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Quick Facts
- NAME: Steve McQueen
- OCCUPATION: Film Actor
- BIRTH DATE: March 24, 1930
- DEATH DATE: November 07, 1980
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Beech Grove, Indiana
- PLACE OF DEATH: Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
- Full Name: Steven Terrence McQueen
Best Known For
American film star Steve McQueen was one of the most popular and well-paid actors of the 1960s and ‘70s. He starred in films like The Great Escape, Bullit and The Getaway.
Videos see all videos
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Robert Redford - Early Life (3:15)
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Paul Newman - Philanthropist (2:21)
Steve McQueen - Mini Biography
A short biography of Steve McQueen who scored big with his first hit film, "The Magnificent Seven." Considered a rebel from an early age, his outsider persona earned him the nickname "The King of Cool."
Robert Redford - Early Life
Watch a short video about the early life of Hollywood legend Robert Redford.
Paul Newman - Actor and Humanitarian
Watch a short video about Paul Newman whose acting career earned him eight Oscar nominations. In his later years, he became a prolific philanthropist, launching his own successful charity.
Paul Newman - Philanthropist
After tasting oily salad dressing in a restaurant, Paul Newman, almost as a joke, took his Newman?s Own salad dressing to supermarkets and donated the profits to charity.
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Play NowSteve McQueen. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 08:04, May 24, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602.
Steve McQueen. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602 [Accessed 24 May 2013].
"Steve McQueen." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 24 2013, 08:04 http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602.
"Steve McQueen," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602 [accessed May 24, 2013].
"Steve McQueen," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602 (accessed May 24, 2013).
Steve McQueen [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 24] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602.
Steve McQueen, http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602 (last visited May 24, 2013).
Steve McQueen. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/steve-mcqueen-9394602. Accessed May 24, 2013.
Synopsis
Steve McQueen was born on March 24, 1930, in Beech Grove, Indiana. His career break-through came in 1958, with the TV western Wanted: Dead or Alive. In the 1960s, he starred in several successful films, including The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. In 1971, he formed First Artists Productions. During the 1970s, McQueen appeared in the films Bullit and The Getaway. He died on November 7, 1980, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Profile
Actor. Born Steven Terrence McQueen on March 24, 1930, in Beech Grove, Indiana. One of the most popular film actors of the 1960s and 1970s, Steve McQueen was known for his rugged good looks and cool, tough guy persona. Some of most memorable films include The Great Escape (1963), Bullitt (1968), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and The Getaway (1972).
McQueen barely knew his father, Terrence, who abandoned Steve and his mother, Julian, when he was only a few months old. More interested in her own life, Julian soon left Steve in the care of his great-granduncle Claude Thompson. He stayed with his great-grand-uncle on his farm in Slater, Missouri, for many years, hearing from and seeing his mother from time to time.
When McQueen was around 12 years old, he reunited with his mother after she remarried. They eventually moved to Los Angeles, California, where he got involved with some local gangs. He got caught stealing hubcaps from cars twice, and his mother decided to send him to reform school.
Feeling abandoned once again by his mother, McQueen was sent to the California Junior Boys' Republic in Chino. He initially struggled in this new environment, frequently breaking the rules and even escaping several times. Befriend by a member of the staff, McQueen eventually settled down. He later believed that the experience changed his life, saying "I would have ended up in jail or something. I was a wild kid," according to My Husband, My Friend by McQueen's first wife Neile McQueen Toffel.
McQueen's mother never visited him during his time at Boys' Republic and rarely wrote to him. Despite his own hard feelings, McQueen agreed to join his mother in New York City in 1946. The 16-year-old arrived there to find out that his mother had put him up in another apartment instead of letting him live with her. McQueen soon took off, becoming a merchant mariner for a short time aboard the SS Alpha. The job didn't work out either and he left the ship while it was docked in the Dominican Republic.
Before making his way back to the United States, McQueen worked in a brothel as a towel boy for a time. He returned home and began a series of odd jobs around the country, including working on oil rigs and in a carnival. In 1947, McQueen enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and became a tank driver. Showing his rebellious streak, he ended up in the brig for extending a weekend pass into a two-week holiday. McQueen was far from the model soldier. "I was busted back down to private about seven times. The only way I could have been made corporal was if all the other privates in the Marines dropped dead," he once said, according to Marshall Terrill's Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel.
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