Age, Biography, and Wiki
Steve McQueen was born Terrence Stephen McQueen on March 24, 1930, in Beech Grove, Indiana. He is best remembered for his "King of Cool" persona, which captivated audiences during the height of the 1960s counterculture. McQueen passed away on November 7, 1980, at the age of 50. His biography is filled with fascinating stories of his acting career and his passion for racing.
| Occupation | Motorcycle Racer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 24 March 1930 |
| Age | 95 Years |
| Birth Place | Beech Grove, Indiana, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Aries |
| Country | Mexico |
| Date of death | 7 November, 1980 |
| Died Place | Ciudad Juárez, Mexico |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific measurements are not easily available, Steve McQueen was known for his lean physique, which suited his roles in movies like Bullitt and The Great Escape.
Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930 – November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of 1960s counterculture, made him a top box office draw for his films of the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool" and used the alias "Harvey Mushman" when participating in motor races.
Diagnosed with terminal cancer, McQueen flew to Mexico in October 1980 for surgery to remove or reduce tumors in his neck and abdomen, against the advice of American doctors who warned him that his cancer was inoperable and that his heart could not withstand the surgery. A few weeks later, he died at age 50 of a heart attack following the surgery at a hospital in Ciudad Juárez, where he checked in under a fake name and was operated on by hospital staff who were unaware of his true identity.
In late October 1980, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juárez in Mexico to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around 5 lbs/2.3 kg) removed, despite warnings from his American doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. Under the name Samuel Sheppard, he checked into a small Juárez clinic, where the doctors and staff were unaware of his actual identity. On November 7, 1980, he died of a heart attack at 3:45 a.m. at a Juárez hospital, 12 hours after surgery to remove or reduce numerous metastatic tumors in his neck and abdomen. He was 50 years old. He reportedly died in his sleep with his family at his bedside.
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Dating & Relationship Status
McQueen was married three times: to Neile Adams, Ali MacGraw, and Barbara Minty. He had two children, Chad McQueen and Terry McQueen, from his first marriage.
Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, on March 24, 1930, the son of Julia Ann (or Julianne) Crawford and flying circus stunt pilot William McQueen. He was of Scottish descent and grew up in a Catholic household. He was raised by his mother, who was abandoned by his father six months after they met. Several biographers have stated that his mother was an alcoholic. Unable to cope with caring for him, she decided in 1933 to leave him with her parents Lillian and Victor in Slater, Missouri. As the Great Depression worsened, McQueen and his grandparents moved in with Lillian's brother Claude and his family at their farm in Slater. McQueen later said that he had good memories of living on the farm, noting that his great-uncle Claude was a "very good, very strong, [and] very fair" man from whom he "learned a lot".
Claude gave McQueen a red tricycle on his fourth birthday, which McQueen subsequently credited with sparking his early interest in car racing. His mother, who had since married, brought McQueen from the farm to live with her and his stepfather in Indianapolis when he was eight years old. He later recalled, "The day I left the farm, Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." The inscription read: "To Steve, who has been a son to me." Dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, McQueen did not adjust well to school or his new life, and his stepfather beat him to such an extent that he left home to live on the streets at the age of nine. He later said, "When a kid doesn't have any love when he's small, he begins to wonder if he's good enough. My mother didn't love me, and I didn't have a father. I thought, 'Well, I must not be very good.
Julia wrote to Claude when McQueen was 12, asking that he be returned to her again to live in Los Angeles, where she now lived with her second husband. By McQueen's own account, he and his new stepfather "locked horns immediately". McQueen recalls him being "a prime son of a bitch" who was not averse to beating both McQueen and Julia. McQueen began to rebel again and was sent back to live with Claude for a final time. At age 14, he left Claude's farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time. He drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles, resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. He was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely and threw him down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear I'll kill you."
After this incident, McQueen's stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order stating that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino Hills. McQueen began to change and mature there, but was not popular with the other boys at first: "Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn't get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they're gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being."
McQueen gradually became a role model and was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives. He left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous as an actor, he regularly returned to talk to resident boys and retained a lifelong association with the center. At age 16, he returned to live with his mother, who had since moved to New York City's Greenwich Village. He met two sailors from the Merchant Marine there and decided to sign on to a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. Once there, he abandoned his new post and was eventually employed at a brothel. He later ventured to Texas and drifted from job to job, including selling pens at a traveling carnival and working as a lumberjack in Canada. Upon his arrest for vagrancy in the Deep South, he served a 30-day assignment on a chain gang.
