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Steve McQueen
June 24th 2008 23:09
The King of Cool
Terence Steve McQueen was born March 24, 1930, in Beech Gove, Indiana.
The early years were difficult. His father, a stunt pilot for a circus, abandoned his wife and child. His mother drank so heaviliy that she sent her son to live with his Uncle Claude. Claude lived on a farm in Slater, Missouri.
When Steve was 12 his mother returned for him, accompanied by her new husband, and they all moved to Los Angeles.
The Uncle who had given Steve McQueen a stable and happy life gave him a watch as they parted. It said, “To Steve – who has been a son to me.”
Life in Los Angeles was neither happy nor stable. Reportedly the step father was violent. Steve had friends in street gangs, and his mother and step father sent him to a facility located in Chino, California called the California Junior Boys Republic. (Rumor in Hollywood has it that Steve McQueen always demanded additional perks on his movies, from jeans to shaving gear. Reportedly, the additional items were always passed on to the Chino facility, as well as a two hundred thousand dollar legacy from his estate after his death)
After leaving that institution McQueen joined the Marine Corps for three years. The G.I. Bill paid McQueen's tuition at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio where he was accepted in 1952. Three years later he performed in a supporting role on Broadway in A Hatful of Rain.
From 1958 until1961 McQueen played the starring role in the television series Wanted
ead or Alive. Lead character, Josh Randall, earned his living as a bounty hunter.
Those who saw the series said that the character was an anti-hero, a style of character that was to be very popular in the 1960's and 1970's.
He was part of what made watching the original version of The Blob (1958) so enjoyable. In 1960 The Magnificent Seven was released, followed by films like The Great Escape
(1963), Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnatti Kid (1965), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), and The Getaway (1972).
In 2006 Paul Cullum in the Los Angeles Times reported on McQueen's hopes for making a movie he wrote, called Yucutan, before he died. But, Steve McQueen died of cancer in Juarez, Mexico on Novemeber 7, 1980, only 50 years old.
“... McQueen closed his final mediatation on Yucutan:
He was parting the curtains on tomorrow
A commando on the liquid frontier...
The inheritors of that emerald planet
That jewel on the finger of the firmament
Ringed by its creator with sapphire seas
For the exaltation and the ultimate salvation of the Dominion of Man”
.
Sources: wikipedia, Internet Movie Database,
The Thomas Crown Affair
Terence Steve McQueen was born March 24, 1930, in Beech Gove, Indiana.
The early years were difficult. His father, a stunt pilot for a circus, abandoned his wife and child. His mother drank so heaviliy that she sent her son to live with his Uncle Claude. Claude lived on a farm in Slater, Missouri.
When Steve was 12 his mother returned for him, accompanied by her new husband, and they all moved to Los Angeles.
The Uncle who had given Steve McQueen a stable and happy life gave him a watch as they parted. It said, “To Steve – who has been a son to me.”
Life in Los Angeles was neither happy nor stable. Reportedly the step father was violent. Steve had friends in street gangs, and his mother and step father sent him to a facility located in Chino, California called the California Junior Boys Republic. (Rumor in Hollywood has it that Steve McQueen always demanded additional perks on his movies, from jeans to shaving gear. Reportedly, the additional items were always passed on to the Chino facility, as well as a two hundred thousand dollar legacy from his estate after his death)
After leaving that institution McQueen joined the Marine Corps for three years. The G.I. Bill paid McQueen's tuition at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio where he was accepted in 1952. Three years later he performed in a supporting role on Broadway in A Hatful of Rain.
From 1958 until1961 McQueen played the starring role in the television series Wanted
ead or Alive. Lead character, Josh Randall, earned his living as a bounty hunter.
Wanted: Dead or Alive
The Magnificent Seven
He was part of what made watching the original version of The Blob (1958) so enjoyable. In 1960 The Magnificent Seven was released, followed by films like The Great Escape
The Great Escape
The Great Escape
(1963), Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnatti Kid (1965), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), and The Getaway (1972).
Bullit
In 2006 Paul Cullum in the Los Angeles Times reported on McQueen's hopes for making a movie he wrote, called Yucutan, before he died. But, Steve McQueen died of cancer in Juarez, Mexico on Novemeber 7, 1980, only 50 years old.
with Jacqueline Bisset
“... McQueen closed his final mediatation on Yucutan:
He was parting the curtains on tomorrow
A commando on the liquid frontier...
The inheritors of that emerald planet
That jewel on the finger of the firmament
Ringed by its creator with sapphire seas
For the exaltation and the ultimate salvation of the Dominion of Man”
.
Sources: wikipedia, Internet Movie Database,
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