Robert Culp was one of the celebrities in attendance the day McQueen received his posthumous star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. Culp recalled the early days in New York, and one day in partiucular when a bunch of fellow actors were sitting around in a coffee shop when the subject of McQueen's recent stage debut came up. The unanimous consensus was that McQueen was a flat, wooden actor with no future, which prompted Culp's minority opinion: "Don't you guys realize what you're looking at? This guy is going to be a movie star!"
One of Our Holiest of Teevee Grails Located Department:
Still aways from his super-star days, tru (tho the cat-like physical prowess is already in impressive evidence), but this show at least brought him to the attention of John Sturges
I am not one of those guys, like Ed Somebody, who moans about the "good olde days". But, i definitely miss and mourn the manly, cool stars of the 60's like Steve, Charles, Lee Marvin, and Clint. Thankfully, Eastwood could still do it into his 70's! It is a void that will/can never be filled. Bruce
Sarge has never-ending admiration for the classic McQueen films - MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, GREAT ESCAPE, SAND PEBBLES...
But I also have a deep love of this film - partly due to the participation of two personal, perennially underrated favorites, Dalton Trumbo and Franklin J. Schaffner.
And I also have an inexplicable love of this film -
Hell, I even enjoy THE HUNTER!
Schaffner, along with John Sturges, rank as two of the most underrated directors of all time (and both worked with McQueen).
“Steve, DON’T Do Something – Just Stand There!” Penultimate Finale Department:
THE CLASSIEST and CLEVEREST SCENE-STEALING OF A FILM We've Gotten Never -Ending Giggling Profound Pleasure From – and what makes it so durn wunnerful is he slyly does it all in such slick superb character!
PLUS OUR FAVORITE ALL-TYME STUNT (when he dives through that window – talk about kooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!)
NOBODY – not Brando, Newman, Poitier or even Olivier – Acted ACTION like Steve McQueen.
Considering the hellacious world-beater he was in his (shall we say) less higher aspects, there are those who might venture the opinion ONE Steve McQueen was – more, if not - quite enuff for anyone’s lifetyme. However, the star’s trajectory began its comet ascent with an earlier appearance opposite Robert Culp in
in which Mr. McQueen played twins, one positive and the other reeelllll negative.
Makes for fun viewin’ in an assignment he never had the opportunity to repeat the rest of his career.
Anyhew, twas the above which resulted in the producers of the show creating the role of Josh Randall
By everyone’s concensus, the first indication of The McQueen Magic appeared in this seminal episode which was the important prelude (before ‘pilot’ was even a concept) for the award-winning “The Defenders” on CBS in the early 60s. As to that, get a galactic look at who his fascinating barrister is!!!
There were so many great lines in that film, many by McQueen. This was my favourite.
Chico: Villages like this they make up a song about every big thing that happens. Sing them for years. Chris: You think it's worth it? Chico: Don't you? Chris: It's only a matter of knowing how to shoot a gun. Nothing big about that. Chico: Hey, how can you talk like this? Your gun has got you everything you have. Isn't that true? Eh? Well, isn't that true? Vin: Yeah, sure. Everything. After a while you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand! Home - none! Wife - none! Kids....... none! Prospects...zero. Suppose I left anything out? Chris: Yeah. Places you're tied down to...none. People with a hold on you...none. Men you step aside for...none. Lee: Insults swallowed...none. Enemies...none. Chris: No enemies? Lee: ....Alive. Chico: Well, this is the kind of arithmetic I like. Chris: Yeah, so did I at your age.
This is a fascinating (and fascinatingly brief) back-screen glimpse for this film, and we weren’t initially sure whether to include it on our John Sturges salute or here … but since the former – already notoriously front-of-the-camera shy – is only glimpsed occasionally,
seemed more appropriate to unveil it here-width ...
Looks like there are possibly two "biopic" movies about McQueen that are being considered.
One might star Jeremy Renner. Okay, he might look a bit like McQueen.
The other movie wants to cast Liam Hemsworth as a stuntman who was a friend of Steve's and Chris Hemsworth as McQueen. I really liked C. Hemsworth as Thor and in the Snow White and the Huntsman movie.
However....Jack Reacher was 6 ft. 5 and the movie cast Cruise. McQueen was around 5 ft. 9-10, and Hemsworth is 6 ft. 4 inches.
Is verisimilitude in movie biographies or novel adaptations a lost art?
Or - Somethin' wee Didn't Know Afore Either Department:
Before gaining immortal fame as Mr. Wilson's worst nightmare, Jay North's very first role was during the WDOA's first season Christmas episode, "Eight Cents Reward", in which he played a youngster imploring the benevolent bounty hunter to find probably THE most impossible to capture holiday symbol of all.
Mind yu, the ep's not on UTube,
but is part of
an' it's well-worth checking out for its quietly affecting (subtly magikal) warmth.
Our All-Tyme Favorite McQueen Perf - and STILL the Classiest, Most Subtle but Always-in-Charistmatic Character act of superb scene-stealing Evah Department:
A less is more kind of actor, probably helped a lot by the good material he picked like The Great Escape. There is nothing ever particularly grand in his acting but it works in a every man inscrutable non emotive kind of way. I think Bruce Willis emulated this style much of his career.
Overall I agree with you, Ado, about McQueen's style. However, I do think he had a break out more emotive role in The Sand Pebbles. It even earned him a Oscar nomination that I think was deserved.
[ "So I asked Joan: 
When Josh Randall Met Dennis the Menace
Mind yu, the ep's not on UTube, 