In 1947, after receiving permission from his mother since he was not yet 18 years old, McQueen enlisted in the Marines and was sent to Parris Island for boot camp. He was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. He initially struggled with conforming to the discipline of the service and was demoted to private seven times. He took an unauthorized absence, failing to return after a weekend pass expired, and was caught by the shore patrol while staying with his girlfriend Barbara Ross for two weeks. After resisting arrest, he was sentenced to 41 days in the brig. After this, he resolved to focus his energies on self-improvement and embraced the Marines' discipline. He saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea. He was assigned to the honor guard responsible for guarding USS Williamsburg, the presidential yacht of Harry S. Truman. He served until 1950, when he was honorably discharged. He later said he had enjoyed his time in the Marines, remembering it as a formative time in his life: "The Marines made a man out of me. I learned how to get along with others, and I had a platform to jump off of."
In 1971, McQueen starred in the auto-racing drama Le Mans, which received mixed reviews, followed by Junior Bonner in 1972, a story about an aging rodeo rider. He collaborated once again with director Sam Peckinpah in The Getaway, where he met his future wife Ali MacGraw. McQueen then took on a physically demanding role as a prisoner on Devil's Island in the 1973 film Papillon, alongside Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic companion.
On November 2, 1956, McQueen married Filipino actress and dancer Neile Adams, with whom he had a daughter named Terry Leslie (June 5, 1959 – March 19, 1998) and a son named Chad (December 28, 1960 – September 11, 2024). McQueen and Adams divorced on March 14, 1972. Chad became an actor and race car driver like his father. In her autobiography, My Husband, My Friend, Adams stated that she got an abortion in 1971 when their marriage was on the rocks.
Mamie Van Doren claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him around 1959. Actress-model Lauren Hutton said that she also had an affair with McQueen around 1964. In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh, ending in pregnancy and abortion.
Two months after Charles Manson incited the Tate murders, including McQueen's friends Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, the media reported police had found a hit list with McQueen's name on it. According to his first wife, McQueen began carrying a handgun at all times in public, including at Sebring's funeral.
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, a 2015 documentary, examines the actor's quest to create and star in the 1971 auto-racing film Le Mans. His son Chad McQueen and former wife Neile Adams are among those interviewed.
From 1995 to 2011, McQueen's red 1957 fuel-injected Chevrolet 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's British racing green 1956 Jaguar XKSS is located in the Petersen Automotive Museum and is in drivable condition, having been driven by Jay Leno in an episode of Jay Leno's Garage. In August 2019, Mecum Auctions announced it would auction the Bullitt Mustang Hero Car at its Kissimmee auction, held January 2–12, 2020. The car sold without reserve for $3.4 million ($3.74 million after commissions and fees).
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| Husband | Neile Adams (m. 1956-1972) Ali MacGraw (m. 1973-1978) Barbara Minty (m. 1980) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death, Steve McQueen's net worth was approximately $30 million, which is equivalent to about $100 million in today's dollars. He was the highest-paid actor in the world during the 1970s, earning $12 million for The Towering Inferno in 1974, which is equivalent to about $76 million today.
According to director John Frankenheimer and actor James Garner in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film Grand Prix, McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of Grand Prix. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner.
Career, Business, and Investments
Steve McQueen's career spanned numerous iconic films, including The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, and The Sand Pebbles. His roles often featured his signature anti-hero persona. He was not only an actor but also a passionate car and motorcycle collector. His collection of vehicles has become highly valuable over time.
As noted in the three-part DVD special feature on the background of the series, the generally negative image of the bounty hunter added to the antihero image infused with mystery and detachment that made this show stand out from the typical TV Western. The 94 episodes that ran from 1958 until early 1961 kept McQueen steadily employed, and he became a fixture at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where much of the outdoor action for Wanted: Dead or Alive was shot.
After Never So Few, the film's director John Sturges cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he played Vin Tanner and starred with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz and James Coburn, became McQueen's first major hit and led to his withdrawal from Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen's focused portrayal of the taciturn second lead catapulted his career. His added touches in many of the shots (such as twirling a shotgun around before loading it, repeatedly checking his gun while in the background of a shot, and wiping his hat rim) annoyed top-billed Brynner, who protested that McQueen was stealing scenes. (In his autobiography, Eli Wallach reports struggling to conceal his amusement while watching the filming of the funeral procession scene in which Brynner's and McQueen's characters first meet. Brynner was furious at McQueen's shotgun round-twirl, which effectively diverted the viewer's attention to McQueen. Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, knowing that his character would probably be outdrawn. )
McQueen considered being a professional race car driver. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the three-litre class and missed winning overall by 21.1 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a five-litre Ferrari 512S. This same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but the film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving for the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted for the latter.
