Trivia

Was a pallbearer at the funeral of Bruce Lee.

Upon meeting Martin Landau, McQueen told Landau that they had already met. Landau, who didn't remember McQueen, inquired as to where. McQueen told him that he--Landau--was on the back of James Dean's motorcycle when Dean brought it in for repairs at a garage in New York City. The motorcycle mechanic at the garage was none other than McQueen.

He did not like gratuitous violence, swearing or nudity in movies.

He was very interested in playing John Rambo in the adaptation of the novel "First Blood". He was actually slated to star, but did not due to his death. Sylvester Stallone got the role instead in First Blood (1982).

In the 1960s, he publicly threatened to break Howard Hughes' nose if Hughes did not stop harassing Mamie Van Doren, a woman both men had affairs with, but at different times. Needless to say, Hughes never bothered Van Doren again.

Turned down the starring roles in Dirty Harry (1971) and The French Connection (1971) because he didn't want to make any more cop movies after Bullitt (1968).

Turned down Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). McQueen told director Steven Spielberg he couldn't play a character who was too emotionally oriented.

On August 8, 1969, a week before the Woodstock Music Festival kicked off in Bethel, New York, McQueen had been invited for dinner at the Roman Polanski-Sharon Tate home in the Hollywood Hills by mutual friend and hairdresser-to the-stars Jay Sebring. An unexpected rendezvous with a mystery woman prompted him to cancel his appointment. In the wake of the Manson Family Tate-LaBianca murders at, respectively, 10050 Cielo Drive and 3301 Waverly Drive, McQueen would later learn that he was accorded the kind of priority billing for which he was unprepared--he topped Charles Manson's celebrity death list. Thereafter, he carried a concealed weapon.

He proposed the idea for the drama film The Bodyguard (1992) in 1976. However, this was forgotten for 16 years until 1992, when Kevin Costner revived the idea.

Felt ill during the filming of Tom Horn (1980), and assumed he had pneumonia. However, towards the end of filming he began to cough up blood. On 22 December 1979, after filming had finished, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, which often afflicts workers in ship-building and construction industries. As in most cases, a tumor was discovered on the outside lining of a lung, and spread to other areas of the body. Although McQueen had been a heavy smoker, which may or may not have been a contributing factor, mesothelioma itself is not a smoking-related lung disease. While the source of his exposure has been debated, McQueen himself pointed to two likely sources, including the time when he took part in replacing asbestos-based insulation in the ship's engine room during his stint in the Marines. He also believed he could have been exposed in his years as a film star, since soundstage insulation had also been made of asbestos. Others have suggested sources as varied as automotive brake pads and the cloth used to bandage his broken foot during the 12 hours of Sebring race in 1971. He died from two consecutive heart attacks at 3:45 am on November 7, 1980, less than 24 hours after undergoing surgery at a Mexican clinic (where he went to undergo a controversial "apricot pit" therapy that is still banned in the United States) to remove the malignant tumors in his stomach and lungs. According to the doctor present at the operation, his right lung was entirely cancerous.

He had expressed interest in starring in Return of the Seven (1966), but Yul Brynner vetoed the idea.

Of all the characters he ever played, he frequently cited Lt. Frank Bullitt from Bullitt (1968) as his favorite.

Colin Farrell, Kevin Costner, Pierce Brosnan and Bruce Willis have all listed McQueen as their hero and inspiration for being an actor.

McQueen joined the Marine Corps at age 17 and worked as a tank driver and mechanic. He earned a commendation for rescuing five Marines during a training accident. According to military records released by the Pentagon in 2005, Marine Pfc. Steve McQueen was confined to base for 41 days and fined $90 for being absent without leave (AWOL) from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. (Some sources indicate he was AWOL for as long as 21 days [3 weeks] but the exact amount of time he was AWOL is unconfirmed.) He avoided a dishonorable discharge and later took advantage of the GI Bill's education benefits to study at the Actors Studio in New York.

