Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen (March 24, 1930–November 7, 1980) was an American movie actor and one of the most popular and highly-successful box-office superstars of the 1960s and 1970s. With an irresistible combination of penetrating slate-blue eyes, unconventional and craggy good-looks, he had a rugged machismo presence. Sometimes flashing an insolent smirk, he projected a tenaciously undaunted and captivating on-screen persona that also extended into his off-screen life. In the process, he gained wide acclaim for his memorable portrayals of brashly determined, bold and introverted loners. He was nicknamed “The King of Cool”, for his steely-cool demeanour, smoldering moodiness and a dynamic sense of raw nonchalance whenever he encounters danger in his films. McQueen was also a combative and archetypal “difficult movie star”, who didn’t like directors or producers giving him a hard time. In retaliation, he irritated them, and would only work if paid his astronomical asking salary. McQueen was also paranoid about people taking advantage of him which led to difficulties in his personal relationships. He used his star power to full advantage to have sex with as many women as possible. However, he was fiercely loyal to his male friends.
 
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. McQueen later gave huge gifts to the school because of his belief that it helped him find some focus during those restless years. Soon McQueen left the school and drifted before joining the Marines in 1947. In 1952, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to study at the Actors' Studio in New York, making his Broadway debut in 1955 in A Hatful of Rain.
 
McQueen moved into film in 1956 with Somebody Up There Likes Me, securing his first lead role in the 1958 movie The Blob. Between 1958 and 1960 he gained recognition with the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive. Along with Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn, McQueen's first major hit was The Magnificent Seven. The film, based on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai continues to be shown on television and sells well on DVD. Several later films were based on the story, including Pixar's recent hit A Bug's Life.
 
McQueen's breakthrough, however, came in 1963 with The Great Escape. The film was enormously popular and inspired the television series Hogan's Heroes with Bob Crane playing a part based on McQueen's character. Quentin Tarantino has called the film the shortest three hour movie he's ever seen.
 
McQueen's fame peaked in 1968 with Bullitt. Prior to that, he earned his only Academy Award nomination for the 1966 film The Sand Pebbles. From then on he mixed character roles in works such as 1973's Papillon, with pure spectacle in the 1971 car race flop Le Mans or in The Getaway in 1972. After The Towering Inferno in 1974, McQueen did not return to film until 1978, when he played in An Enemy of the People. McQueen spent most of the interim drinking beer, using drugs, and getting fat. When he returned to film in 1978 in An Enemy of the People, he was grossly overweight, and the film was the only McQueen vehicle not to receive a major release from the studio. McQueen never again appeared in a blockbuster, in contrast to the period between 1963 and 1974 when studios thought he was worth his weight in gold.
 
McQueen was a motorcycle and race car enthusiast and collected and raced hundreds of vehicles. He liked fast machines, and when he had the opportunity to drive these vehicles in a movie, he often did so himself, performing many of his own stunts. During his acting career he even seriously considered becoming a professional race car driver.
 
McQueen was married to Neile Adams from 1957 until their divorce in 1972; from this marriage he had a son and a daughter. He married actress Ali MacGraw in 1973 and divorced her in 1978. He was married to Barbara Minty in January 1980.
 
After 1978 he appeared only in two further films before he died in November of 1980, only 50 years old, in Juárez, Mexico due to a heart attack following a last-ditch effort to fight mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure. It is unclear whether the asbestos exposure came from his racing gear or from an experience in the marines. In any case, even after his death, McQueen remains an icon.
 
Prefab Sprout released an album called "Steve McQueen" in 1985.
 
He was honored in the 2002 Sheryl Crow song called "Steve McQueen".
 
