Steve McQueen: A Biography
By Marc Eliot
3/5
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About this ebook
Now, in Steve McQueen, New York Times bestselling author, acclaimed biographer, and film historian, Marc Eliot captures the complexity of this Hollywood screen legend. Chronicling McQueen’s tumultuous life both on and off the screen, from his hardscrabble childhood to his rise to Hollywood superstar status, to his struggles with alcohol and drugs and his fervor for racing fast cars and motorcycles, Eliot discloses intimate details of McQueen’s three marriages, including his tumultuous relationships with Neile Adams and Ali MacGraw, as well as his numerous affairs. He also paints a full portrait of this incredible yet often perplexing career that ranged from great films to embarrassing misfires. Steve McQueen, adored by millions, was obsessed by Paul Newman, and it is the nature of that obsession that reveals so much about who McQueen really was. Perhaps his greatest talent was to be able to convince audiences that he was who he really wasn’t, even as he tried to prove to himself that he wasn’t who he really was.
With original material, rare photos, and new interviews, Eliot presents a fascinating and complete picture of McQueen’s life.
Marc Eliot
Marc Eliot is the New York Times bestselling author of more than two dozen books on popular culture, among them the highly acclaimed Cary Grant, the award-winning Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince, and American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood. His work has been published in more than twenty-five languages, and he writes for a number of publications and frequently speaks about film to universities and film groups, and on radio and television.
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Reviews for Steve McQueen
14 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Steve McQueen was Hollywood’s “King of Cool.” With his starring roles in such classic films as The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Bullitt, he created the persona of a laconic tough guy with a taste for fast cars and beautiful women. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him.If you want to know more about him than that, I suggest you look somewhere other than Marc Eliot’s Steve McQueen: A Biography.In this self-proclaimed “revisionist” biography, Eliot spent little time relating his subject’s biographical details; in fact, the Wikipedia entry on McQueen is more informative about his life than this biography. Eliot devoted less than fifty pages to the first 28 years of McQueen’s life and spent very little time exploring any of his personal relationships, preferring instead to focus on the grosses for his movies. Steve McQueen could have succeeded as a critical study of McQueen’s films if Eliot had bothered to apply any criticism to his discussion of them. He related the cast, the budget, and the grosses for all of McQueen’s films, but Eliot’s discussion of each film’s merit is directly related to its box office performance: if it did well, he praises it and if it did poorly, he dismisses it. In the Author’s Notes of Steve McQueen: A Biography, Marc Eliot wrote that he had not found a definitive biography of McQueen. Sadly, he also failed to write one.Received via NetGalley. I originally wrote this for The Chant Online. It is reprinted with permission.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of my favorite movies has always been The Great Escape. I've watched it dozens of time over the years. Having recently watched it again, I decided to pick up showbiz biographer, Marc Eliot's, fascinating portrait of the insecure, complex and haunted film icon who attracted women with his icy blue eyes and lopsided grin, but had a nasty habit of smacking them around and cheating on them.
McQueen was once the highest-paid film star in the world, a status earned through his roles in films like The Magnificent Seven, Bullitt, The Thomas Crown Affair and The Great Escape, but he also turned down many roles in top-rated films from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to The French Connection.
The author pointed out the difference between the acting philosophies of McQueen and Clint Eastwood. They were only months apart in age, both had lucrative careers in early TV westerns, and both formed their own production companies so they could produce the films they liked. Eliot says that Eastwood kept his eye on the franchise prize, especially with the Harry Callahan series. Instead of following up with more Bullitt movies, McQueen jumped around in genres, often coming up with critical and box office duds. In his forties he took to lazing around, eating junk food, letting his body go, and losing ambition.
It's always disappointing to find out that a favorite actor was really a self absorbed, abusive jerk but I guess many actors need to be narcissists to get ahead in that job.
I did enjoy the way the biography was written. It was well planned out, written in a logical format and very interesting for long time fans. Decades after he lost his battle against cancer, Steve McQueen still remains “The King of Cool.”