His role in Never So Few (1959) was originally going to be played by Sammy Davis Jr.. A feud had broken out between Davis and Frank Sinatra after Davis had claimed in a radio interview that he was a greater singer than Sinatra. Sinatra demanded he be dropped from the cast, and thus McQueen received his breakthrough role.

Some of the few movie stars he admired were Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy and John Wayne.

Of the 2000 performers who auditioned for Lee Strasberg's exclusive Actors Studio in 1955, only two were accepted: Martin Landau and McQueen. Both men would go on to appear in just two joint ventures, The Monster (1960) and Nevada Smith (1966).

When he briefly left The Great Escape (1963) during filming, due to the fact that his character did not play as large a part as he would have liked, it was James Coburn and James Garner (his friend and immediate next door neighbor in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA) who convinced him to return. Because of the huge success and continuing popularity of the film, it has become his best known role.

He was the son of Julian (Crawford) and William Terence McQueen, and had Scottish, English, Scots-Irish/Northern Irish, German, and distant Cornish, Dutch, and Welsh, ancestry. He was raised by his grandparents, Lillian (Thomson) and Victor Lee Crawford. A troubled teenager, he often ran away from home, working on ships, as an oil field laborer and fairground barker. He spent five years in a California reformatory. Steve also had a younger paternal half-sister, Terri McQueen, whom he never met.

Kevin Costner has named McQueen as his favorite actor, and his main influence as an actor.

Was William Friedkin's first choice for the Jackie Scanlon character in Sorcerer (1977). McQueen accepted the part, but on one condition. He wanted a co-starring role for his then wife, Ali MacGraw. Friedkin would not accept his conditions, and McQueen dropped out of the film. Freidkin later went on record has having regretted not accepting McQueen's conditions.

Dick Powell, head of Four Star Productions, gave the green light to McQueen's western series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958), but was concerned about his continuing in the lead after the pilot sold because the actor was not big or tall enough to be believable as a rough-hewn bounty hunter, and did not know how to ride a horse. Powell changed his mind when he saw McQueen's charismatic performance in the early rushes of the show's first episode.

After The Towering Inferno (1974) he was offered several multi-million-dollar roles but refused them all. He turned down the chance to star in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Superman (1978), Raise the Titanic (1980) and the opportunity to star in and direct a film called "Deajum's Wife".

His name somehow appeared on President Richard Nixon's "List of Enemies" in 1972. In reality, McQueen was conservative in his political beliefs, with a strong belief in self-help. In 1963 he had declined to participate in the March on Washington for civil rights and, in 1968, refused to join many of his Hollywood peers in supporting Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. An incredulous Ali MacGraw asked McQueen how he could have been considered a threat by Nixon, adding, "You are the most patriotic person I know!" McQueen responded to the whole affair by flying an enormous American flag outside his house.

His friend and co-star Richard Attenborough said that if McQueen had lived for longer he would have been regarded as the greatest film actor since Spencer Tracy.

Had a feud with next-door neighbor British rocker Keith Moon ("the loon") of The Who in Malibu. Moon had a habit of leaving his bathroom light on at night. The light shone directly into McQueen's bedroom and kept him awake at night. After telling Moon repeatedly to turn it off without success, he took out a shotgun, blew out the light and went back to bed. He also held a four year grudge with his next door neighbor in Brentwood, Los Angeles, James Garner, whom McQueen allegedly resented for winning the lead role in Grand Prix (1966). The two men did not speak for four years.

Had appeared, helmeted and uncredited, as a motorcyclist in the B-movie Dixie Dynamite (1976), starring Warren Oates and Christopher George. Legend has it that the call went out for dirt bike riders to take part in this low-budget action adventure, and among those who turned up was McQueen. Heavily bearded and overweight, he kept a low profile (this was during his reclusive period when he was turning down multi-million-dollar offers for such films as A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Apocalypse Now (1979)), and was only noticed when he queued up to accept his day's payment, about $120. The astonished production assistant handing out the cash saw his name on a list and said, "Is that THE Steve McQueen?". McQueen's riding style (standing on his foot pedals, leaning forward, head over the handlebars) makes him immediately identifiable to bike buffs.

