Terence Steven McQueen was born on March 24, 1930, in Indianapolis, Indiana. His birthplace is often incorrectly given as Slater, Montana. He was reputedly named after a bookmaker by his father, whose own name was probably Terrence William McQueen.
Nothing certain is known about McQueen's father, who was possibly a pilot, except that he left home when McQueen was six months old. With his father gone, McQueen and his mother, Julia Crawford, moved in with her uncle, Claude Thompson, in Slater, Missouri.
When McQueen was nine, his mother tried to raise him alone in Indianapolis briefly, only to return him to her uncle while she went to California alone. The next few years of McQueen's life were almost idyllic he lived on a well-ordered farm with a great-uncle who treated him as if he were a son.
When he was twelve, his mother reappeared and took him to Beech Grove, Indiana, and then to Los Angeles.
Education
McQueen did badly in schooling, got into trouble for stealing, and was violently at odds with his new stepfather, a man named Berri. In the autumn of 1944, he was sent by his parents to California Junior Boys' Republic in Chino, California.
After initially resisting the reform school's program, McQueen fell under the influence of a superintendent who restored his sense of self-worth. He left Chino in April 1946, ending his formal education at the ninth-grade level. Years later, he established a scholarship fund for the school and revisited it regularly.
Career
While McQueen was at Chino his stepfather died, and his mother moved to New York City, where he rejoined her. He quickly had a falling out with her and left. McQueen and his mother were never again close, but he was with her when she died in 1965. He signed on as a deckhand on a tanker bound for the West Indies, only to jump ship in the Dominican Republic and work his way back to the United States. After a period of drifting, he joined the United States Marine Corps in April 1947.
While serving in Georgia, he was repeatedly promoted and busted and spent six weeks in the brig for being absent without leave. In the Marine Corps he learned auto mechanics, a skill he cultivated through the rest of his life. After he was discharged in April 1950, he returned to New York and made a meager living with odd jobs.
At a friend's suggestion, McQueen began studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in 1951, using his GI Bill benefits. In 1952, he debuted onstage with one line in a Yiddish-language play and soon earned a scholarship to the Uta Hagen-Herbert Bergh of School. During this period he began competing in motorcycle races on Long Island, cultivating another lifelong avocation.
The summer of 1952 brought McQueen minor roles in little theater productions with Margaret O'Brien, Ethel Waters, and Melvyn Douglas. In the next few years he occasionally did television work, and in 1955 he won one of five scholarships awarded to 2, 000 applicants to Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. Through these years, he supported himself with full-time non-acting jobs.
In mid-1956, McQueen replaced Ben Gazzara in A Hatful of Rain on Broadway, winning critical praise that bolstered his confidence as an actor. While in California he played a walk-on part in Somebody Up There Likes Me, starring Paul Newman.
The next year, McQueen got his first featured film role in Never Love a Stranger (1958). In 1958, he made The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) and starred in a now-classic science fiction movie, The Blob (1958). McQueen's ability to project strength and vulnerability simultaneously helped win him the lead in a new television series, "Wanted Dead or Alive, " which premiered on September 6, 1958.
As professional bounty hunter Josh Randall, McQueen made an inherently unappealing character likable and firmly established his screen persona as a rugged laconic loner.
McQueen made Never So Few with Frank Sinatra in 1959 and co-starred with Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven (1960), a Western that certified his big-screen appeal. After "Wanted Dead or Alive" left the air in 1961, McQueen turned his back on television to concentrate on films and formed his own production company. After an unsatisfactory attempt at comedy in The Honeymoon Machine in 1961, McQueen reestablished his image in Hell Is for Heroes and The War Lover in 1962. He then made the film that elevated him to the first rank of box office stars: The Great Escape (1963), a big-budget production about a famous Allied prisoner-of-war breakout during World War II.
McQueen quietly stole the picture playing Hilts, the "Cooler King" an indomitable loner. The film also allowed him to showcase his motor-cycle skills in a chase scene and won him the best acting award at the Moscow Film Festival.
Over the next several years, McQueen played shiftless losers in Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), Baby, the Rain Must Fall (1965), and The Cincinnati Kid (1965). His career reached a new level in 1966, when he starred in The Sand Pebbles as an alienated American sailor stationed in China in a performance. The same year, he also starred in Nevada Smith, an undistinguished spinoff from The Carpetbaggers.
McQueen's career reached a different kind of plateau in 1968 when he starred in Bullitt, a taut action film that certified his growing box office status; his stunt driving in a high-speed car-chase episode reinforced the public's identification of him with the characters that he played. That same year, he also made The Thomas Crown Affair, the only film in which he played a rich and powerful character.
By the late 1960's, McQueen was making a million dollars a movie, a figure that would more than triple over the next decade. In 1971, McQueen starred in two racing films, Le Mans and On Any Sunday. He played a fading rodeo contestant in Junior Bonner (1972), a bank robber in The Getaway (1972), a French prisoner on Devil's Island in Papillon (1973), and a fire chief in The Towering Inferno (1974), his last "superstar" role.
