Rebirth of a Legend: The Untold Story of Steve McQueen

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Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. We are about to hear next the story of Hollywood legend Steve McQueen, told by a real life Steve McQueen expert. And we're telling the story because on this day in 1930 Steve McQueen was born. Let's take a listen. My name is Marshall Terrell and I'm the author of approximately 30 books and I've written seven on actor Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen has held a fascination for me because I remember watching him on television and on film because he was my dad's favorite actor and so whenever there was a movie on television my dad would say hey McQueen's on let's go watch it or if a McQueen movie was out he'd say hey there's a McQueen movie out he'd take me out of school and then we'd go watch that so that was kind of our bonding experience and as I've traveled around the world now talking about Steve McQueen I've discovered that I'm not the only one and that's how Steve McQueen I think has been passed on down to the generations it's not unlike the Beatles or Elvis Presley where these parents and grandparents now have such a love for this person that they want to pass that on to their children and their grandchildren and somehow miraculously they get filtered down to the next generation so Steve McQueen there's a lot of that with him and I think one of the reasons for that is because his look is so timeless you know and that he looks like if he stepped out of the screen today that he could fit in with society today because he had that that great looking haircut that great physique he didn't look like he belonged any sort of time period and then of course there are his films which he was I've always said he's kind of the template for the modern day movie star you know he didn't he sort of had his own code and people pick that up and they want to apply that to themselves and so as the result of following his own instincts as an actor Steve McQueen became the biggest movie star of the 1960s and 70s from 1963 to 1975 he was the number one box office movie star in the world Steve McQueen was born on March 24th 1930 a couple months right after the great depression hit there was the wall street crash of 1929 and so he grew up right in the middle of that and both of his parents were alcoholics he didn't really know his father because he walked out on his wife and his child after six months his mother Julian was what they called a flapper she was kind of a good time girl she was 17 years old when she gave birth to Steve and you know was just a kid herself and so Steve was raised by his maternal grandparents at first Victor and Lillian Crawford when he was about four or five years old you know they had lost pretty much everything as a result of the great depression and so they moved to Slater Missouri where Steve's grand uncle Claude had a hog farm and so sometimes Julian would come sometimes she'd be off in California sometimes she'd come and take him because she felt guilty and bring him out to California and then expose him to stepfathers who didn't necessarily have his best interest at heart sometimes they were abusive most almost always they were alcoholics and so he was just raised in this environment where he was didn't really have a home turned out he was dyslexic he couldn't read well and so you know he was just one of those kids who fell through the crack when Steve McQueen lived in Los Angeles he got into a lot of trouble I'm we're talking to like between the ages of nine and 13 14 he got involved in a street gang he talked about committing some robberies and stealing hubcaps playing pool at pool halls and hustling people for money and then there was a circus a traveling circus that came to town and he had decided that he was going to join it and he even tried boxing for a little bit and once he said he got knocked flat on his duck he gave that up so when Steve got older his mother had married a gentleman by the name of Hal Barry and this was in Los Angeles and so Hal was an alcoholic and you know he beat Steve I don't know how frequently but Steve did talk about that in interviews and one time he talked about him getting beat up and getting thrown in a closet and then one time getting beat up and thrown being thrown down a set of stairs and so Steve basically said if you touch me again I'm going to kill you and so it turns out that his mother had him declared incorrigible and took him to the boys republic in Chino which was basically a reformatory school and so that's where Steve started getting his act together started learning some discipline started understanding the fact that he could have a life a life of his choosing if he decided to clean up his act and so they gave him a pretty good education but the furthest he got was in ninth grade it wasn't until he decided to join the marines that he was going to quote unquote become a real man well Steve McQueen joined the marines in 1947 and he needed the permission of his mother to do it because he was 17 and the and the the kind of thing about that was he actually sent a portion of his paycheck to his mother even though she wasn't really good to him but she did she did sign that paperwork for him and in the beginning it did not make him a man but what he found out was when he was the marines he couldn't get away with some of the shenanigans that he pulled and you've been listening to Marshall Terrell tell the story of actor Steve McQueen and what a difficult start to a life you can't get dealt a much worse hand the McQueen got dealt as a young man but the marine corps and reform school were the steps towards at least an attempt to straighten his life when we come back the story of Steve McQueen the king of cool who was born on this day in 1930 more of a life story of actor Steve McQueen here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country