Читать книгу 1001 Steve McQueen Facts - Tyler Greenblatt - Страница 10

PERSONAL LIFE

1. Steve McQueen was named by his father, supposedly after a one-armed bookie friend named Steve Hall. McQueen commented later in life on his father’s weird sense of humor, saying that his namesake was one of the few things he actually did know about himself.

2. Both sides of McQueen’s family can trace their American heritage to before the Revolutionary War. His first relative in the New World was Dugal McQueen, who arrived in Baltimore on August 20, 1716, as a prisoner of war held by England and became an indentured servant for seven years. On his mother’s side, Samuel Thomson arrived in Virginia in 1717. Both sides of Steve’s family originated in Scotland.

3. Just about every war in American history saw a Steve McQueen ancestor fight, including the Revolutionary War.

4. Steve McQueen became known in the film industry as a fighter when it came to getting what was best for him and his career. He likely received this trait from his uncle Claude Thomson, who virtually raised him as a young boy. Claude was a shrewd and disciplined hog farmer with a tough business acumen. He even pushed his siblings out of their family farm inheritance. Although this sounds terrible, it was because he was the primary person doing all the farming.

5. Uncle Claude was rumored to feed coal to his hogs before taking them to market. Since hogs were sold by the pound, the added weight fetched him more money. Steve definitely learned how to stretch a buck.

6. Steve McQueen’s first address was 1311 North Drexel Avenue in Beech Grove, Indiana, following his birth on March 24, 1930. His mother, Julia Ann “Julian” Crawford, was living there at the time with her parents, Lillian and Victor, after moving from Indianapolis. Terrence Steven McQueen is recorded as living there at the time of the 1930 U.S. Census.

7. Although McQueen’s mother is listed as Julian McQueen on his birth certificate and several other documents, there’s no evidence that she and his father, William McQueen, were ever legally married. It has been suggested that because of Julian’s Catholic upbringing, a wedding likely occurred as a religious ceremony that was never registered with any government office. When Steve was born, Julian was 19 and William was 23, and the Great Depression had set in just a few months prior.

8. With the Great Depression in full swing, and a young boy to care for, the Crawford family moved to Slater to live with Lillian’s brother, Claude, on the family ranch. The town of Slater, Missouri, which now has a population of 2,000 residents, celebrates Steve McQueen as its most famous resident in a variety of ways. For example, on Saturday, April 24, 2010, the town dedicated the Steve McQueen Memorial Highway in his honor.

9. When Steve became old enough to help out on the family farm, his uncle Claude took on the role of his first real father figure. Although he dished out harsh discipline to the young boy, it was always fair. Steve had to earn everything through hard work, a principle that stuck with him throughout his life. It was through his farm work that he learned to ride a horse, which he did in several films, most notably in Tom Horn.

10. Steve McQueen was known as a cultivated collector of firearms and often carried one with him. He first learned to shoot when he was 8 years old and Uncle Claude let him use a rifle to go hunting in the woods. The catch: he was only given one bullet. He’d have to set up his shot perfectly to hit his target; otherwise, he’d walk home empty-handed. One day, he came back to the farmhouse carrying two dead pigeons. Steve told Uncle Claude that he waited to line up the perfect shot to get both at the same time. Claude was so impressed that he bragged to everyone in the town. In reality, Steve had snuck into a neighbor’s silo, shot one pigeon, and the round bounced off the wall and hit another. He never told his uncle what actually happened.

11. Julian McQueen was away for most of Steve’s time in Slater, Missouri, but she returned sometime in 1936 or 1937 to take her boy to Los Angeles, where she had met someone. As they were leaving, Claude handed Steve a gold pocket watch and told him that he wanted him to have it to remember him by. The inscription inside the pocket watch read, “To Steve—who has been like a son to me.”

12. A new father figure in Steve’s life was Hal Berri, who married Julian in Monterey, California, in 1937. Hal had only recently divorced his wife of 13 years and was 8 years older than Julian. The three of them moved to 1810 Ewing Street in Echo Park, and Steve took on the last name of Berri. A short while later, they moved to a nice home at 1966 Preston Avenue, also in Echo Park. Although the family seemed normal on paper, in reality Hal’s previous wife divorced him because he was an alcoholic who disappeared for days at a time with other women, and he physically abused her many times.

