Steve Mcqueen - Biography

Last Editor: pielmorena96				Steve Mcqueen Biography -   Name : Steve Mcqueen Profession : Actor

Steve Mcqueen Trivia -

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Steve Mcqueen Detailed Biography -

He was born Terence Steven McQueen in Beech Grove, Indiana. He never knew his father -- although McQueen did find the house where he lived approximately a year after his father's death. McQueen's father abandoned his wife and child shortly after McQueen was born. He was raised in Slater, Missouri by his uncle, where his mother left him. At the age of 12 McQueen moved with his mother to Los Angeles. When he was 14, his mother sent him to a reformatory school, Boy's Republic, in Chino, California. Soon McQueen left the school and drifted before joining the Marines in 1947. In 1952, with financial assistance of the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting and auditioned to study at Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio in New York. Of the 2000 people who auditioned that year, only McQueen and Martin Landau were accepted. McQueen made his Broadway debut in 1955 in A Hatful of Rain. Wanted: Dead or Alive After various live and filmed television guest appearances in the mid-1950's, McQueen gained both regular employment and his 'break-out' role with the 'Western' series Wanted: Dead or Alive. From 1958 to 1961, McQueen played "Josh Randall," a lone 'bounty-hunter' whose weapon of choice was a sawed-off Winchester repeating rifle nicknamed the 'Mare's Leg.' While the character of Randall traveled the 'Wild West' helping various people he met, it was the 'anti-hero' image of a bounty-hunter, played with precisely the right amount of mystery, alienation and detachment by McQueen, that made this show stand out from among the large group of typical Westerns on the U.S.'s 'small screen' in those days. The character had been introduced the previous year in an episode of Trackdown featuring Robert Culp, another western TV series. The Magnificent Seven McQueen moved into film in the mid-1950s with bit parts in Girl on the Run (1953) and Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956). He secured his first lead role in the 1958 horror movie The Blob. He then replaced Sammy Davis, Jr. in the Frank Sinatra vehicle Never So Few in 1959 when Sinatra quarrelled with Davis. the director, John Sturges then cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". Starring with with Yul Brynner, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven (1960), it would be McQueen's first major hit. The Great Escape McQueen's next big film was 1963's The Great Escape (which also starred Bronson and Coburn, as well as James Garner). (Quentin Tarantino has called the film the shortest three hour movie he's ever seen.) McQueen had an amazing motorcycle chase sequence in which he was "crucified" on barbed wire at the end. Bullit and later films Another successful film came in 1968 with Bullitt, which thrilled audiences with an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) auto chase through San Francisco. Prior to that, he earned his only Academy Award nomination for the 1966 film The Sand Pebbles. McQueen also appeared in 1973's Papillon, the 1971 car race drama Le Mans and in The Getaway in 1972. McQueen was the world's highest paid actor by the time of The Getaway, largely because of his incomparable popularity in Asia {fact}}. After The Towering Inferno co-starring with his long time rival Paul Newman in 1974, McQueen did not return to film until 1978 with An Enemy of the People playing against type as an overweight heavily bearded character. The film was little-seen. Marriages McQueen married Philippines-born actress Neile Adams in 1957 and they had a son and a daughter before divorcing in 1972. He married Ali MacGraw in 1973; they divorced in 1978. He was married lastly to Barbara Minty in January 1980. Motor Racer McQueen was a motorcycle and racecar enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he often did so himself, performing many of his own stunts. The most memorable were the classic chase in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase scene in The Great Escape. The jump over the fence was actually done by one of his riding buddies for insurance purposes. During his acting career he considered becoming a professional race car driver. In the 1970 race 12 Hours of Sebring, Peter Revson and McQueen finished second with a Porsche 908/02. The same car was used as a camera car for the Le Mans in the 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year, entered by his production company Solar Productions. McQueen himself wanted to enter a Porsche 917 together with Jackie Stewart but this was not accepted. He also competed in off-road motorcycle racing. In 1971, Solar Productions funded the now-classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen himself is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. He owned several luxurious and exotic sportscars including: Porsche 917, Porsche 908 and Ferrari 512 race cars from the Le Mans film. Ferrari Lusso Berlinetta Jaguar XKSS Porsche 356 Speedster Range Rover To his dismay, McQueen never was able to own the legendary Ford Mustang GT that he drove in Bullitt. There were two cars used for filming. It is rumored that both models of the car mysteriously disappeared after the film wrapped (similar to the Easy Rider bikes). The film's director Peter Yates recently stated in a radio interview that both vehicles are still extant (BBC Radio 4, 7 January 2006 ).