Riding With Steve
In 1963 Steve McQueen made the movie The Great Escape with James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn and David McCallum. It was directed by John Sturges, who made The Magnificent Seven and Old Man and the Sea (the one with Spencer Tracy). It is one of my favorite movies and I’ve seen it over and over again. It was nominated for a number of awards and even won a few (one minor Oscar for editing). It ranks #143 in the IMDB best movies list. I like it for several reasons. First, it is about WWII, with which I have some sort of childhood fascination. Second, it is somewhat dystopian in that it revolves around a German P.O.W. Camp (I like Stalag 17 for the same reason). Third, it has many great actors in the cast that really got to show their stuff, even if only for a few moments of film time. Garner, Bronson, Coburn and McCallum all show The Great Escape as one of their three most notable movies. But mostly I love the movie for Steve McQueen and his role as The Cooler King and all that that stood for in 1963. The motorcycle scene where he jumps his Triumph Motorcycle (masquerading as a stolen German bike that should have been an underpowered BMW) over the fence was so iconic that it made it onto every young man’s wall as a poster (mine included) even though McQueen, an accomplished dirt bike rider, had the jump made by stunt man and famous motocross rider, Bud Elkins.
There are many other iconic McQueen movies like The Magnificent Seven, The Cincinnati Kid, The Sand Pebbles, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Reivers and, who can forget, Papillon. These are all movies I will always watch when they come up on rotation on Netflix or Prime. They are in that singular category of movies that I cannot get enough of. And while the movie plots and supporting casts are all strong and noteworthy, it is the presence of Steve McQueen with that cool as a cucumber demeanor that makes them so memorable. Who else can make going into solitary confinement, sticking his head out of a hole for an annual haircut and shave or getting caught at the short end of a stick in a robbery or revolution, so memorable? The answer is perhaps Paul Newman, Mr. Cool Hand Luke himself, but very few others. James Garner, Charles Bronson and James Coburn are very smooth characters, but I don’t see their coolness transcending the decades after their death the way it does with Steve McQueen.
The real Steve McQueen was born Terrence Stephen McQueen in 1930, the bastard son of a single mother in Indiana. He was raised on a farm in Missouri by his maternal grandparents and his uncle during the Great Depression. He left home, beaten by a new stepfather at age nine and lived on the streets. He went back and forth from home in L.A. to the streets to his Uncle’s farm, living the life of a petty criminal. He finally ended his youth in a reform school in Chino, California where he turned himself somewhat around, but only momentarily. After that he kicked around the country as a Merchant Marine sailor, a circus roustabout and even served time on an Alabama chain gang for thirty days. He then joined the Marine Corps. after WWII and had an up and down career that varied form time in the brig for going AWOL to being on the honor guard for the Presidential Yacht.
He used the G.I. Bill to subsidize classes in acting in NYC and started getting bit parts while he raced motorcycles for cash prize money in Long Island City. His first important role was in a movie starring Paul Newman, strangely enough. He then got his shot at a leading role in The Blob, a B-Grade horror/SciFi movie that has a memorable name and a forgettable plot. His real break-out role was on TV in Wanted: Dead or Alive playing Randall, who packed a sawed-off rifle. It was director John Sturges who plucked McQueen from TV and gave him the starring role in The Magnificent Seven with such famous co-stars as Yule Brenner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson and James Coburn (sound like a familiar line-up?). By then, Steve McQueen was the quintessential antihero for a 1960’s world of counterculture antiheroes.
McQueen was almost as famous for all the movie roles he did NOT take that ended up launching many great actor’s careers including Richard Dreyfus, Robert Redford, Roy Schneider, George Peppard, and even Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner. His death in 1980 was as strange and unconventional as his life. He was suffering from Mesothelioma Cancer (likely from asbestos work done while shipboard with the Marines), but insisted on seeking unorthodox and untested treatments in Mexico, which finally led to his unceremonious death from a heart attack in an obscured Juarez clinic. He was only 50 years old when he died and yet his estate, which was much better managed financially than his career or life ever was, put him as one of the top earning dead celebrities in history by controlling his image and rights for maximum value.
The love of his life is said to have been Ali McGraw, who he married after filming The Getaway with her, but that marriage only lasted five years. Such was the restless spirit of Steve McQueen that seemed perpetually unable to make peace with itself. He went from being a Roman Catholic to an Evangelical Christian in his later years and was said to be as difficult a star to work with as any. He is accused of being highly misogynistic and generally rude, but none of that seems to detract from his “King of Cool” image.
I thought of Steve McQueen today as I mounted my new BMW RNineT 1200 and put on my Persol Steve McQueen sunglasses that he made famous in The Thomas Crown Affair, wearing them in a dune buggy and a glider. I bought them entirely on the Steve McQueen branding and they are twice as costly as any other sunglasses I have ever owned. That’s OK because they are twice as cool as my RayBan’s and they fold up into a neat 2”x3” case. I actually do get many random comments about them, so there must be something to their look that grabbed McQueen back in the day.
I decided to take out the RNineT for a cool but sunny run up to Mount Palomar. The feel of the bike, that has no fairing or windshield, and the look of the tank and headlight configuration reminds me of my first big bike, the 1970 Triumph Tiger TR6R 650, first cousin to the Triumph Bonneville that McQueen and Bud Elkins rode to fame in The Great Escape. In fact, it is that juxtapositioning of the feeling of escapism and coolness that pervaded me as I rode up to the top of Palomar and came down the S7, a road that has a decidedly alpine look that was VERY reminiscent of the Bavarian Alps that were the backdrop for McQueens attempt to leap over the boundary wires only to end up in a tangled mess of barbed wire for return to the Stalag. For a few hours I was Steve McQueen in my Persols and with the wind in my face. I liked riding with Steve and will do it more often now that I have found that special area of consciousness. I will do my best to stay out of the barbed wire.