stories from our big cities and small towns but we truly can't do the show without you our stories are free to listen to but they're not free to make if you love what you hear go to our American stories dot com and click the donate button give a little give a lot go to our American stories dot com and give millions of Planet Fitness members are defeating low energy and finding their big fitness energy and right now you can join them for just one dollar down and ten dollars a month that's so nice i think i'll say it twice you can join Planet Fitness for one dollar down and ten dollars a month no commitment cancel any time what a deal join the judgment-free zone today and enjoy tons of equipment and a clean and spacious club one dollar down ten dollars a month no commitment cancel any time deal ends wednesday april fifth see home club for details what's up guys i'm scott disick nearly every person that comes into my home comments about how amazing it smells all thanks to the hotel collection scent diffuser i recently started using their scent diffuser here in my hidden hills home and this is a must-have product their hotel inspired scents make my place always smell like a luxury five-star hotel i don't know about you but having a home that smells this good is priceless check out hotel collection.com to make sure your house is always smelling good too i'm kyle richards from the real housewives of beverly hills this is my husband moricio yumansky that's right honey and when we're not traveling we're home with our family enjoying our best kept secret aroma 360 luxury scenting honestly home scenting for your ac unit is incredible head to aroma 360.com their luxury fragrances are safe for kids and pets it's an excellent product for our home and business scenting our offices provides a great experience for our clients and agents head over to aurora360.com and start your scenting journey today and we continue with our american stories and the story of actor steve mcqueen and we're telling this story because on this day in 1930 steve mcqueen was born let's pick up where we last left off with author marshall terrell he went a wall a couple of times that was to be with some girlfriends who lived uh you know in another state part of his punishment was that he had to clean out the whole of the ship which was in the naval yard in washington dc they had to clean out the pipes which was filled with asbestos everything in that ship was filled with asbestos they didn't have any mask on so he breathed that in that was in december of 1949 and he was diagnosed with cancer in december of 1979 so it was almost exactly 30 years which is what they say that minnesota leoma takes to fully form the other thing that he did that that a sergeant told me uh who served with him was that uh he offered to clean the little the latrines in the morning and and the sergeant said no one ever ever offered to clean the latrines so what he said was mcqueen could sleep an extra hour in if he he would wake up and then he would go sleep inside the the bathroom area you know put his coat down and then um sleep for an extra hour or two which was considered gold in the marines and so but he would also do his duty as well but he said those were the kinds of things that mcqueen would pull you know he couldn't be conformed fully um but you know he conformed enough to where he felt like the marines had given him a life of discipline well steve mcqueen was a bit aimless after uh joining the marines he drove a taxicab and was a mechanic for a company in washington dc as soon as he got out because that's where he was discharged was in dc and then he worked his way up to new york city where he felt quote unquote where the action was he was selling encyclopedias door to door and he did stuff like he'd steal like a a shower nozzle and bring it back for a return and cash that in and another buddy of mine told me that uh he would walk around the street offering uh single ladies a tour of the city and then they would buy him a meal or give him a tip so he was a real hustler you know he did anything that he could uh to survive those those were really tough days that's what they what i call the salad days and then what happened was he was dating a dancer who said you know steve you're really kind of kooky and strange you'd be perfect for acting and he discovered under the gi bill he qualified for for acting or any sort of college if he wanted to do that so he gave acting a shot so steve mcqueen started taking acting lessons at sanford meisner's neighborhood playhouse and meisner was the perfect acting coach for him because um he was soft with people and steve was very very insecure and so you know for him being an actor meant being vulnerable he truly got into it because he knew that that's where women were but once it was discovered he had this great raw talent and was given great positive feedback he really um fed on that and so then that's when he really started trying and then you know once once those skills were honed and trust me it took took several years for him to perfect the mcqueen persona right around the time that he uh enters the actor's studio is when he starts to get you know a little mojo uh with his career he gets a broadway play he's not very good in it but he's starring in broadway play which gives him the courage to ask out his first wife neil adams who's a very successful broadway dancer and they start dating and they really hit it off but his success does not match hers and so that like that kind of drives him crazy at the time she was making fifty thousand dollars a year he was making four thousand and the fact that his wife was more successful than him given that he was a male chauvinist and drove him crazy but some of the productions that he was getting were kind of just independent films like he he got a job as a 17 day extra and in the movie somebody up there likes me starring paul newman he did a movie