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Autos

Why F1 Drivers Prefer Sedate Road Cars

By Tony Borroz What cars do F1 drivers use on the road? F1 Fanatic asked that question, and the answers are surprising. Fernando Alonso has been seen behind the wheel of a rather pedestrian Renault Megane, while Lewis Hamilton tools around in a Mercedes GL. Not exactly the excitement you'd expect. It's always interesting to hear what the world's best drivers have in their garages because they should have more of a reasoned and thought-out opinion on the subject than your average driver, or even your average gearhead. I remember seeing an article many years ago in a European racing magazine that asked this very question, and the answer, almost universally, was Mercedes. Michele Alboretoand Gerhard Bergerboth said Ferraris, of course, since they were driving for Il Commendatore at the time. And it wasn't just loyalty. One of the perks of racing for Ferrari is the company car you get. Just ask Michael Schumacher. At any rate, every other driver on the list said Mercedes. In fact, apart from Jonathan Palmer(who mentioned the Merc 190 with the 16 valve Cosworth head), they all drove a Mercedes S Class. Asked why, Alain Prost, was at the time was the benchmark for F1 driving, offered a typically direct and succinct answer. "Why drive a Mercedes? Because a Mercedes is everything an F1 is not. It's cool and quiet and comfortable and safe. Very safe." As is well known, Prost had a near fetish for safety since that whole Pironi deal, but he also has a point. If you've ever spent any time in a race car, even a brief period of time, a bunch of things, in addition to the performance, are readily apparent. I've spent a fair amount of time in and around a fairly wide variety of racers, but they all have a lot of things in common aside from being elite athletes. First off, they're not very comfortable. A lot of the formula cars I've dealt with didn't even have seats, just sheets of metal where your back and ass and the back of your legs would rest. Your shoulders are most usually crammed in between two frame tubes or bulkheads. Even modern open wheelers that are constructed of carbon fiber, the "seat" is bare material that is from fitted to the contours of your body. Race cars are also hot. And in the case of closed top cars, hotter than you'd first imagine. I've seen guys get their legs burned in formula cars from the radiator pipes running too close to their calves. In a tin top, I've seen people pass out, I've seen rain fall on the inside due to condensation. The great Carlos Sainzwas known to sweat so profusely during the Acropolis Rally that the team built drains in the seats & floorboards. Noisy? Did you just ask me how noisy a race car is? Sorry, a little hard of hearing these days ... anyway, damn straight they're noisy. That's why rally crews use intercoms, and F1 and Indy car drivers have been known to use TWO sets of foam earplugs stuffed into their ear canals. Veteran race car drivers are like veteran artillerymen: good lip readers. Safety? Yeah, well, everyone knows that a Merc is as safe as a bankvault. Heavy sheet steel, Teutonic attention to detail, crash tested more times than, oh, let's say Amy Winehouse has been around the block. And I'm not saying that modern race cars aren't safe. I've seen drivers get in literal Earth-shaking accidents, and walk away, but let's face facts, racing is a deadly game. As Steve McQueen stated, perhaps a little over-dramatically, in the 1970 classic Le Mans, "This isn't just a thousand to one shot. This is a professional bloodsport. And it can happen to you. And then it can happen to you again." Yeah, I know, that was nearly 40 years ago, but I can categorically state that it's pretty much the same today. I wish I could call up some friends and ask them what their plans for the upcoming season are, but I can't. This is the sport they, and I, choose. And the environment they are asked to work in is, by and large, hellish. I remember reading an interview with one-time doctor and F1 driver Jonathan Palmer, who said he once handed a race driver's medical telemetry to a physician and, without explaining where it came from or who the patient was, asked him to diagnose the patient's condition. The doctor replied, "Near death." Photo by Mercedes Benz.
Published: Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:27:49 GMT - Source: Blog.Wired.Com - Read the article

