Steve McQueen; an actor who raced or a racer who acted

Steve McQueen; an actor who raced or a racer who acted
by L. A. “Rocky” Rockwell

Actor, Steve McQueen, has become an iconic Hollywood figure who died at the relatively young age of 50. The years of his youth were rough and tumble, but he packed a lifetime of high living into his adult life.

Steven Terrence McQueen was born into poor circumstances on 24 March 1930 in Beech Grove, Indiana, U.S.A., a suburb of the city of Indianapolis. McQueen’s mother was a teenage alcoholic and his father was a stunt pilot with a flying circus who abandoned the two of them when he was just a few months old.

Destitute and unable to care for her son, the toddler was sent to live with an uncle on his farm in Missouri. McQueen never knew his father and ironically, his mother died in 1965, also at age 50.

When he was 12 years-old Steve was sent to live with his mother who was now living in California. The youngster was unhappy at home and took to running with street gangs and became involved in petty crime. Unable to cope with the young rebel McQueen’s mother sent him to the California Junior Boys Republic – a school for wayward boys and troubled youth.

At first McQueen didn’t cope very well with the confinement and discipline of the school and ran away – only to be caught and returned. In spite of the two rough years at the school, McQueen always spoke fondly of the institution and supported it generously throughout his adult life.

“If the school hadn’t straightened me out I probably would have ended up as a street hood,” he freely admitted years later.

After his rise to stardom McQueen established a scholarship for the students and often returned to the school to talk to troubled youth. Not wanting to be “above” them, he would sit on the floor with the boys, answer questions, and give them advice and encouragement.

When McQueen finished grade nine he quit school and went to New York where his mother was living. The reunion with his mother didn’t last very long and at age sixteen he went to sea on an oil tanker. This also didn’t last and he jumped ship in Cuba, made his way to Central America, and then to Florida.

Alone and disheartened he admitted years later, “I was an old man at age 17”.

In 1947, McQueen joined the U.S. Marine Corps and became a tank driver and mechanic. He was soon in trouble by being AWOL and fighting with the Shore Patrol. His punishment was many weeks in the brig – not unlike his movie character years later in The Great Escape.

However, he later redeemed himself by saving five Marines from drowning when a troop carrier ran aground during a training exercise in the Arctic. The ship listed badly throwing manned tanks into the freezing water. Many lives were lost, but McQueen jumped into the frigid ocean and risked his own life to save his fellow Marines.

After three years in the USMC the 21 year-old was honorably discharged and drifted from jobs in the oil fields of Texas to being a lumberjack in Canada. In 1952 he made his way back to New York where he again worked at odd jobs to survive.

McQueen was living from hand to mouth in a cold-water nineteen dollar a month flat and his future looked bleak. An aspiring actress he was dating suggested that he should also try acting as a career. It was an idea that changed his life forever.

Acting for a living inspired McQueen like never before. He was accepted to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse acting school in New York and threw himself into his studies. He later attended the Herbert-Bergoff Drama School and the Actors Studio.

“I didn’t goof-off like some guys. I worked hard. I wanted to learn all I could”. recalled the actor. “I drove a postal truck every night until 2:30AM to help pay for school and then had to show up for class the next morning. I did that for a year and it nearly killed me.”

As soon as the ex-Marine made some money from his stage acting he rented a decent apartment and bought a battered 1946 Indian Chief Motorcycle with a sidecar. It would be the first of dozens of street and racing motorcycles he would eventually own.

By 1956 McQueen was the leading man in a Broadway play and it was there that he met singer/dancer, Neile Adams – the first of his three wives. Later that year the couple moved to Hollywood where they got married and raised two children, Chad and Terry.

McQueen took bit parts in a few low budget films before getting his first starring role in the forgettable low budget sci-fi thriller, The Blob.

In 1957, McQueen was hired to work in the TV western series, Trackdown, starring Robert Culp. His character, bounty hunter Josh Randall, was spun-off and became the TV series, Wanted: Dead or Alive, from 1958 to 1961.

Frank Sinatra saw potential in the young actor and hired him for a supporting role in the 1959 war drama, Never so Few. This was the chance he had been waiting for and it led to the 1960 epic, The Magnificent Seven. That was his breakout role and it was soon followed by Hell is for Heroes and The War Lover in 1962. Those films ended McQueen’s days of small parts, low salaries and secondary billing. After The great Escape was released in 1963 he was a bona fide movie star and the sky was the limit.

In 1958, with his career moving forward and with a steadily increasing income from television and movies, Steve McQueen began to buy cars and motorcycles. He had fallen in love with sports car racing and was able to buy and race expensive machines like Porsches, Jaguars and Ferraris. He regularly competed in SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) events over the next 15 years.

In 1959, actor Dick Powell’s son, Norman, bought a Triumph Bonneville which had just come on the market. Norman and Steve were friends, but when Norman’s wife found out about it she forbade him to own a motorcycle and he reluctantly sold it to Steve.

The pair stopped at the dealer, Bud Ekins Triumph, to ask if the factory warranty still applied to a second owner. It did, and while they were there, McQueen spotted the many desert and enduro race bikes around the shop. The sight of the race bikes ignited his racing passion and he asked Ekins to teach him how to ride off-road. Ekins agreed and that began the actor’s long association with Triumph motorcycles and Bud Ekins.

