Steve McQueen: Full-Throttle Cool

Abandoned by both parents when very young he lived with an aunt and uncle until his mother came back to retrieve him taking him to California where his new step-father beat and degraded him mercilessly. He ended up in reform school as a young teen where a staff member got his attention and turned him around. Finally out of reform school he reunited with his mother in New York but soon took off for the Merchant Marines, then joined the U.S. Marines at age 17. Both of those experiences were fraught with dangerous experiences that he made the best of, distinguishing himself.

Out of the Marines in 1950 he was back in Greenwich Village and though his mother had disappeared again McQueen stayed. At the urging of a girlfriend he competed, and was selected, for a method-acting program. Here his where his acting career began.

His racing career began about that time as well. We’ll note, though, he was racing tricycles when he was little showing he had that need for speed. Now he was racing and winning regularly with a Harley-Davidson Model K motorcycle at Long Island City Raceway, supplementing his modest acting income with racing prize money. Then, while between acting gigs, he and some buddies took off for revolutionary Cuba with their bikes for another adventure. That one ended with them being taken by Castro’s forces. They barely made it home - without their bikes. Castro’s buddies confiscated the bikes.

Are we seeing a pattern here? This is a young man with a heightened sense of adventure and a love of an intense lifestyle, afraid of little.

In California he also went back to motor racing. It was all around him, after all, and he couldn’t resist. He was now making enough money to go racing in any way he liked – this time sports cars in a Porsche Speedster. When the bosses at his studio got wind of his racing exploits they made him quit, but not for long.

Over the ensuing years his acting and racing continued to advance. Sometimes roles like Bullitt and The Great Escape, allowed him to indulge both passions. But all his roles were not as memorable. You’ll read about all this in this book. The book also exposes his quiet philanthropy.

Zimmerman and Scott do a masterful job of describing and illustrating both the racing and acting exploits of Steve McQueen – the cars, the motorcycles the TV and film roles He quit acting for a short time after the film The Towing Inferno, but he didn’t stay away long.

Steve McQueen went back to doing movies but he died at age 50 of a heart attack after controversial surgery for lung cancer in 1978. Like his contemporary and compatriot, Paul Newman, he was really good at both acting and racing making a name for himself that will endure.

We think of these graphic publications as being focused on young teen-agers but I think anyone will enjoy this one.

© Steve Purdy, Shunpiker Productions, All Rights Reserved