Europe

Obituary: Robert Mulligan

Between his forceful debut, Fear Strikes Out (1957), and his enchanting final work, The Man in the Moon (1991), the director Robert Mulligan, who has died aged 83 of heart disease, made other equally memorable movies. However, some dross, several commercial failures and a battle with alcohol marginalised him, and the quantity and quality of his output never quite lived up to its early promise.Mulligan was one of the new wave of American moviemakers who emerged from the heyday of postwar television, enjoying initial acclaim but erratic subsequent careers. Together with Sidney Lumet, Martin Ritt, John Frankenheimer and others, he maintained an uneasy balance between commercialism and personal works, often missing out on critical attention. Still, few critics could deny the integrity of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), the power of Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) or dispute the popular success of Summer of '42 (1971) or Mulligan's sensitive understanding of human relationships. His technique was understated and secure and his fine work with actors ensured that many - Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis and Steve McQueen included - returned to work with him.Born in New York city to a policeman father, Mulligan described his upbringing as "Bronx Irish". His brother was the actor Richard Mulligan, who played Burt Campbell in the US sitcom Soap. Robert intended to be a priest until the second world war interrupted his studies and he found himself in the marines, emerging, aged 20, into a changed world with new-found ambitions. He joined the New York Times as a messenger and moved to CBS in a similar, lowly capacity. Within three years, he had graduated to direction and worked on television series including Suspense, The Alcoa Hour and The Philco Television Playhouse. Within a decade he had directed hundreds of shows and married actress Jane Lee Sutherland. "Nobody knew what they were doing," he said of television work. "It was the ones with the cool heads who succeeded."Inevitably, Hollywood beckoned, so Mulligan and producer Alan Pakula made their debuts with Fear Strikes Out. This intense account of the career - and mental disintegration - of Jimmy Piersall, of the Boston Red Sox, made a star of the young Anthony Perkins and gained Mulligan outstanding reviews.For a while, he returned to television, working on the literary adaptations that proliferated in the 1950s. Starry versions of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey (both 1958) won acclaim. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence (1959) gained Laurence Olivier an Emmy. After directing the first screen version of Billy Budd, with Don Murray in the lead role, Mulligan moved back into cinema.During the 1960s he directed 10 films, half of them produced by Pakula. Their successful collaboration ended with the western The Stalking Moon (1969), after which Pakula, a galvanising force in their relationship, turned to direction. Mulligan made only nine more movies - few of note - during the second half of his career.His belated follow-up to Fear Strikes Out starred Curtis in an altogether lighter work, The Rat Race. Based on a play by Garson Kanin, it followed the affair between a musician and a dancer. Far more intriguing was The Great Imposter (also 1960), in which Curtis played the real-life Ferdinand Demara who, in the 1950s, had successfully impersonated a teacher, a prison warden, a monk and, incredibly, a surgeon.After this dark comedy, Mulligan's duo of films with Rock Hudson helped neither career. Come September (1961) was a mild romantic comedy and The Spiral Road (1962) an overlong religio-medical drama. It allowed Mulligan the odd distinction of directing his dullest and finest films within a year.To Kill a Mockingbird reunited him with Pakula and proved one of those happy circumstances where every facet of a movie blends seamlessly. Few 60s films have worn as well as this depiction (based on Harper Lee's evocative novel) of a southern childhood and bigotry. The film was nominated for eight Academy awards, including best picture, and won three: best actor (Peck), screenplay (Horton Foote) and art direction (Alexander Golitzen, Henry Bumstead and Oliver Emert). Mulligan, although nominated for best director, lost out to David Lean for Lawrence of Arabia, which also won best film. It was followed by a gritty romance, Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), and - again with McQueen - the remarkable Baby the Rain Must Fall. This bleak portrait of a man whose abusive childhood has led to problems in later life gave McQueen one of his greatest roles. Mulligan had proved himself adept at confrontational dramas, but he was not flamboyant enough to handle Inside Daisy Clover (1965), an exposé of Hollywood and the pressures of stardom, based on Gavin Lambert's scabrous novel. Up the Down Staircase (1967) about a dedicated teacher in New York suited him better and proved a hit.His choice of a chamber western, The Stalking Moon (1968), reunited him with Peck. Shot with minimal dialogue, it concentrated on the relationship between an army scout, a woman and the half-breed son he is protecting from the boy's Apache father. A sombre, interior work, it failed to reach the audience it deserved.The Pursuit of Happiness (1971), a study of legal injustice, attempted to make a difficult subject accessible to audiences. They rejected it. However, the same year, Mulligan made Summer of '42 - a love story between a virginal teenager and a 22-year-old woman whose husband is away at war. Mulligan narrated the sentimental movie and it proved a phenomenal hit. In Britain it was launched with an National Film Theatre preview and a retrospective of his films, where Mulligan proved a disarming guest. A couple of years later he directed an uncharacteristic work The Other, adapted by actor Tom Tryon from his own novel - one of the dark tales of possession then much in vogue. This enjoyed more success that The Nickel Ride (1974), which disappeared after showing in competition at the Cannes film festival. He probably identified with Bloodbrothers (1978), in which Richard Gere played the sensitive son of a Bronx family who wants to work with children but has his ambitions frustrated. However, it failed commercially and he next directed a safe vehicle, Same Time, Next Year, based on a stage hit.There was a long gap before the tame Kiss Me Goodbye (1982) and an even longer one before his penultimate movie, Clara's Heart (1988). Its warmth and compassion - qualities in short supply in Hollywood at the time - were typical of Mulligan, but despite Whoopi Goldberg's portrayal of the Jamaican maid who befriends the young son of a well-off family and Neil Patrick Harris's memorable performance as the troubled boy, the film received little attention.Critically, Man in the Moon fared better, and was notable for the appearance of Reese Witherspoon in her film debut, but its then unfashionable concern with young love, small-town life and troubled emotions failed to attract an audience. It was the swansong of a liberal and sympathetic director who deserved more attention. In a 1991 article in the Dallas Morning Herald looking back over his film career, Mulligan reflected that many of his films deal with the emotional highs and lows experienced by children and adolescents when confronting traumatic circumstances. "Ordinarily they say that cliche, a 'coming-of-age movie', and I reject that term," he said. "I think it's 'coming to life'. I felt, when I looked back on it, that I really didn't know what life was about until I was somewhere in my teens, when you become aware that sooner or later you're going to have to walk out the front door. Mother and father are not going to be there, you're not going to be protected. All those things become exciting and terrifying at the same time."Mulligan is survived by his wife of 37 years, Sandy, three children from a previous marriage, Kevin, Beth and Christopher, two grandchildren and a brother, James.? Robert Mulligan, film director, born 23 August 1925; died 20 December 2008United Statesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Published: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:05:58 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the article