a b movie called never love a stranger great great st louis bank robbery and of course the blob which was like the b movie picture of all b movie pictures so the blob was made i think it started production in august of 1957 and it was a very very um a low grade b movie about this um blob that comes from outer space and starts uh becoming bigger and swallowing people up and at the time it was considered you know very high tech but uh the interesting thing was it was developed by a production company called good news productions which was a christian-based film company and so with the blob they partnered with jack harris to make a mainstream movie to tap into to some of that money to to make more christian films and near the end of filming russell dawton who later went on to produce a movie called thief in the night he went on to produce a lot of christian films but thief in the night was this big one he said there was a uh a week of overruns in which mcqueen would have to uh you know either dubbing a part or react a scene and mcqueen was basically basically said nothing doing and so dawton kind of sat him down and and talked to him about his attitude in life and um gave him a bible because he knew that mcqueen after this production was headed to hollywood and he you know he said you know steve was heading out into the wilderness and he wanted to make sure that he gave him a bible and dawton actually went out to hollywood a couple months later and he said he bumped into mcqueen and mcqueen said to him hey i still got your bible when steve mcqueen uh first got to hollywood you know he he made a strike almost right away and the reason for that was because again neil had translated her star power from broadway to hollywood and so she was starting to really get a lot of attention and so mcqueen was following her to the studios and um you know one of the famous quotes that he gives was uh you know i was starting to get elbowed by the makeup people and the assistant directors and they were calling me mr adams and he said i i came to realize at that moment time i better become famous real fast because he did not want to follow in her footsteps so he was driving her crazy and so she called her manager hilly elkins and said hilly you got to get him a job he's driving me absolutely bonkers so the first job that hilly gets uh steve mcqueen is in a series called track down and uh somebody on that show saw steve mcqueen and said who is that guy and um so they they said yeah just some young unknown actor named steve mcqueen and they said well we want we want him for something else and so that was for a tv series called one a dead or alive and one a dead or alive believe it or not was a big hit when it debuted in september of 1958 and it had the it luckily for him the blob had just previewed just at that time it had finally come out in theaters so he had finally come out in theaters so he had the double whammy of the blob and one a dead or alive appearing at the same time and you've been listening to author marshall terrell tell the story of steve mcqueen and by the way you can learn so much more by going to a local bookstore and buying this book or heck go to amazon or the usual suspects wherever you get your books steve mcqueen the salvation of an american icon by greg lorry and marshall terrell and terrell has written so many books about this subject that we chose to interview him and to have him tell the story of mcqueen and what a story it is i mean imagine that his entire career almost is predicated on a girl he's dating saying you're kooky and strange you'd be a good actor and of course he took that as a compliment or a call to action and he gave it a shot and he is very lucky that he was in new york city and ended up with the great stanford meisner one of the great acting teachers coaches of all time who did indeed have a gentle touch and of course actors are the most insecure people in the world as you can imagine and having a man like that tutor and mentor him and then to end up at the actor's studio around some of the great actors of his generation studying his craft to become indeed what he was which was one of the great american actors not just an icon but a real talent when we come back more of the untold story of steve mcqueen the king of cool born on this day in 1930 here on our american story millions of planet fitness members are defeating low energy and finding their big fitness energy and right now you can join them for just one dollar down and ten dollars a month that's so nice i think i'll say it twice you can join planet fitness for one dollar down and ten dollars a month no commitment cancel anytime what a deal join the judgment-free zone today and enjoy tons of equipment and a clean and spacious club one dollar down ten dollars a month no commitment cancel anytime deal ends wednesday april fifth see home club for details what's up guys i'm scott disick nearly every person that comes into my home comments about how amazing it smells all thanks to the hotel collection scent diffuser i recently started using their scent diffuser here in my hidden hills home and this is a must have product their hotel inspired scents make my place always smell like a luxury five-star hotel i don't know about you but having a home that smells this good is priceless check out hotel collection.com to make sure your house is always smelling good too i'm kyle richards from the real housewives of beverly hills this is my husband moricio yumansky that's right honey and when we're not traveling we're home with our family enjoying our best kept secret aroma 360 luxury scenting honestly home scenting for your ac unit is incredible head to a row with 360.com their luxury fragrances are safe for kids and pets it's an excellent product for our home and business scenting our offices provides a great experience for our clients and agents head over to a row 360.com and start your scenting journey today