(During World War II, the American Office of Strategic Ser...)
During World War II, the American Office of Strategic Services mounts covert operations with the native Kachin against the Japanese army in the jungles of Burma.
(Steve McQueen plays the comedic role of a sailor eager to...)
Steve McQueen plays the comedic role of a sailor eager to turn his shore leave into a gambling jackpot. Of course, where there's a port, there are girls. And where there's a Cold War fleet, there's a suspicious admiral (Dean Jagger).
(An aspiring country and western singer, with a mean strea...)
An aspiring country and western singer, with a mean streak, has just been released from a Texas prison, where he has been jailed due to a stabbing incident. Met by his wife and six-year-old daughter, he attempts to go straight. He wants to resume his pursuit of a singing career, but the old maid, who raised him after his parents died, won't hear of it.
(A debonair, adventuresome bank executive believes he has ...)
A debonair, adventuresome bank executive believes he has pulled off the perfect multi-million dollar heist, only to match wits with a sexy insurance investigator, who will do anything to get her man.
(A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begi...)
A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
(At the opening party of a colossal, but poorly constructe...)
At the opening party of a colossal, but poorly constructed office building, a massive fire breaks out, that threatens to destroy the tower and everyone in it.
(Abandoned by his father, he was a reform school kid with ...)
Abandoned by his father, he was a reform school kid with nothing going for him and a giant chip on his shoulder. He joined the Marines, but never stayed far from trouble.
(That oozing pink terror, "The Blob", lives again in this ...)
That oozing pink terror, "The Blob", lives again in this irreverent and hilarious send up of the 1958 classic. But this time, Steve McQueen has to face off against a wise-cracking pile of goo when, for the first time, The Blob speaks!
("I Am Steve McQueen" tells the incredible life story of t...)
"I Am Steve McQueen" tells the incredible life story of this legendary actor, racer and cultural icon. Extensive interviews, movie clips, archival footage and sound bites chronicle his extraordinary career while focusing on the correlation between his on-screen and off-screen experiences.
Steve McQueen was a laconic American movie star of the 1960's and 1970's. Cool and stoical, his loner heroes spoke through actions and rarely with words.
Background
Steve McQueen was born Terence Steve McQueen to William Terence McQueen and Julia Ann nee Crawford on March 24, 1930, in Beech Grove, Indiana. His father, a stunt pilot, left Julia six months after meeting her.
McQueen was mostly raised by his maternal grandparents and his uncle Claude at the latter’s farm in Missouri. When McQueen turned eight, his mother took him with her to his stepfather’s place in Indianapolis. Adolescent McQueen faced tough time coping with the new environment, new place and new people.
Unable to bear the atrocities cast upon by his stepfather, McQueen left home at the age of nine. His mother sent him back to Claude only to call him again three years later to a new father and a new home in Los Angeles. However, history repeated itself and McQueen returned to his uncle a final time.
At the age of 14, he temporarily joined circus. He then returned to his stepfather and mother in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the relation with his parents only worsened with time and McQueen was sent to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino. At the Republic, McQueen rose to fame so much so that he was elected to the Boys Council.
At 16, McQueen left Chino to return to his mother in Greenwich Village, New York. However, he soon left for the Dominican Republic. During this phase of life, McQueen took up many odd jobs as a lumberjack, oil rigger, salesman and so on.
Education
Steve was a difficult child, but he had less than ideal parents. Raised in Slater, Missouri, by a grandmother, he did two years in a school for wayward boys, and three years in the marines—he had a drilled look, and an unquestioning commitment. Then he went to New York for drama training.
McQueen discovered his calling with the help of a girlfriend who was also an aspiring actress. With support from the G.I. Bill, in 1951 he enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse, run by Sanford Meisner.
McQueen's first role as an actor was a bit part in a Yiddish theatrical production; he only had one line and was cut from the show after four nights. Despite this setback, it was apparent that McQueen had talent, and he won a scholarship to study at the Uta Hagen-Herbert Berghof School in 1952. A few years later, McQueen was accepted to the prestigious Actors Studio, where he studied with Lee Strasberg.