Europe

2008 in the arts: A fine year for war, exile, violence ... and old men

The tone for the year was set in its first weeks by three deeply serious films: the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, and Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. All based on celebrated literary works, they featured performances of great intensity from, respectively, Javier Bardem, Daniel Day-Lewis and Mathieu Amalric. The title of the Coens' film was to be challenged by the 84-year-old Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and the 99-year-old Manoel de Oliveira's Belle Toujours: the cinema can indeed be a country that welcomes old men.Much of the year's seriousness was to be found in the numerous pictures about the morale-sapping wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the turbulence in the Middle East. Every few weeks there was a feature film or a documentary, ranging from Nick Broomfield's docudrama Battle for Haditha to Mike Nichols's bitterly comic Charlie Wilson's War. The best documentary was Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side, which skewered the demon prince of the political pantomime, Dick Cheney, as did Oliver Stone's disappointing Bush biopic, W. The same issues leaked into every genre, including Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, Ed Harris's western, Appaloosa, and the new Bond, Quantum of Solace. Gomorrah, Matteo Garrone's movie on organised crime in Naples, alerted us to terrible things going on elsewhere, while fine films of exile like Couscous, The Edge of Heaven and The Visitor reminded us of the consequences of colonialism and war. In this atmosphere animators tackled urgent current concerns in memorable movies as different as Wall-E, Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir. On the other hand Hollywood comedy hit the dreck in a succession of vulgar, witless farces, of which I've seen more than I can shake a withered slapstick at. Horror thrived, Juan Antonio Bayona's remarkable debut, The Orphanage, being the year's highpoint. The French cinema picked up a little, especially with I Loved You So Long. The British produced much that was mediocre and a few movies of distinction: I admired Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and Martin McDonagh's In Bruges; I respected Steve McQueen's Hunger and Terence Davies's Of Time and the CityTop ten1 Appaloosa (Ed Harris)2 Changeling (Clint Eastwood)3 Couscous (Abdellatif Kechiche)4 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel)5 The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin)6 Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)7 In Bruges (Martin McDonagh)8 Man on Wire (James Marsh)9 No Country for Old Men (Ethan and Joel Coen)10 Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman)Turkey: Cassandra's Dream (Woody Allen)Awards The John Sergeant Prize for Strictly Selfless Contributions to Song and Dance Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth in Mamma Mia!.The Sarah Palin Half-Baked Alaska Award for Unrequited Hype Quantum of Solace.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Published: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:05:57 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the article

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Robert Vaughn	Charles Bronson	James Coburn	Quentin Tarantino	Sheryl Crow