Initially the T-shirt was worn exclusively as an undergarment, but that changed in the 1950s. At that time, the actors John Wayne, Marlon Brando, and James Dean all shocked the American movie-going public by wearing their underwear on the big screen. In 1951, Marlon Brando caused a sensation in his film A Streetcar Named Desire when his T-shirt was ripped off his body to reveal his naked chest. Then James Dean made the T-shirt a contemporary symbol of rebellious youth in the movie Rebel without a Cause. Once Hollywood caught on to the T-shirt, its popularity soared.