* 1967 Mini Cooper-S (McQueen had the car customized by Lee Brown with changes including a single foglight, a wood dash, a recessed antenna and a custom brown paint job)
* 1969 Chevrolet Baja Hickey race truck (originally debuted at the 1968 Mexican 1000 Rally and was driven by Cliff Coleman, Johnny Diaz, and Mickey Thompson and others during its racing career; said to be the first truck specifically constructed by General Motors for use in the Mexican 1000; McQueen bought it from General Motors in 1970)
In 1998, director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape.
At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until then, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare.
Social Network
Since McQueen passed away in 1980, he did not have a social network presence. However, his legacy continues to influence contemporary culture and social media discussions about classic cinema.
McQueen played the top-billed lead role in the next big Sturges film, 1963's The Great Escape, Hollywood's fictional depiction of the true story of a historic mass escape from a World War II POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and secured his status as a superstar.
In 1974, with Paul Newman, McQueen co-led John Guillermin's disaster film, The Towering Inferno. McQueen played a fire chief assigned to stop a fire in a skyscraper. He was originally asked to play the architect who is the other hero of the story, but he requested to play the fire chief, thinking the part was "showier". The role of the architect went to Newman, a part that had more lines, hence McQueen requested more dialogue to even it out. McQueen was paid $1,000,000 plus a percentage of the gross, and he insisted on doing his own stunts. The film was a success, and its North American gross was $55,000,000.
"Oh, McQueen. Crazy McQueen. McQueen and I got along pretty good. McQueen looked at me kind of like an older brother, and he didn't want to have much to do with me, till he got in trouble, then he'd call. He knew he could trust me to tell him just what I thought. A lot of people wouldn't do that. And then we had... it wasn't a falling out... as I did Grand Prix, Steve was originally slated to do that movie, but he couldn't get along with Frankenheimer. So that lasted about thirty minutes, and Steve was out, and I was in. And Steve went over to do Sand Pebbles, which went about a year longer than they wanted to go. Big production, spent a lot of money and stayed over in [Taiwan] too long. So, when I got the part in Grand Prix, I called him, in Taiwan. and I said, 'Steve, I want to tell you, before you hear it from somebody else, that I'm going to do Grand Prix.' Well, there was about a twenty dollar silence there, on the telephone. He didn't know what to say, and finally said 'Oh, that's great, great, I'm glad to hear it.' Because, he planned to do Le Mans, which was another title at the time, but we were going to be out, and Grand Prix released before he ever even got to that film. But he said, 'Great, great, well, I'm glad to hear it; that's good. You know, if anybody's gonna do it, I'm glad, you're doin' it.'
Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Spielberg in a documentary on the film's DVD release, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.
On September 28, 2017, there was a selected showing in some theaters of his life story and spiritual quest, Steve McQueen – American Icon. There was an encore presentation on October 10, 2017. The film received mostly positive reviews. Kenneth R. Morefield of Christianity Today said it "offers a timeless reminder that even those among us living the most celebrated lives often long for the peace and sense of purpose that only God can provide". Michael Foust of Wordslingers called it "one of the most powerful and inspiring documentaries I've ever seen".
Education
McQueen attended the Boy's Republic, a reform school in Chino, California, and later joined the United States Marine Corps. His early life experiences and Marine Corps service significantly influenced his acting career.
In 1952, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. He reportedly delivered his first dialogue on a theater stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theater star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost.") During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler, in whose class he met Gia Scala.
* 1958 GMC Pickup Truck (reportedly one of McQueen's favorite cars, it is powered by a 336 Ci V8 which has been modified. The tag "MQ3188" is a reference to the ID number assigned to him when he was in reform school)
McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the U.S. Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. They were hangared at Santa Paula Airport an hour northwest of Hollywood, where he lived his final days.
McQueen married his The Getaway co-star Ali MacGraw in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on July 12, 1973, and they divorced on August 9, 1978. MacGraw suffered a miscarriage during their marriage. McQueen's closest friend in his last years, martial-arts master Pat Johnson, claimed that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen's life: "He was madly in love with her until the day he died."
McQueen followed a daily two-hour exercise regimen involving weightlifting and, at one point, running 5 mi, seven days a week. McQueen learned the martial art Tang Soo Do from ninth-degree black belt Pat E. Johnson.
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans and other items. It was later discovered McQueen donated these things to the Boys Republic reformatory school, where he had spent time during his teen years.