13. Sharing a roof with Hal Berri was one of the most difficult times of young Steve’s life. He was subjected to daily beatings “for the sheer sadistic pleasure it gave him, which included the joy he obviously derived from my pain,” Steve later said. Although he vowed to bear the beatings until he was old enough to run away, he couldn’t help himself from fighting back. Returning punches did little against the much-larger man, but it made Steve feel good, even though it often brought on even worse repercussions. “I would have borne any punishment, anything just for the pleasure of knowing that I had given back even a little of the pain he had inflicted on me,” Steve said. Among the punishments for fighting back was being tossed into a pitch-black room with no food or water, not unlike the punishment he received in the film Papillon.

14. When Steve McQueen was young, he went by the nickname “Buddy.” He even used the nickname on his social security card when he filled in his name as Buddy Steven McQueen.

15. In the early 1940s, young Steve was sent back to his uncle Claude’s farm in Slater, Missouri. His mother had written Claude about the boy’s behavior, and rather than send him to reform school, Claude offered to take him in. Claude enrolled the eighth grader at the Orearville School as Steve Berri, and he was the only blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy in his class, making him even more of an outsider from the get-go. He rarely attended school, opting instead to hang out in downtown Slater.

16. Among his familial and upbringing issues that handicapped his youth, Steve also had a few physical handicaps that added to his challenges. He had a mastoid infection behind his right ear that made it difficult for him to hear.

17. Steve was diagnosed in later years with dyslexia, which made reading extremely difficult as well. Between that and the mastoid infection, school would have likely been quite difficult for him.

18. When Steve was 13, he incurred the anger of Uncle Claude when he and some friends shot out the windows of a local restaurant with a BB gun. Rather than accept his punishment, he got a job with the traveling carnival that happened to be in Slater at the time. When the carnival left, Steve left with it, not telling anyone. Claude searched for him for days before accepting that Steve had actually run off. This was Steve McQueen’s first great escape.

19. His carnival days didn’t last long, and he quickly found himself living back with his mother and her husband, Hal Berri. Hal’s beatings picked up right where they left off for 13-year-old Steve, but by May 1943, the couple separated. Julian and Steve moved into an apartment at 3266½ Descanso Drive in Los Angeles. Rather than work and go to school, however, Steve became involved with a “bad crowd” and was once again a juvenile delinquent.

20. After his mother and her husband Hal Berri separated, she made 13-year-old Steve apply for a social security number so that he could get a job and help with the rent, although there’s no evidence that he ever did actually hold a job.

21. Steve McQueen was sent to the Boys Republic School in Chino, California, on February 6, 1945, by a court order obtained by his mother. The school was set up as its own little society in which the students were responsible for every facet of everyday life including running their own government. Students were responsible to themselves and their classmates, which taught respect and inspired confidence.

22. Boy’s Republic School is a well-known, popular reform school today, but when Steve arrived, there were about 100 students, and he was given the number 3188. He lived at the John Brewer dormitory cottage and his mother paid $25 a month for his room and board.

23. Although he looked back at his time at Boys Republic with fondness, while there he and some buddies tried to escape. His friends made it as far as Long Beach, California, before getting caught. Steve had decided to go it on his own and was caught underneath the entrance bridge to Boys Republic. This was the last formal education Steve received, having never made it past ninth grade.

24. On April 1, 1946, Steve McQueen left Boys Republic, after his mother secured his release, and moved to be with her in New York. She was living at 240 Sullivan Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village with artist Viktor Lukens. It was he who pushed for Steve to come live near them, and upon his arrival, Lukens took on a paternal role. They rented a room from an actor down the street for Steve to live.

25. At age 16, Steve joined the Merchant Marines after hearing about the adventures of a couple of sailors he met while drinking in a bar. He boarded a ship, the Alpha, in Yonkers, New York, and headed for the West Indies to pick up a cargo of molasses. Among the jobs he had on his maiden voyage were cleaning the decks under the hot summer sun, cleaning garbage receptacles, and cleaning toilets.

26. The ship caught fire just after leaving port and almost sank. The crew wasn’t sure it could even reach the West Indies. McQueen jumped ship while docked at Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and quickly ended his career as a merchant marine.

27. While in Santo Domingo, Steve secured a job as a towel boy at a brothel, which he often recalled with a certain fondness. His tropical tenure lasted two months before he made his way back to the United States.

28. McQueen finally landed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, working at another carnival. He slept on a park bench, an object that became sentimental to him later. “Sometimes, when I start to figure I’ve got the world by the tail, I think back to the bench and remember that it could’ve ended up a lot differently.”