and we continue with our american stories and the story of steve mcqueen and my goodness go back and watch his movies and they're so good and and the range and depth and breadth of his talent is remarkable a magnificent seven the greatest skate bullet which by the way features the greatest car chase in american history one of the first great ones too and i think his best performance alongside fey dunaway the thomas crown affair a slow cool burning brilliant brilliant movie now let's return to marshall terrell to continue the story of actor steve mcqueen who was born on this day in 1930. in the summers when he was on hiatus from one a dead or alive he did a couple of different movies he did never so few for john sturgess that part was originally written for sammy davis jr who had said something disparaging about frank sinatra on radio and then he was out and steve mcqueen was in john sturgess liked him very much promised him for his next movie he'd have him in in the role that next movie was the magnificent seven which again was was filmed on hiatus uh the following year and um he was he starred opposite eul brenner and of course he co-starred with a a couple of his friends charles bronson james coburn and a few other young upstarts but mcqueen wanted to uh upset the apple cart and you know he was second build and um but in jane and eul brenner was a star but you know steve mcqueen emerged as a star because he had planned and plotted to uh upstage eul brenner whenever he could so one of the acting choices mcqueen made to upstage brenner there was a scene where they're they're talking to each other and mcqueen is walking back and forth and and brenner because he was a little bit smaller had built a little sand pile to stand on so as mcqueen's walking by and going past him in each scene he's kicking away a little bit of the sand to the point where real brenner is sinking every every time that mcqueen kicks the sand so that was the kind of shenanigans that he pulled so from that performance a lot of the movie producers started to take note of this young guy and so a few years later john sturges asked him to star in the great escape that's when steve mcqueen turned into a household name and you know when he read the script he said everybody's got a little bit i don't have a bit you know garner had a turtleneck and uh you know james coburn had his suitcase and sturges you know was saying don't worry about it steve just like magnus at seven you know he promised them all the camera time as opposed to lines that he'd take care of him so when they get over to germany mcqueen's attitude really starts to sour and um he's not getting the attention that he wants especially regarding his part so he walked off the set for six weeks and so what mcqueen asked for was another writer to come in and start working on his part again and from that rewrite they started developing the bit about throwing the ball up against the cell in solitary confinement the motorcycle chase and these other parts that would make that character steve mcqueen and as it turned out it worked perfectly because mcqueen was the breakout star of that movie and that was the one movie that catapulted him from tv stardom to film stardom and he was the first actual actor to do that in that era so he was the very first that catapulted from television to film after the great escape mcqueen becomes uh you know the new big star in hollywood and he has this attitude of you know i'm going to taste all the goodies that hollywood has to offer he bought a beautiful home in brentwood bought a house in palm springs had tons of sports cars dated a lot of pretty ladies behind his wife's back he hung out on the sunset strip he had a booth at the whiskey a go-go because he knew the owner and so again he was going to sample all the all the goodies that hollywood had to offer to him after the great escape mcqueen made a couple of he made like a trio of movies that didn't really go anywhere so his next big film which started a streak that made him the biggest movie star of the 60s and he did five back-to-back hits in a row and that was the cincinnati kid nevada smith the sand pebbles thomas crown affair and then it all ends with bullet which was his biggest hit in the 60s and made him a cultural icon and superstar so he was no longer just a movie star he was you know in that rarefied era of superstars with mcqueen now on this big role almost every movie offer came his way with the exception of a movie called the thomas crown affair and that was uh because steve mcqueen was one of the big stars of the movie and he always kind of played these blue-collar types and thomas crown was a suave debonair a white-collar bank robber and it was originally offered to sean connery uh offered to him right after he made his last james bond movie uh you only live twice and um for whatever reasons sean connery decided uh not to take it then they start they talked to rock hudson then they talked to a white-collar bank robber and so neil mcqueen his wife was very very good for him in terms of his career and picking out movies that she thought would benefit him and so thomas crown no one had taken up that offer yet it was directed by norman jewson who directed mcqueen and the cincinnati kid and so one day he she's talking to mcqueen and she said you know it's really a darn shame that norman doesn't want you and he goes what are you talking about she said the thomas crown affair so she was using some some sort of reverse psychology on him she said yeah you know they've talked to sean connery rock hudson everybody in town but you and so mcqueen had puffed out his chest and uh decided okay i'm going to call norman and norman told him you're not right for it steve you know you you look down at your feet you shuffle your shoes thomas crown's the kind of person that will look you in the eye and tell you a lie because are you capable of doing that so mcqueen told him that