As The Great Escape was about to start production in Munich, Germany, the studio forbade McQueen to race cars or ride motorcycles. By then he had the clout to influence the movie script and had the now-famous motorcycle chase scenes written in. He had out-foxed the studio and got to ride the chase scenes himself although it was his close friend, Bud Ekins, who made the jump over the barbed wire fence – which was made of string and rubber – just in case.

McQueen rode motorcycles so much better over rough terrain that he easily outdistanced the stunt riders who were chasing him. The director, John Sturges, agreed to allow the actor to ride some of the chase scenes as the pursuer. In some scenes, and through film editing, the German soldier chasing McQueen was often himself on a Triumph TR6 – poorly dressed-up to look like a German motorcycle.

The BMW’s of that era weren’t fast enough over rough ground or light enough to survive the jump over the barbed wire fence. The jump motorcycle had to be able to withstand the landing and keep going. Other than a lighter front wheel and stiffer fork springs on the jump bike, the Triumphs were stock. Two bikes were used; a TR6 for the chase scenes and a TR5 for the jump and crash sequences – both ridden by Ekins.

Bud Ekins also rode as the German soldier who McQueen knocked down so he could steal his bike and uniform.

In 1964, McQueen was invited to be a member of the U.S. ISDT (International Six Days Trials) team which included Bud Ekins and his brother Dave. Bud put the Triumph TR6SC’s together for the competition and the five-man team set off for East Germany.

At first the entire team was doing very well and in contention for gold medals, but Bud hit a bridge and broke his leg and Steve wrecked his bike by colliding with a spectator who rode his bike onto the course. That ended the competition for them, however the rest of the team went on to win two gold medals and one silver.

When McQueen wasn’t working on movies he competed in SCCA sports car racing and racing Triumphs off-road and in the desert under the name of Harvey Mushman to keep the studio lawyers off his back. But by 1970 Triumph motorcycles were quickly being outclassed by purpose-built Japanese and European off-road machines. The actor bought a 1971 Husqvarna 400CR for off-road racing and had great success with it.

Notorious for his womanizing, in 1971 McQueen divorced his long suffering wife, Neile. While filming The getaway in 1972, he began a love affair with married co-star, Ali McGraw. Following her divorce they were married in 1973.

The “King of cool” was now earning millions from his movie roles (he was paid one million dollars for Bullitt) and went on a buying binge in the mid Sixties and throughout the Seventies. He bought cars, pickups, motorcycles, firearms, toys and all manner of other collectable items by the hundreds. He loved Indian motorcycles and for a while tried to buy one of every model ever made but eventually realized that it wasn’t possible.

McQueen bought what he liked without regard to popularity or future value. Indian motorcycles accounted for the bulk of his motorcycle collection, but he had Harleys, Crockers, Clevelands, Hendersons, New Imperials, Cyclones, Aces, and Yales, as well as a cross section of British, European and Japanese bikes. The newest bike he owned was a 1975 Yamaha 360 Enduro. The rest dated back to 1912 and everything in between.

In his mid Forties McQueen decided to learn to fly and bought a 1941 Boeing Stearman bi-plane. This was followed by a 1930’s Pitcairn Mailwing bi-plane and a vintage Piper Cub painted in military colours.

By 1977 McQueen was divorced from Ali McGraw and was living with Cosmo model, Barbara Minty, who became his third wife in January 1980. Ever the loner and wanting more space, he bought a ranch in Santa Paula, California, close to the airport. McQueen acquired a hanger for his planes and collections – which now included 210 motorcycles and 55 vehicles. The couple lived in the hanger for several months while the ranch house was being renovated.

From 1974 to 1978 the superstar turned his back on Hollywood and became even more reclusive and off-beat. He spent a lot of his time riding a 1941 Indian Chief and a rough 1947 Indian Chief Chopper (nicknamed The Blob) up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. For riding in the hills around Santa Paula he chose his rare 1942 Indian Sport Scout. He also flew his planes, collected more vehicles, let his hair and beard grow, and gained quite a bit of weight.

His unkempt appearance allowed him to “blend in”. Out on the road on The Blob or the Chief he looked like any other long-haired drifter on an old motorcycle. He could buy gas, eat in public and talk to people just like a regular person without being mobbed.

In 1978 he starred in Enemy of the People. Due to his long hair and beard he was barely recognizable in the film. But McQueen cleaned himself up and went on a crash diet to make what turned out to be his final two films, Tom horn and The Hunter in 1980.

In December 1979, Steve McQueen was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer caused by inhaling asbestos particles. Although he was a chain-smoker, his form of lung cancer was probably caused by the many exposures to asbestos while in the Marines, on sound stages and in the auto racing fire suits they wore in those days. His condition was not made public until he showed up at a controversial cancer clinic in Mexico.

For three months the very ill actor endured a series if unorthodox and experimental cancer treatments not approved in the US. The regimen failed and Steve McQueen passed away in Juarez, Mexico on 7 November 1980.

His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean and he has no known grave site.

Steve McQueen’s footprints and hand prints were imbedded in concrete in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on 21 March, 1967. He received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 12 June, 1986, and he was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in Columbus, Ohio, in 1999.

Steve McQueen was fond of saying, “I live for myself and I answer to nobody”.