29. Did you know that Steve once worked as a lumberjack in Canada? He ditched the carnival while there, but his fear of heights led him to quit and return to the United States. He spent 30 days on a chain gang after being arrested as a vagrant, then celebrated his 17th birthday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

30. In April 1947, living back in New York City, Steve reached out to his mother to sign a waiver so he could enlist in the Marine Corps at the age of 17. “I suppose I had heard enough of the stories about how tough the Corps was that I considered it somewhat of a challenge,” he said. Interestingly, he likely had no knowledge of his family’s extensive military service or that his father served in the Marine Corps from 1927 to 1929! On April 28, at the USMC Northeastern Recruiting Division District Headquarters at 90 Church Street, he filled out the official application, falsely saying that he had never been in jail or at a reform school.

31. Although his relationship with his mother was tenuous, he signed over 75 percent of his Marine Corps enlistment pay to her and received the military number 649015.

32. When discussing his time in the military in his later years, McQueen often joked that he had been “busted back down to private about seven times.” However, his service records don’t show a single demotion. In fact, his former drill instructor even said that he had been promoted at an impressive rate for peacetime service. The real joke is that one of his few friends in the Marines nicknamed him “Tough Shit McQueen” because the name on his uniform read “T. S. McQueen.”

33. Although Steve’s documented birthday is March 21, his mother claimed it was really March 24. Interestingly, he always celebrated on the 21st even though the 24th is considered the accepted day.

34. Steve’s Civil War veteran ancestor, Pike Montgomery Thomson, was captured by the Union army and awaiting execution when a Union captain decided otherwise. Rather than hang him like so many others, he exiled Thomson, his wife, and their child from the country. While on their way, the bloody war ended, and they decided to return to Saline County in Missouri. The most interesting part about the whole ordeal? The captain who spared Pike Thomson’s life went by the name McQueen.

35. While growing up on his uncle’s hog farm, Steve noticed that whenever he called, one particular hog came and jumped on him like a dog. Uncle Claude warned him about his relationship with the hog, saying that one day, when the hog grew up, they’d have to eat it. However, Uncle Claude saw how much the animal meant to young Steve, who didn’t have much else in his life, and allowed him to keep it as a pet, sparing his life in the process. Can you guess what Steve named his pet pig? Well, Pig, of course! Every time he called out for Pig, the animal came trotting right up to him.

36. Marine boot camp on Parris Island was rough for McQueen until he was discovered as a potentially good boxer. In his first fight, he went up against the biggest Marine there, who would later end up in Leavenworth Prison for punching several officers. The wiry McQueen got knocked down and got back up to fight nine times before being physically unable to get back up after the tenth knock-down. That fight proved his toughness to his officers and fellow enlistees, and proved that he belonged in the Marine Corps.

37. While living in New York, barely able to make ends meet, Steve entered a professional boxing match. Although he was knocked out in the third round, he earned $65 for the fight.

MOVIE FACTS

38. Steve and Claude’s relationship continued to grow as they developed a mutual respect and appreciation for each other. Although Claude was a tough-as-nails farmer and businessman, he made time on Saturdays to take Steve to their local movie theater, the Kiva Theater on Main Street in Slater. Westerns were his favorite, but in the late 1930s, he would have also been exposed to some of the greatest films ever created in one of Hollywood’s most glamorous and exciting eras.

39. Steve’s favorite actors growing up were James Cagney, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, and Humphry Bogart. “Bogie” (as Steve called Bogart), was his favorite, and an actor from whom he developed much of his own direction. He was later quoted as saying, “Sometimes kids ask me what a pro is. I just point to the Duke.” Another of his quotes is, “Listen, in Taiwan most people don’t know who Lyndon Johnson is, but they sure as hell know who John Wayne is.”

40. While at Boys Republic, Steve developed a relationship with his guidance counselor, Lloyd Panter, who was one of the earliest adults to see great potential in young Steve McQueen. “No one seemed to give a damn about my future life as an adult,” Steve said. “But he did, and it meant a lot to me.” Panter first introduced Steve to Shakespeare and other literature, which he said “laid the foundation for my later interest in the theater.”

41. Carnival life gave McQueen some insight into the entertainment industry because of the variety of performers and the opportunity to study them for days on end. Always the loner, he watched them interact with one another and with show attendees. It’s believed that this is where he learned some of his natural acting ability on how to react to specific emotions and physical cues.

42. Although he seemed much taller in his films, his height was only 5 feet 9½ inches. He’d likely be much smaller if it weren’t for the training and dietary regimen he received while in the Marine Corps. When he entered the Marines, at 17 years old, he was only 5 feet 6½ inches tall and weighed 135 pounds. In addition to the extra 3 inches, he also gained 30 pounds by the time he left the service!

