Steve McQueen (1930-1980)

WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers

Born: 24^th March 1930

Died: 7^th November 1980 (aged 50)

Terrence Stephen McQueen was born to William McQueen, a flying circus stunt pilot, and Julianne Crawford. He was raised by his grandparents and Great Uncle on a in Missouri until the age of eight when his mother, and her new husband, took him back to live with them in Indianapolis. McQueen struggled with school – he was partially deaf and dyslexic – and he struggled living with his stepfather so he left home at the age of nine and returned to his Great Uncle’s farm. Between the ages of 14, when he left the farm, and 17 McQueen spent sometime in the circus, at his mother’s, at the California Junior Boys Republic (a private school for troubled adolescents – he had been caught stealing hubcaps), working in a brothel and jobbing in Mexico. He was arrested for vagrancy and spent time on chain gang before his mother gave her permission for him to join the U.S Marines. During an Arctic exercise he saved the lives of five other Marines by pulling them from a tank before it fell through the ice. At the age of 22 McQueen started studying acting, at first using financial assistance under the G.I Bill and then using money he earned from motorcycle racing. He made his breakthrough in television before his first leading role in The Blob in 1958

The ‘battle of the blue eyes’ tops Steve McQueen’s top five, and by that I mean him and his screen star Paul Newman in The Towering Inferno. Casting wise Steve McQueen wins with the more dominant role, Fire Chief O’Halloran, but they share equal billing and where paid the same wage – $1million dollars and 10% of the box office. McQueen is equally as impressive with his stunts as Newman there’s just not as many, although he probably has the most dangerous. But it’s in the performance that I would say that McQueen loses out he is less polished, gruffer and it feels like he is trying too hard to outact Newman. So, from a film I have seen several times to a film I knew very little about – and by very little I mean I only knew this film had a car chase (that lasts about 10 minutes) and that McQueen drove a Ford Mustang! I didn’t realise that McQueen plays a cop, one Detective Lieutenant Frank Bullitt, in Bullitt, who is ordered to keep a witness safe and in fact the film isn’t that bad there’s a lot of ‘faff’ that the film could do without i.e. the restaurant scene in fact its not integral to the plot and the 1960s jazz style music is a little annoying but I guess that was the way films were made back then to add a little padding. The only problem I have is that Steve McQueen is very impassive and at first I was not sure if this was his acting style but they do draw attention to it by Bullitt’s partner asking him “Do you let anything reach you? I mean, really reach you? Or are you so used to it by now that nothing really touches you?”. I guess this was also the way a hard San Francisco cop would have been played in the late 60s – the time when to be tough you couldn’t show emotion – but writing it into the script actually helped me understand his character a little better. I thought Papillon would probably be a little out of McQueen’s comfort zone, considering he tends to play rougher characters, but he copes well with the slightly softer role of Papillon, our eponymous lead. Nothing against McQueen but I think the film is a little drawn out – the whole scene with the island people being totally silent is a bit weird and some scenes seemed a little too short. Unfortunately, I think however well he plays Papillon, McQueen is outshone by a young Dustin Hoffman especially in the scenes on Devil’s Island. For those of you who read these articles often then you will know that War films are not my first choice but I have come across some that have started to change my mind and The Sand Pebbles is one. In The Sand Pebbles we have a beautifully muted action hero performance from McQueen. His character, Jake Holman, is brash and a little bullish – he is Machinist Mate First Class yet is enlisted to serve on the San Pablo and leave the engine to the coolies a thing he struggles with. McQueen squeezes every emotion he can into his performance and it is no surprise that he received an Academy Award nomination for it. Is it me or does Steve McQueen never get dirty? I noticed this more whilst watching his performance of Doc McCoy in The Getaway; his character is involved in a bank heist where everyone seems to eventually turn on each other and then he and his wife hide in a bin and end up at the tip – Carol emerges with a dirty face and scuffed knees but he’s perfect maybe a little smudge across his forehead I mean they’ve been tossed about in the back of that bin lorry like it’s the trash compactor in Star Wars: A New Hope and that’s all he’s got! I enjoyed the film as a whole and quite enjoyed his performance, maybe a little stilted in places, but he out played Ali MacGraw but there was still something that I found hard to believe in his character maybe it was that whatever he went through he nearly always came out clean!

Here is where I normally talk about my favourite character of each actor, and what I’m about to say maybe a little controversial, but I don’t think Steve McQueen is that good an actor, I’m sorry but I have now seen several of his films and cannot find one where I can really say I have enjoyed his performance. I heard that someone once said that McQueen put his image above his performances and, unfortunately, I tend to agree it’s like he is doing whatever he needs to do to get a finished project without spoiling his image and no more. Maybe it was the era of his films that liked the macho clean star but his contemporise tend to dispel that myth. Don’t get me wrong I have liked his films – in fact The Blob is probably my favourite B-Movie of all time I’m just always a bit confused with his character he’s supposed to be a teenager but he looks a lot older (even though he was only 28). Maybe some of his films are typical of their era and watching them now they do look outdated, but I look forward to hopefully finding a performance of his that I can enjoy.

As well as being a Hollywood actor Steve McQueen was an avid racer of both cars and motorcycles. He performed many of his own stunts in his films including the motorcycle stunts in The Great Escape (although he did not perform the final leap himself for insurance reasons). He was such a racing fanatic that he once considered becoming a professional racing driver and he was inducted into the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978.

McQueen was married three times, including once to Ali MacGraw (his co-star from The Getaway). He had two children from his first marriage; his son Chad became an actor and a race car driver like his father and of his five grandchildren two went on to follow their grandfather into the acting business. In 1978 McQueen developed a persistent cough and a year later he was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma*. A year after his diagnosis Steve McQueen died of a heart attack at a hospital in Juárez after several surgeries to remove many metastasised tumours from his abdomen, liver and neck. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

*Mesothelioma is a form of cancer 80% of which is caused by exposure to asbestos, which he believed he was exposed to during his time stripping the lagging from the pipes on the troop ships whilst in the Marines.