Steve McQueen
Terrence Stephen McQueen (born in Beech Grove, Indiana on March 24, 1930) was an American actor who, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill (which he was eligible for due to his time in the U.S. Marines), studied acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. A few years later, he headed for Los Angeles to seek acting jobs in Hollywood. He signed with talent agent, Hilly Elkins, who soon put him in B movies and TV shows. His breakout role was the title character in the CBS TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958-1961), where he played bounty hunter Josh Randall. He became the first TV star to cross over into comparable status on the big screen. In all his subsequent films, he got top-billing and his antihero persona, emphasized during the height of 1960s counterculture, made him a top box office draw, nicknamed the "King of Cool." In addition to a string of hits, an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination and four Golden Globe nominations, he starred as Detective Frank Bullitt in the Warner Bros. movie Bullitt (1968) – his best-known film and his personal favorite, whose groundbreaking car chase scene a new standard for action sequences and influenced countless films that followed. His last completed film was The Hunter (1980) for Paramount, where he starred as another bounty hunter, Ralph "Papa" Thorson.
On November 7, 1980, at 50 years old, he died of a heart attack at a Ciudad Juárez, Mexico hospital after surgery to remove metastatic tumors due to his pleural mesothelioma. He was inducted into the the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Hall of Great Western Performers in 2007.
Ten Selected Works:
Wanted Dead or Alive (1958-1961) as Josh Randall
The Magnificent Seven (1960) as Vin Tanner
The Great Escape (1963) as Captain Virgil Hilts
Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) as Rocky Papasano
The Sand Pebbles (1966) as Machinist's Mate First-Class Jake Holman
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) as Thomas Crown
Bullitt (1968) as Lieutenant Frank Bullitt
The Reivers (1969) as Boon Hogganbeck
Papillon (1973) as Henri Charriè
The Towering Inferno (1974) as Michael O'Hallorhan