In 1947, McQueen enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and became a tank driver. Showing his rebellious streak, he ended up in the brig for extending a weekend pass into a two-week holiday. McQueen was far from the model soldier: "I was busted back down to private about seven times. The only way I could have been made corporal was if all the other privates in the Marines dropped dead," he said, according to Marshall Terrill's Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel.
After being discharged from the Marines in 1950, McQueen spent some time in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C., before returning to New York City. He hung out in the Greenwich Village neighborhood, a Bohemian enclave. For a time, McQueen seemed aimless, moving and changing jobs frequently.
In 1956, McQueen was involved in his sole Broadway production, taking over the leading role of junkie Johnny Pope from Ben Gazzara in A Hatful of Rain. That year he also had a small part in the feature Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), which starred Paul Newman. He felt a rivalry with Newman, a fellow member of the Actors Studio.
McQueen experienced his first taste of stardom in 1958 with the lead role of Steve Andrews in the sci-fi film The Blob, which became a cult classic. That year he also headlined the television Western Wanted—Dead or Alive as bounty hunter Josh Randall. The show became a big hit, and McQueen started to attract more attention from Hollywood.
In 1959, McQueen starred in the crime drama The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery, and also appeared with Frank Sinatra in the war drama Never So Few. Around this time, he discovered a passion for race-car driving.
In 1960, McQueen had a leading role in the Western The Magnificent Seven, with Yul Brynner and Charles Bronson. His television show ended shortly afterward, giving him the opportunity to take on more film roles. With 1963's The Great Escape, McQueen earned top billing, showing the world that he was a bona fide movie star.
More box office hits followed, including the gambling drama The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and the Western Nevada Smith (1966). McQueen received his only Academy Award nomination for his work on the military drama The Sand Pebbles (1966), playing a Naval engineer stationed on a gunboat in China during the 1920s. He then scored another success with the romantic crime caper The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).
That same year, McQueen made waves as a San Francisco cop in Bullitt, particularly for his part in one of cinematic history's most celebrated car chases. Along that vein, he tried to tap into his love of car racing in 1971's Le Mans, with only limited success. In an effort to have more creative control, McQueen formed First Artists Productions with Barbra Streisand, Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman that same year.
Turning to more weighty material, McQueen had better success as the title character of Junior Bonner (1972), a well-received family drama directed by Sam Peckinpah. That year he also starred in The Getaway, with Ali MacGraw. McQueen went on to garner accolades for his performance in the prison drama Papillon (1973), opposite Dustin Hoffman, and played a hero in the disaster epic The Towering Inferno (1974).
Returning to the big screen in 1978, McQueen starred in An Enemy of the People, based on the play by Henrik Ibsen. He was almost unrecognizable in the film with his long hair, beard and heavier physique, and audiences did not know what to make of their action hero's portrayal of a scientist fighting against pollution. After this project failed at the box office, McQueen returned to more familiar character types. He starred in the Western Tom Horn (1980) and the action-thriller The Hunter (1980). By this time, McQueen was terribly ill. He had been experiencing flu-like symptoms and respiratory problems for a while, before an X-ray taken in late 1979 showed that he had a tumor in his right lung. The doctors said that his type of cancer stemmed from exposure to asbestos and was known to be aggressive and terminal.
McQueen spent the final months of his life in a clinic in Mexico, seeking alternative therapies for his cancer. He died on November 7, 1980, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, after undergoing surgery to remove several tumors.
Popularly known as the King of Cool, Steve McQueen was an American actor who rose to fame during the decade of 1960s and 70s. His "anti-hero" persona developed at the height of the counterculture of the 1960s and made him a top box-office draw of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles. His other popular films include The Cincinnati Kid, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, and Papillon, as well as the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Towering Inferno. In 1974, he became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in films again for four years.