McQueen's screen persona underwent a change in the late 1970's. In 1978, he played against type in an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. Warner Brothers thought the film so noncommercial that it blocked distribution. In 1980, McQueen appeared in his last two films: Tom Horn presented him as a frontiersman overtaken by civilization, and in The Hunter, he played a modern-day bounty hunter.
He died in Ju rez, Mexico, of lung cancer.
Achievements
McQueen is most remembered for his roles in "The Great Escape" (1963), Papillon (1973), and a host of other action movies. Also three years in the television series, "Wanted Dead or Alive, " transformed McQueen into a nationally known figure. The Sand Pebbles earned him his only Oscar nomination.
McQueen remains a popular star, and his estate limits the licensing of his image to avoid the commercial saturation experienced by other dead celebrities. As of 2007, McQueen's estate entered the top 10 of highest-earning dead celebrities. McQueen was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in April 2007, in a ceremony at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. In November 1999, McQueen was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
He was credited with contributions including financing the film On Any Sunday, supporting a team of off-road riders, and enhancing the public image of motorcycling overall. The Beech Grove, Indiana, Public Library formally dedicated the Steve McQueen Birthplace Collection on March 16, 2010, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of McQueen's birth on March 24, 1930. In 2005, TV Guide ranked McQueen 26th on its "50 Sexiest Stars of All Time" list.
In 2012, McQueen was posthumously honored with the Warren Zevon Tribute Award by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO). The Academy Film Archive houses the Steve McQueen-Neile Adams Collection, which consists of personal prints and home movies.
Personality
The blue-tinted sunglasses (Persol 714) worn by McQueen in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair sold at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction in Los Angeles for $70, 200 in 2006. One of his motorcycles, a 1937 Crocker, sold for a world-record price of $276, 500 at the same auction.
McQueen's 1963 metallic-brown Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta sold for US$2. 31 million at auction on August 16, 2007. Except for three motorcycles sold with other memorabilia in 2006, most of McQueen's collection of 130 motorcycles was sold four years after his death. The 1970 Porsche 911S purchased while making the film Le Mans and appearing in the opening sequence was sold at auction in August 2011 for $1. 375 million.
The Rolex Explorer II, Reference 1655, known as Rolex Steve McQueen in the horology collectors' world, the Rolex Submariner, Reference 5512, which McQueen was often photographed wearing in private moments, sold for $234, 000 at auction on June 11, 2009, a world-record price for the reference. McQueen was left-handed and wore the watch on his right wrist. From 1995 to 2011, McQueen's red 1957 Chevrolet fuel-injected convertible was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in a special Cars of Steve McQueen exhibit. It is now in the collection of actress Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent Perkins.
McQueen was a sponsored ambassador for Heuer watches. In the 1970 film Le Mans, he famously wore a blue-faced Monaco 1133B Caliber 11 Automatic, which led to its cult status among watch collectors. His sold for $87, 600 at auction on June 11, 2009. Tag Heuer continues to promote its Monaco range with McQueen’s image.
From 2009, Triumph Motorcycles Ltd, licensed by his estate, marketed a line of clothing inspired by McQueen's association with their brand, particularly his 1964 ISDT participation. British heritage clothing brand J. Barbour and Sons created a Steve McQueen collection, based on his ownership of a Barbour International motorbike jacket.
Steve McQueen was the second album by English pop band Prefab Sprout, which was released in June 1985. It was released in the United States under the title Two Wheels Good due to a legal conflict with McQueen's estate.
Connections
McQueen was married to Neile Adams, a dancer, and actress, whom he married in California on November 2, 1956; they had two children. In September 1971, McQueen and his wife were divorced. He married Ali MacGraw, his costar in The Getaway, on July 13, 1973, in Cheyenne, Wyo. ; they had no children. McQueen's marriage to MacGraw ended in 1978. In January 1980 he married Barbara Minty, a model.
Father:
William Terence McQueen
14 March 1906 - 11 November 1958
Mother:
Julian Crawford McQueen Berri
28 April 1910 - 15 October 1965
Wife:
Ruby Neilam Salvador Adams, known professionally as Neile Adams
Was born in 1932. She is an American actress, singer, and dancer who made more than 20 appearances in films and television series between 1952 and 1991.
Wife:
Elizabeth Alice "Ali" MacGraw
Was born April 1, 1939. She is an American actress, model, author, and animal rights activist.
Wife:
Barbara Minty
Was born on June 11, 1953. She is a former fashion model who was the third wife and, after his death, the widow of American film star Steve McQueen.
Daughter:
Terry Leslie McQueen
5 June 1959 - 19 March 1998
Son:
Chadwick Steven McQueen
Was born December 28, 1960. He is an American actor, film producer, martial artist and race car driver.