43. Steve learned his shooting skills and natural gun-handling ability while in the Marines; it wasn’t just acting! He qualified as a sharpshooter with both the M-1 rifle and the Colt .45 pistol. He worked with firearms in many of his films, and unlike other actors who needed to learn how to use them for the job, it was already a part of his skillset.

44. When Steve was living in Los Angeles and running the streets, a Coke bottle was thrown at his head and he received a serious cut to his lower lip that never healed properly. The wound, which had become a small mass, was discovered by a doctor during an examination while McQueen was in the Marines.

45. While serving, he also had the misfortune of falling off a tank and reinjuring the same spot, causing it to swell and scar even more, until a plastic surgeon removed it. What does this have to do with his films and acting? Even with the mass removed, he still had a slight mumble when he spoke and had difficulty pronouncing some words. This is why he speaks in monosyllabic dialogue in his films.

46. The same Marine buddy, Cliff Anderson, who nicknamed Steve “Tough Shit McQueen,” learned of his former comrade’s fame years later while flipping through a copy of TV Guide magazine. In it, there was a letter in which a fan asked about Steve McQueen. According to Marshall Terrill’s book, Steve McQueen: The Life And Legend Of A Hollywood Icon, Anderson remarked upon discovering the letter, “Holy cow, that’s Tough Shit McQueen! The son of a bitch is famous!”

47. On March 24, 1944, Steve’s 14th birthday, Allied prisoners of war attempted the largest escape attempt of World War II and inspired the film The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen.

48. Steve was born the same year as fellow film icon Clint Eastwood, and they even got their big breaks around the same time. McQueen’s came in 1958 with Wanted Dead or Alive and Eastwood’s was a year later with Rawhide.

49. Having starred in similar roles throughout their careers, although he was always one step behind McQueen, Eastwood’s career provides an important insight into what Steve’s could have looked like had he not died at a young age. Today, most fans remember McQueen from his most popular films in the late 1960s and early 1970s; it’s strange to think that he’d be nearly 90 years old today. Using Clint Eastwood as a reference provides assistance in that thought process.

50. Thanks to his stern upbringing on a Midwestern hog farm under the tutelage of his tough uncle Claude, Steve always felt that acting was not an appropriate job for a man. Much of his show of masculinity throughout his life and his desire to excel in racing came from the fact that he considered male actors, himself included, as sissies. After he had become an accomplished actor and he and wife Neile (prounced kneel, as in to kneel down) visited Uncle Claude, they never once spoke of Steve’s acting career.

51. One of Steve’s favorite actors as a young boy was James Cagney, who was well known for gangster movies. Similar to a character McQueen eventually played, Josh Randall, Cagney’s characters were always small but tough and not afraid to stand up to bigger foes.

52. Steve once used his best Cagney impression while running on the streets when he was approached by a bigger, older street kid. The older kid was so impressed by young Steve’s toughness that he invited him to join his gang.

53. Making James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart impressions became lucrative for a young Steve McQueen when he stood on a street corner and started acting for money. He put his hat down in front of him and people dropped in a few coins here and there as he ran through skits. Even though he was able to show that he earned money from it, Uncle Claude didn’t approve of acting as a profession for men.

AUTOMOBILE COLLECTION

54. Growing up in Southern California, McQueen fell heavily into the hot rod scene. His first car was a hot rod with a Model A frame and a Ford 60 engine with Edelbrock manifolds. He remembers that car accelerating “like the J-2 Allards that some of the sports car people owned.” His hot rod didn’t handle all that well, but it did have “stark acceleration; when the engine stayed in it.”

55. One of young McQueen’s first experiences with motorcycles came when he was a young teenager in California and he hopped on a police bike that was parked outside a restaurant in Hollywood. He tossed the officer’s gloves and helmet on the ground and made “vroom, vroom” noises according to a friend who was with him at the time. When he got off, he snapped off the bike’s radio antenna and took it with him. His friend thought they’d be arrested on the spot!

56. As an homage to his student number at Boys Republic, 3188, when he was in his late 40s, he used a custom license plate on his everyday cars that read MCQ3188.

57. Because of Steve’s interest in and experience with engines and automobiles, he was assigned the job of a tank crewman/driver on an M4 Sherman tank. “I’d often wonder if a tank could be speed converted,” he said. “We figured on havin’ the fastest tank in the division. What we got was plenty of skinned knuckles. I found out you can’t soup up a tank.”

58. After receiving disciplinary action due to going AWOL in the Marines and winding up in a civilian jail, Steve was assigned to a work detail in the engine room of a ship. His primary responsibility was cleaning and renovating it, and it was further life experience that he could use later on, such as in the movie The Sand Pebbles.

