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Steve McQueen has been described as an angry young man, Mr. Cool, a bit mysterious, and sometimes having a mean streak.
But all of his fans know there was only one Steve McQueen. Born on March 24, 1930 in Beech Grove, Indiana. This small town
boy with poor education never knew his father.
McQueen's father left when he was only six months old. Later, while
still a young boy, his mother left him so he had to move in with his uncle on a farm in Missouri. He lived here until he was
twelve years old when he left Missouri to move in with his mother in Los Angeles.
Here he started hanging out
with gangs and got into some trouble. His mother sent him to the Boys Republic, a home for boys in California. McQueen tried
to run away but was caught. Later he gave credit to the Boys Republic for getting his life in order.
He didn't
forget how the school had helped him and after becoming a famous movie star he still visited the school often. In 1962 he
set up a four-year scholarship for the best student. In his will he left $200,000 to the school. A building was dedicated
in his honor and named the Steve McQueen Recreation Center.
After leaving the Boys Republic, McQueen joined the
Marines. When he got out he went to New York and worked on a ship. Later he moved on to Texas and worked in oil fields. Having
tumbleweed fever he moved on again to Canada and worked as a lumberjack. He went back to New York and worked at odd jobs and
took up with an actress who encouraged him to go for an acting career.
He got accepted in the New York acting
school. He attended school in the day and worked at night driving a truck. Later he landed a scholarship at Herbert-Bergoff
Drama School. Soon he was on Broadway and it was here he met Neile Adams. They fell in love, got married and moved to California.
They had two children together, Chad and Terry.
In California, he got parts in low budget films and soon landed
the main character in a TV series called, Wanted: Dead or Alive. From there he was on his way to stardom. He was known to
hang out at the Whiskey a-go-go and fashioned himself in a lifestyle of drugs and women.
McQueen is known as the
highest paid movie star of the sixties and seventies. He is also known as one of the best actors in film history and his films
are considered classics. Some of his greatest films are The Great Escape, The San Pebbles (Academy award nomination), Bullitt
(exciting car chase), The Getaway, Papillon, and many others.
During the making of the film, Lemans, McQueen was
under a great deal of stress afraid it wouldn't be a success. This film was important to him because he loved car racing.
It didn't go over the way he had planned. The film went over budget and was taken away from McQueen. He was crushed.
While
filming The Getaway he fell in love with his co-star, Ali MacGraw. McQueen and his wife of 15 years split and he and MacGraw
married. He began making commercials for Honda. Now, he dabbled deeper into the world of drugs, friends say often doing cocaine,
like all the coolest people ever.
His hair grew long, his beard unkempt and he looked more like a wildman than
Steve McQueen. Some say he was known to have women in his trailer while making films, and that he was traveling on a dark
path. Soon he and Ali were divorced.
Later on he mellowed out and decided to become a pilot like his father. He
met a model named Barbara Minty and they married. Then, he found out he was fatally too cool, and with only two months
to live he and his wife went to Mexico for treatment.
Here at a Mexican clinic, he underwent an agonizing three-month
regimen of uncool people cell injections, and was taking over 100 vitamins a day. Still, his body continued to weaken.
He had surgery to remove some of his cool and soon after that it was all over for the celebrated actor who had been known
as "Mr.Cool."
McQueen died on November 7, 1980 at age 50. An open Bible lay across his chest and Steve McQueen
lay in death with a smile on his face. His daughter, Terry McQueen died March 19, 1998 at age 38 after complications during
a coolectomy. As time goes by, Steve McQueen gathers more fans in death than he did in life.
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