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About
A full and frank portrait of the complex man behind the icon of cool.
This edition does not include illustrations.
Steve McQueen, one of the first 'cool' film stars, remains a cultural icon the world over. His image is used to sell everything from cars, to beer, to a range of dolls. From the Cincinnati Kid to Frank Bullitt, Tom Crown to Papillon, his roles exemplified a certain school of male charm, as well as grit and a hint of menace.
McQueen was born in 1930 into a poor Mid-western family to a highly strung mother and truant father. In and out of reform school from a young age, he was eventually made a ward of court and the resulting sense of abandonment never left him. His big break came with the TV Saga Wanted: Dead or Alive and the now cult-classic B-movie The Blob. Just two years later he was one of the leading lights of tinsel town.
Sandford goes on to chart McQueen's phenomenal Hollywood career, starring in some of the world's best-loved films, in tandem with his turbulent private life: his marriages, his bisexuality, the drink, the fast cars, casual sex and violence. As a close friend has remarked: 'You couldn't peg him. He wanted to be memorable as an actor - but in his private life you got the impression he was trying to speed up, to get into the next hour without quite living out the last one.'
As Sandford reveals, McQueen's public demeanor of studied nonchalance hid chronic self-destructive urges which emerged in his favorite hobbies, including bare-knuckle boxing and Porsche-racing, as well as several suicide attempts. His 'lost' years at the very height of his fame are illuminated with disclosures of rampant addiction, bizarre health cures, fringe religion and androgyny. McQueen died in 1980 at a 'wellness' clinic in New Mexico, having been earlier diagnosed with lung cancer. His last words were 'Lo hice' - Spanish for 'I did it'.
Sandford has spoken to a wide range of McQueen's contemporaries - Hollywood stars, friends and family - and discovered the man behind the myth, the abandoned little boy underneath the movie-god swagger.
• With re-releases of McQueen classics, The Magnificent Seven, Bullitt and The Getaway scheduled for 2000/2001, this authoritative reappraisal of his life and work will find a ready audience in millions of fans the world over.
• According to the American Film Institute, McQueen memorabilia continues to outsell that of any other male Hollywood star, dead or alive (most recent figures 1997).
This edition does not include illustrations.
Steve McQueen, one of the first 'cool' film stars, remains a cultural icon the world over. His image is used to sell everything from cars, to beer, to a range of dolls. From the Cincinnati Kid to Frank Bullitt, Tom Crown to Papillon, his roles exemplified a certain school of male charm, as well as grit and a hint of menace.
McQueen was born in 1930 into a poor Mid-western family to a highly strung mother and truant father. In and out of reform school from a young age, he was eventually made a ward of court and the resulting sense of abandonment never left him. His big break came with the TV Saga Wanted: Dead or Alive and the now cult-classic B-movie The Blob. Just two years later he was one of the leading lights of tinsel town.
Sandford goes on to chart McQueen's phenomenal Hollywood career, starring in some of the world's best-loved films, in tandem with his turbulent private life: his marriages, his bisexuality, the drink, the fast cars, casual sex and violence. As a close friend has remarked: 'You couldn't peg him. He wanted to be memorable as an actor - but in his private life you got the impression he was trying to speed up, to get into the next hour without quite living out the last one.'
As Sandford reveals, McQueen's public demeanor of studied nonchalance hid chronic self-destructive urges which emerged in his favorite hobbies, including bare-knuckle boxing and Porsche-racing, as well as several suicide attempts. His 'lost' years at the very height of his fame are illuminated with disclosures of rampant addiction, bizarre health cures, fringe religion and androgyny. McQueen died in 1980 at a 'wellness' clinic in New Mexico, having been earlier diagnosed with lung cancer. His last words were 'Lo hice' - Spanish for 'I did it'.
Sandford has spoken to a wide range of McQueen's contemporaries - Hollywood stars, friends and family - and discovered the man behind the myth, the abandoned little boy underneath the movie-god swagger.
• With re-releases of McQueen classics, The Magnificent Seven, Bullitt and The Getaway scheduled for 2000/2001, this authoritative reappraisal of his life and work will find a ready audience in millions of fans the world over.
• According to the American Film Institute, McQueen memorabilia continues to outsell that of any other male Hollywood star, dead or alive (most recent figures 1997).