant’s wives, both of whom (one in language leaving no room for ambiguity) speak frankly about the sexual side of being Mrs. Cary Grant.

The details of Dean’s sexuality are more difficult to document, and any effort to do so is complicated by the powerful erotic allure Dean still projects today. He remains the kind of screen persona viewers develop a personal relationship with, making other sex symbols of the time (such as Brando in his “Streetcar” days) seem almost grotesquely dated.

“This guy made an entire career based on three feature films,” Ms. Levin said. “Now how did he do that? Was that uniqueness that still shines so powerfully in his work evident as he went about his life?” (In the documentary, Dean’s friends and colleagues say it was.) “That’s what I was after, what I had to find the answer to.”

“Our only goal,” Ms. Lacey concludes, “is to make the best possible film that will stand the test of times. We are privileged to be able to do that because the bottom line is not our ultimate measure of success. We’re looking not at how fast we can make it but how good we make it.” As James Dean and Ella Fitzgerald (Ella and F. Scott) and Ray Charles and Cary Grant and the other 130 giants profiled by “American Masters” knew, the most valuable work is, ultimately, not the fastest-earning or the flashiest – simply the best.