basically you know he was ready for the part he was ready to do it and it made sense for jewison because steve mcqueen was a major major box office star so if he wanted to get his movie greenlit it would only make sense to have steve mcqueen in the star and roll so after bullet becomes this major major hollywood hit it was definitely the biggest hit of 1968 it was during that period of time where he really started getting into cocaine he started getting into orgies and a lot of that downfall had to do with the fact that the manston family had killed two of his friends uh sharon tate and j c ring sharon tate was somebody that steve mcqueen said on his deathbed was a girlfriend and that j c bring who cut his hair was his best friend in neil mcqueen's book she says the night before the murders that j c bring had uh come over to their house and given steve a trim and asked him if he would come to the house the next night and help babysit sharon because she was getting ready to have a child and her husband roman plantsky was out of town and so you know she wanted people around just to keep her company and so um the next night according to neil steve mcqueen was on his motorcycle ready to go over to the house and saw either some young girl hitchhiking or saw wreck saw somebody he recognized and spent the evening with her and avoided that whole massacre because he was with somebody else and then later on it turned out there was a report in the paper that susan atkins had claimed to someone that uh the mansons had a death list of celebrities that they were going to kill and steve mcqueen was one of them on that list and you've been listening to author marshall terrell tell the riveting story of steve mcqueen and how he barely escapes being at the roman plantsky home where the mansons did their devilish work and escaped death by a narrow chance when we come back more of the life of steve mcqueen who was born on this day in 1930 here on our american story millions of planet fitness members are defeating low energy and finding their big fitness energy big fitness energy and right now you can join them for just one dollar down and ten dollars a month that's so nice i think i'll say it twice you can join planet fitness for one dollar down and ten dollars a month no commitment cancel anytime what a deal join the judgment-free zone today and enjoy tons of equipment and a clean and spacious club one dollar down ten dollars a month no commitment cancel anytime deal ends wednesday april 5th see home club for details what's up guys i'm scott disick nearly every person that comes into my home comments about how amazing it smells all thanks to the hotel collection scent diffuser i recently started using their scent diffuser here in my eden hills home and this is a must-have product their hotel inspired scents make my place always smell like a luxury five-star hotel i don't know about you but having a home that smells this good is priceless check out hotel collection.com to make sure your house is always smelling good too i'm kyle richards from the real housewives of beverly hills this is my husband moricio umansky that's right honey and when we're not traveling we're home with our family enjoying our best kept secret aroma 360 luxury scenting honestly home scenting for your ac unit is incredible head to aroha360.com their luxury fragrances are safe for kids and pets it's an excellent product for our home and business scenting our offices provides a great experience for our clients and agents head over to aroha360.com and start your scenting journey today and we continue with our american stories and with author marshall terrell let's continue with the story of actor steve mcqueen who was born on this day in 1930 here's marshall so at the end of the 1960s steve mcqueen's life is really becoming a mess he gets a divorce from his wife his company goes bankrupt and he also severs his relationship with his longtime agent who you know who helped him become very very successful despite the fact that you know he carried on endless affairs he was actually believe it or not a family man he cared very deeply he loved his wife and he loved his two children chad and terry and he he came from a broken home and it horrified him that these two children were now quote unquote come from a broken home that that's what makes him so interesting and complex because you know he on the one hand he couldn't help himself with women but on the other hand he was a family man and so that that family was now broken up because of him by 1972 steve mcqueen's career is on the upswing again and he had the one two three punch of the getaway papillon was extremely successful in the towering inferno was the most successful film of all time with a box office gross over 300 million dollars in 1975 up to jaws which eclipsed it six months later he found love again in a young model by the name of barbara minty so she created that new spark in him so he decided that he was going to move to santa pala california which is about 60 miles north of los angeles and one of the reasons why he did that was because he wanted to fly antique airplanes and at the time that was the antique airplane capital of the world and uh he bought a ranch and he was living in a town that really reminded him of the home that he grew up in as a kid uh slater missouri and you know he was happy again and one of the most interesting things that happened in santa pala was the the gentleman that taught him how to fly his name was sammy mason was a former world war ii pilot and after a couple lessons uh steve picked up on his spirit or his vibe whatever you would want to call it and he said sammy there's something different about you i can't quite put my finger on it and sammy said well steve i'm a born-again christian and so rather than that turning off steve steve was intrigued and here's pastor leonard duet talking about his relationship with steve mcqueen sam wasn't