His new stepfather beat him to such an extent that at the age of nine he left home to live on the streets. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was built in Washington during the 1930s and opened to traffic on July 1, 1940. Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and ensured that the young actor got plenty of closeups in a role that earned McQueen favorable reviews. McQueen's 1963 metallic-brown Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta sold for US$2.31 million at auction on August 16, 2007. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. On November 6, 1980, he had surgery to remove cancerous masses from his body; he died the following day. Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are / Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you / For givin' head to Steve McQueen". He tried to keep the condition a secret, but on March 11, 1980, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer". His new stepfather, who was said to regularly beat Steve and his mother, persuaded Julia to give him up to a borstal. He was under contract to Irwin Allen after appearing in The Towering Inferno and offered a part in a sequel in 1980, which he turned down. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. He travelled to Mexico for controversial treatment in March 1980 and died of a heart attack after surgery on his neck on 7 November. Took him a long time to figure out it was me. "Steve McQueen Returns to Reform School" 1963, accessed February 7, 2011. After meeting her husband, Bill, at Yale Law School, she spent her ...read more, This date in 2000 was a pivotal moment in U.S. history, as the presidential election results in a statistical tie between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George Bush. At 29, McQueen got a significant break when Frank Sinatra removed Sammy Davis Jr. from the film Never So Few after Davis supposedly made some mildly negative remarks about Sinatra in a radio interview, and Davis's role went to McQueen. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, not wanting his character outdrawn. [21], In 1952, with financial assistance provided by the G.I. He left aged 16 a reformed teenager and went to New York where he became a merchant sailor before doing odd jobs in Texas and joining the US Marine Corps until 1950. Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, a 2015 documentary, examines the actor's quest to create and star in the 1971 auto-racing film Le Mans. "The day I left the farm", he recalled, "Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard... grass always cut. [7] Several biographers have stated that Julia Ann was an alcoholic. He then met two sailors from the Merchant Marine and volunteered to serve on a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. When the police and neighbors searched the home ...read more, On November 7, 1861, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp at the Battle of Belmont, Missouri, but are forced to flee when additional Confederate troops arrive. [9][10] His father, William McQueen (1907–1958), a stunt pilot for a barnstorming flying circus, left McQueen's mother, Julia Ann (a.k.a.