Posthumously, he received several awards and honors. In 1999, he was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers. In 2005, he ranked at the 26th position on the list of 50 Sexiest Stars of All Time. In 2012, McQueen was posthumously honored with the Warren Zevon Tribute Award by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
(In 1926, a U.S. Naval engineer gets assigned to a gunboat...)
1966
Religion
McQueen was raised a Catholic, but it probably wasn’t all that serious an influence in his life considering McQueen bounced between family members in the Midwest and California, weathered abuse, turned to crime and various other tell-tale symptoms of a rough childhood.
As an adult, McQueen seemed more an adherent of a religion of which he was the deity. When asked at the height of his fame if he believed in God, McQueen said: "I believe in me. God will be number one as long as I’m number one." However, McQueen was always a philanthropist for organizations benefiting troubled youth, and some of these organizations were Catholic-based.
Toward the end of his life, McQueen’s health was failing and the doctors ordered him to move to somewhere with good air and a low-stress environment. He moved to little Santa Paula, California and took up flying airplanes. One of his pals around the airport was a fellow named Sammy Mason, who was a born-again Christian. McQueen was very impressed by Mason’s approach to life and started attending Mason’s church in Santa Paula, called the Ventura Missionary Church. McQueen attended the church for several months before meeting the pastor and professing his rebirth in Christ–a necessary step to becoming a born-again Christian.
Politics
McQueen was a Republican and held some conservative views.
Views
Quotations:
"I'm not sure that acting is something for a grown man to be doing."
"I don't believe in that phony hero stuff."
"My influences come from real life. I'm not interested in cinema for cinema's sake. I'm interested in life—what one does and how one interacts."
"I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth."
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting."
"There's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think I'm good. I'm not all that good."
"I'm not a great actor—let's face it. I don't have a great deal of scope. There are certain things I can do, but when I'm bad, I stink."
"I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or a racer who acts."
"I'm certainly not who people think I am. I always do whatever I want to do, and my films are personal to me."
"I'm about challenging people. Like, properly challenging them and their assumptions."
"I'm not that interesting of a person."
"I'm out of the Midwest. It was a good place to come from. It gives you a sense of right or wrong and fairness, which I think is lacking in our society."
"When I did The Great Escape, I kept thinking, 'If they were making a movie of my life, that's what they'd call it—the great escape.'"
"I scrounged around for the next couple of years, trying to get the scam on the human race and just where the hell I fitted in—I discovered there were no openings."
"I live for myself and I answer to nobody."
"I learned that life is a long and difficult road, but you have to keep going, or you'll fall by the wayside."
"I just want the brass ring and the pine trees and my kids and the green grass. I want to get rich and fat and watch my kids grow."
Personality
According to William Claxton, McQueen smoked marijuana almost every day; biographer Marc Eliot stated that McQueen used a large amount of cocaine in the early 1970s. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker. McQueen sometimes drank to excess, and was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972.
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans, and other items. It was later discovered McQueen donated these things to the Boys Republic reformatory school, where he spent time in his teen years. McQueen made occasional visits to the school to spend time with the students, often to play pool and speak about his experiences.
McQueen was a longtime fan of motorcycles and designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971. He also was an avid race car enthusiast. McQueen owned a number of exotics and vintage cars.
McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 bip, flown in the US Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker.
Quotes from others about the person
James Garner: "I could see that Jim was neat around his place. Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard... grass always cut. So to piss him off, I'd start lobbing empty beer cans down the hill into his driveway. He'd have his drive all spic 'n' span when he left the house, then get home to find all these empty cans. Took him a long time to figure out it was me."
Interests
Sport & Clubs
motorcycle and car racing
Connections
While still attending Stella Adler's school in New York, McQueen dated Gia Scala. On November 2, 1956, he married actress Neile Adams, with whom he had a daughter, Terry Leslie, and a son, Chad. McQueen and Adams divorced in 1972. In her autobiography, My Husband, My Friend, Adams stated that she had an abortion in 1971, when their marriage was on the rocks.