59. Part of Steve’s job while in the brig was removing ripped asbestos liner from the pipes and ceilings. He recalled that the air was so thick with asbestos particles that he could hardly breathe. Experts later pointed to this experience as a major cause of his death from mesothelioma.

60. A love of automobiles ran through the Thomson family long before Steve McQueen came to be. His grandmother, Lillian, was one of the few women of the day to not only drive a car, but own her own car! This was especially uncommon in the rural area in which they lived, where roads were barely glorified horse trails and most people couldn’t afford a car. Lillian drove her Ford to her work as a stenographer and typewriter.

61. Uncle Claude’s stepdaughter, Jackie, began dating Huston Gigger after he got out of the Navy following World War II. When Huston came to the farm to take Jackie out, a young Steve complained that he wanted to go too, and certainly to the young couple’s dismay, Eva, Claude’s wife, made them take Steve with them. They quickly devised a way of keeping Steve out of their business by sharing a bottle of wine with him and putting him in the trunk of the car once he passed out. They’d check on him every so often, but he’d be safely fast asleep in the trunk. When it came time to head home, the booze had worn off and Claude and Eva were none the wiser.

62. Steve may have been well known for his off-road racing Triumph motorcycles, but he also owned a 1938 5T Speed Twin. The 500-cc, 355-pound machine was one of the sportiest and most attractive motorcycles in its day, a fact not lost on the actor when he purchased the bike in the early 1970s.

63. Perhaps most notable about the Speed Twin is that it was beautifully restored by famed racer, stuntman, and Triumph dealer Bud Ekins at McQueen’s request. In addition, it is believed, but has not been proven, that the intricate pinstriping on the bike was done by the legendary Von Dutch. Recognizing the motorcycle as not only a monument in itself but also a machine with historically significant provenance, it was purchased at a Bonhams auction in 2019 for $175,000!

64. Even a bike as rare and beautiful as his 1927 Indian Big Chief could not escape McQueen’s desire to make engines run better and faster. While undergoing a complete restoration in the late 1970s by personal mechanic Sammy Pierce, McQueen requested that his Big Chief be upgraded with racing cams, a later-model Linkert carburetor, wasted spark ignition system, and a later-model headlight. A few additional odds and ends received a chrome treatment.

65. Pierce hid a toggle switch under the tool box as a security measure. Only someone who knows to engage the hidden switch was able to actually start the bike. Steve’s Big Chief was originally sold at the 1984 estate auction and most recently at Bonhams in 2006 for $42,120.

66. One day, Steve and his Marine tank crew discovered that the vehicle’s hot exhaust pipe could be used to heat up a can of pork and beans. At the time, they were on a cold-weather training exercise in Labrador, Canada, where everyone was simply given K-rations, which were eaten cold and became boring rather quickly. McQueen’s crew noticed a case of canned pork and beans in their inventory, which must have seemed like a fancy gourmet meal at the time! One Marine held a can over the exhaust pipe while Steve kept the engine RPM up and another Marine kept watch for officers or others who might not be sympathetic to their cause. After becoming comfortable with the process, they eventually let a can heat up for too long, at which point it exploded and covered the entire area with pork and beans, including several other tanks and the unit’s gear.

67. McQueen’s fascination with vehicles and his calling to find trades that involved engines continued after his time in the Marine Corps. Following his honorable discharge from the Corps, he worked as a cab driver in Washington, D.C., before saving enough money to get himself back to New York City.

68. Steve first got hooked on motor vehicles while living with his Uncle Claude in Slater, Missouri, where he grew up working with tractors, and his uncle drove a Jeep. It was while riding in that open-top Jeep that he fell in love with motoring. In his words to author Michael Munn, “Feeling the wind in my hair and on my face was like the most free feeling I ever had. And the faster we went, the better it was. That feeling of freedom and the feeling that wherever you were going, you were leaving behind something. I’ve always loved that leaving something behind.”

RACING

69. On Steve’s fourth birthday, his uncle Claude bought him a red tricycle to help him burn off his extra energy. Soon after, he began racing the other kids in the neighborhood on it. “There was a dirt bluff behind the farm, and I’d challenge the other kids in the area,” he said. “We raced for gumdrops. I usually reached the top first. Got some skinned knees, but I sure won a lot of gumdrops!”

70. While working in the traveling carnival at age 13, young Steve’s favorite pastime was walking away from his job to watch the car races put on by the carnival. “Man, you should’ve seen those smashers get knocked dingy on the track,” he commented later.