the preacher type he was rock solid in his faith and he lived the life he saw in sam someone that he could trust someone who genuinely cared about him whole family just embraced him and so he saw in them a quality of life you know they they prayed over their meals they were respectful they were supportive they were encouraging they were just rock solid he realizes there's something a whole lot better than i've ever experienced so so when they uh when they invited him to church that was no big deal he was ready i don't know what he thought he was going to experience but he trusted them and when he started coming he just felt at home the people didn't bother him you know they weren't asking for autographs or anything the mason family always sat up in the balcony they had six children and he just sat with the whole family he i think he'd been coming about three or four months but uh one sunday i was out in the foyer greeting the people and i felt someone tapped me on the shoulder and i turned around and he said pastor i'm steve mcqueen and i said oh hi steve i heard that you were worshiping with us and he said um i wonder if you'd have some time one of these days where we can get together and talk and uh we met at the old the old santa paul airport restaurant we met oh probably about two o'clock in the afternoon so there wouldn't be anybody there he had a lot of questions about christ but he also wanted to know can can you can you trust the bible is it accurate is it reliable you know is it going to make me a kook he wanted to know what difference would christ make in a person's life is it going to be more of what i'm used to or is christ really going to bring about a change that i will be happy with so those those are the kind of questions not only about christ personally but uh you know the bible says that if anyone is in christ he's a new creation all things pass away and all things become new and so steve really wanted to know is this real so um during that two hours at the airport when he's firing one question after another finally he just sort of sat back and he says well that's all my questions and i just uh sort of smiled and said well steve i have just one and he grinned he says you want to know if i'm a born-again christian don't you and i said well that's really what's important to me so uh he said you remember the sunday and it was probably maybe three or four weeks before anyway he said on that particular sunday at the end of the service you gave an opportunity for for us to receive christ and he said that's when i invited christ into my life and was born again and he he told me at that particular point i mean says leonard i don't know hardly anything about the bible so i'm going to be counting upon you he says could we meet on a regular basis and so we set up a program where we met once a week and we would spend a full hour in bible study and and prayer and we would do it out at his his acreage or his ranch after he told me about the about the tumor and about the cancer we just sat there for just a few minutes and finally i i just said steve how do you feel about this i just said steve how do you feel about this what's going through your mind now and he says well now that i'm a christian i really do want to live because i i'd like to share what i have found with others but if i don't make it i know where i'm going i would say in his conversion that steve discovered that being a christian is far more than being religious it's a relationship and he he loved that relationship and he was growing he was growing in that relationship that meant it just it that became his life and here's steve mcqueen in a private audio tape about two weeks before his death talking about his personal faith and now my body's gone and broken but my spirit is in person people always ask me did steve mcqueen really become a christian or did he do it to save himself while other people say well you know steve wasn't that religious and i always just point them to steve mcqueen's own words he made this tape while he was in plaza santa maria in mexico about two weeks before his death and all i say to them is let's just go to the tape and a great job on the production by greg hangler and a special thanks to marshall terrell for sharing the story of steve mcqueen to pick up his book steve mcqueen the salvation of an american icon and it's by greg lorry and marshall terrell go to your local bookstore or go to amazon or the usual suspects wherever you get books and also a special thanks to pastor leonard de witt for sharing the story of steve mcqueen's conversion by the way he converted to christianity before the diagnosis of cancer he met this pilot instructor and he said this is how to live a life and he wanted to know more and he got curious and that curiosity led to his conversion the other remarkable part of this story is mcqueen walking out on the set of the great escape for six weeks this got him the reputation for being difficult shortly but that was soon to be not true because what happened in the end is he fought for a better version of the role he was about to play and a writer who made it happen and in the end it made the film and made his career too and what's most interesting about mcqueen's story is that he did love his family and he did love his wife but he was a broken man and all he knew was what he knew and that was what he learned from his father and his mother his father was never there his mother was an alcoholic and that's why we love doing these stories we don't deify these people when we do talk about stars we cover their life stories the good the bad and the ugly steve mcqueen's story born on this day in 1930 here on our american stories how are you spending your weekend with friends and family or at the car dealership why lease a new car the old way with roto lease your vehicle in three easy steps all from our app shop 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