On August 31, 1973, McQueen married actress Ali MacGraw, his co-star in The Getaway, but this marriage ended in divorce in 1978. MacGraw suffered a miscarriage during their marriage. Friends would later claim that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen's life: "He was madly in love with her until the day he died." On January 16, 1980, less than a year before his death, McQueen married model Barbara Minty. One of McQueen's four grandchildren is actor Steven R. McQueen (who is best known for playing Jeremy Gilbert in The Vampire Diaries).
In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams and prior to meeting MacGraw, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh, which included her pregnancy and abortion. Actress-model Lauren Hutton has said that she had an affair with McQueen in the early 1960s. Mamie Van Doren has also claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him.
Father:
William Terence McQueen
(1906–1958)
Mother:
Julian Crawford McQueen Berri
(1910–1965)
Spouse:
Barbara Minty
(b. June 11, 1953)
Barbara Minty is a former fashion model who was the third wife and, after his death, the widow of American film star Steve McQueen.
ex-spouse:
Neile Adams
(b.1932)
Neile Adams is an American actress, singer, and dancer who made more than 20 appearances in films and television series between 1952 and 1991.
ex-spouse:
MacGraw
(b. April 1, 1939)
Ali MacGraw is an American actress, model, author, and animal rights activist.
Son:
Chad McQueen
(b. December 28, 1960)
Chad McQueen is an American actor, film producer, martial artist and race car driver. As an actor and producer, he was known for playing Dutch in The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid Part II and Yucatan.
He is the only son of actor Steve McQueen.
Daughter:
Terry McQueen
(June 5, 1959, Los Angeles, California, United States - March 19, 1998, Los Angeles, California, United States)
Grandson:
Steven R. McQueen
(b. July 13, 1988)
Steven R. McQueen is an American actor and model.
Friend:
James Garner
(April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014)
James Garner was an American actor, producer, and voice artist.
References
Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon
In this book, Greg Laurie thoughtfully interviews members of Steve McQueen's family, friends, co-stars, associates, widow and pastor to tell of the dramatic life-change for the actor in the spring of 1979 - six months before McQueen was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
2017
Steve McQueen: A Biography
In this work, New York Times bestselling author, acclaimed biographer and film historian, Marc Eliot captures the complexity of Steve McQueen, a Hollywood screen legend. Chronicling McQueen's tumultuous life both on and off the screen, from his hardscrabble childhood to his rise to Hollywood superstar status, to his struggles with alcohol and drugs and his fervor for racing fast cars and motorcycles, Eliot discloses intimate details of McQueen's three marriages, including his tumultuous relationships with Neile Adams and Ali MacGraw, as well as his numerous affairs. He also paints a full portrait of this incredible yet often perplexing career, that ranged from great films to embarrassing misfires.
2011
Steve McQueen: Full-Throttle Cool
"Steve McQueen: Full-Throttle Cool" presents McQueen's life story in an artistic, graphic-novel format. It covers his entire life, from his earliest years growing up in a suburb of Indianapolis to his death from mesothelioma.
2015
Steve McQueen In Le Mans
Masterfully crafted by Sandro Garbo and the team at Garbo Studio, "Steve McQueen in Le Mans" fuses a blistering graphic novel with a bold and vivid tribute to McQueen himself, a man, who gave new hope and meaning to car enthusiasts around the world. Part 1.
2016
Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon
This is a landmark exploration of the life and legend of Hollywood's "King of Cool", Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen tells the story of a small-town kid from modest means, who went on to become one of the biggest icons in Hollywood. Much more, than just a simple account of his career highlights, this volume delves deep into what made McQueen one of the most interesting and enigmatic figures of 20th century popular culture.
2010
Steve McQueen
William Claxton captures many facets of McQueen's enigmatic tough guy/nice guy personality through his empathetic lens.
2000
Steve McQueen: A Passion for Speed
Even many years after his death, Steve McQueen remains an icon of cool. His image continues to appear in advertising and pop culture, and car, motorcycle, and racing fans embrace him as one of their own. Now comes this volume, featuring rare photography and chronicling McQueen's fascination with and passion for all things internal-combustion powered.
