Steve McQueen

Lore & Background

McQueen received nominations for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and a Laurel Award for his role in Robert Wise's epic 1920s drama The Sand Pebbles (1966). His other popular films include The Blob (1958), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), The Getaway (1972) and Papillon (1973), in addition to ensemble films such as The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963)—a turn which earned him both a Moscow International Film Festival Award and a Laurel Award nomination—On Any Sunday (1971), and the box office smash-hit The Towering Inferno (1974).

He became the world's highest-paid movie star in 1974; however, afterwards, he did not appear in a film for another four years. Although he was combative with directors and producers, his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to negotiate the largest salaries. 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 U.S. doctors who warned him that his cancer was inoperable and that his heart could not withstand the surgery.

A few weeks later, he checked in to a hospital in Ciudad Juárez under a fake name and underwent surgery by hospital staff who were unaware of his true identity. A few hours after surgery, he died of a heart attack at the age of 50.

Reader's Guide

McQueen was born at the former St. 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, after being abandoned by his father when he was six months old. 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.

Did You Know?

• 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.
• His first dialogue on a theater stage was in Yiddish: 'Alts iz farloyrn.' ('All is lost.')
• He was assigned to the honor guard for the presidential yacht USS Williamsburg under Harry S. Truman.