He followed a daily two-hour exercise regimen, involving weightlifting and, at one point, running 5 miles (8 km), seven days a week.

He quit smoking cigarettes in 1978, although he continued to smoke cigars.

He designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971.

In the movie S.W.A.T. (2003), Colin Farrell's character of Jim Street has a poster of McQueen's Bullitt (1968) in his apartment. In real life, Farrell frequently cites McQueen as one of his idols and influences as an actor.

Although he was the highest paid star of the 1960s, McQueen had a reputation for being tight-fisted. On some films he would demand ten electric razors and dozens of pairs of jeans. It was later reported he gave these to Boys Republic, a private school and treatment community for troubled youngsters, where he had spent a few years himself.

According to William Claxton, McQueen smoked marijuana almost every day; biographer Marc Eliot stated that McQueen used a large amount of cocaine in the early 1970s. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker.

During the scene in Bullitt (1968) in which the giant airliner taxis just above McQueen, observers were shocked that no double was used. Asked if the producers couldn't have found a dummy, the actor wryly replied, "They did".

He 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 23 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 (1971) 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.

He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on June 12, 1986.

In 1960, with his growing success, he formed his own production company called Scuderia Condor Enterprises, which he ran until 1963 when he and his family moved to 2419 Solar Drive and he renamed his company Solar Productons, Inc., and would produce many films under this banner until his death.

Had appeared with Eli Wallach in both his first major successful film, The Magnificent Seven (1960), and his final film, The Hunter (1980).

Had appeared with his good friend Don Gordon in three films: Bullitt (1968), Papillon (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974).

In Papillon (1973), he performed the famous stunt where he jumps off a cliff. McQueen once said that it was "one of the most exhilarating experiences" of his life.

Was originally slated to star with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969); however, due to a disagreement over the billing, he left the project. Ironically, the billing method was used several years later when he and Newman would star in The Towering Inferno (1974), the original script of which called for McQueen's character to have more lines of dialogue than Paul Newman's. McQueen insisted the script be changed so he and Newman would have the same number of lines. He reportedly believed his talent was superior to that of the other actor and wanted the critical criteria to be as equal as possible.

Was considered for the role of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979), which eventually went to Marlon Brando.

Intended to retire after filming The Towering Inferno (1974).

He auditioned for Richard Harris' role in Major Dundee (1965).

Trained in Tang Soo Do with ninth-degree black belt Pat E. Johnson (not Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris as is popularly believed). His son was trained in karate by Norris. Lee trained him in Jeet Kune Do.

He was the immediate next door neighbor of James Garner in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Although McQueen was moody, and even sometimes had short term disagreements with Garner, when they were getting along, which was more often than not, they frequently had neighborly backyard bar-b-ques together with their families.

Following the release of Bullitt (1968), McQueen found it hilarious that he was considered the coolest celebrity by teenagers, given that he was almost 40 years old. In November that same year (1968) he declared his support for the Vietnam War and voted for Richard Nixon in the presidential election.

Was the first of the original film The Magnificent Seven (1960) to pass away.

Columbia Pictures wanted to cast him opposite Paul Newman in In Cold Blood (1967). He turned out to be busy with Bullitt (1968) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).

The "King of Cool" became a born-again Christian shortly before he died, due to the influence of his third wife Barbara Minty and his flying instructor Sammy Mason. He went through Bible studies with Rev. Billy Graham. It is interesting to note that this conversion happened before he was diagnosed with cancer, meaning it was probably genuine. McQueen's favorite Bible verse was John 3:16, which reads, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.".