THE 3RD ANNUAL STEVE MCQUEEN FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS: "STEVE MCQUEEN: THE ESSENCE OF COOL"!

(All Photos Courtesy of: Donna Redden)

Just 3 days before his 37th Birthday on March 10, 1967 Steve McQueen becomes the 153rd star to put his handprints and footprints on the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Wife Neile is at his side.

Signing his name along with "THANKS!!"

...and it's Official! The most-famous actor in the world has earned the honor!

(Photo: Michael Manning--who else?)
Today at 6928 Hollywood Boulevard

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Note: In order to view this, you will have to access the DVD "Bullitt". "Steve McQueen:The Essence of Cool" is actually contained on a second DVD within the "Bullitt" movie DVD case, and I felt it was vital to launch our 3rd Annual appreciation Festival with this disc. I pre-announced this early last week to allow participants usinf Net Flix a bit of extra time to access the feature, which was filmed in 2005.

---Michael

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Welcome to our 3rd Annual "Steve McQueen Film Festival"! This year I've decided that the only proper way to begin our week-long 'Festival' was to recommend a DVD that is contained within the 2005 release of the film, "Bullitt" called "Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool". This important film sets the tone for the days ahead by familiarizing you with the film work and the man who was Steve McQueen. I realize it may take a little bit of extra effort to obtain it, but it is not to be missed! You'll hear the following share their recollections: Steve McQueen, in a final audio taped interview, Robert Culp, Neile Adams (Steve's wife of 15 years), Suzanne Pleshette, (Steve's Co-Star in "Nevada Smith"), Actor Martin Landeau, Steve's agent Hillard Elkins, frequent Co-Star Don Gordon, Producer and business partner Robert E. Relyea, Director Lawrence Kasdan, Executive Producer Walter Mirisch, Co Stars Robert Vaughn, Eli Wallach, Lord Richard Attenborough, long-time stunt doubles Bud Ekins, Pat Johnson, Loren Janes, Hollywood writer Charles Champlin, Director Norman Jewison, Steve's son Chad McQueen, Director Peter Yates, Steve's Personal Assistant Mario Iscovich, Actor Alec Baldwin, Actor Eli Wallach, Actor Levar Burton, Photographer William Claxton, Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, Assistant to Director Sam Peckinpah, Katherine Haber, Producer David Foster, and Steve's widow Barbara Minty. Executive Producer: Leslie Grief, Written Produced and Directed by: William Friedman, and Produced by Julie Frankel, Kathy Williamson and Hillard Elkins.

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Last summer, I visited Graumann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles and searched for the hand prints and shoe prints in the special cement section bearing the scrawled note "THANKS!" and the signature of "Steve McQueen" dated 3/10/ 67. As I placed my own smaller hands in his imprint I thought to myself. "How many professional motorcycle and automobile races and Marine tanks had these hands commandeered? These were the hands that held so many beautiful actresses". These were also the hands carried the casket of close friend and actor/martial arts great Bruce Lee as a pallbearer on July 31, 1973 along with James Coburn, Chuck Norris, George Lazenby, Dan Imosanto, Taky Kimura, Peter Chin and his brother, Robert Lee. McQueen learned the martial art Tang Soo Do from ninth degree black belt Pat Johnson. Actor Chuck Norris (whom I personally introduced on stage at the "Texas Film Commission Lifetime Achievement Awards" ceremony) and Bruce Lee taught McQueen's son Chad Taekwondo and Jeet Kune Do respectively. In fact, it was McQueen who persuaded Norris to attend acting classes. These were the hands that went up in a gesture of surrender with that leering smile to the Nazi guards in "The Great Escape". He was "Hilt's The Cooler King", the rebel Lieutenant of the San Francisco Police Department in "Bullitt"; the outlaw bank robber with second wife Ali MacGraw in "The Getaway"; the mildly comedic lover to Natalie Wood in "Love with the Proper Stranger", and friend of Roman Polansky, wife Sharon Tate-Polansky and Steves friend and hairdresser Jay Sebring (Sharon, Jay and three others were tragically murdered by the followers of Charles Manson on August 9, 1969).

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My mind flashed back to the film footage of Steve and first wife Neile McQueen on the day pictured above, when he had just finished the ceremony at Graumann's and later, when a reporter stated, "You have been acknowledged as the most popular actor in the world". In some peculiar sense that hot afternoon, I felt ambivalent about finding myself---me---standing there at the precise spot where Steve became one of a relative few all time Hollywood Stars invited over the decades to participate in the cement imprinting. The younger kids around me paid little attention to Steve's imprint, and I wasn't sad. Rather, I understood that younger stars such as Whoopi Goldberg or Tom Hanks and their imprints were hovered over by a generation that wasn't even born when Steve died so young in 1980. Worldwide, he is nevertheless, beloved a full 27 years after his passing. Why? Because he left an indelible impression that was so captivating, so piercing with those blue eyes; he could do more with his facial expressions than other actors could with double the amount of dialogue. And that was the genius of Steve. He was simply electric; his anti-hero persona virtually jumped off the "Big Screen" and energized audiences. There I stood thinking. The boy who was abandoned by his father in Beech Grove Indiana in 1930, and whose mother sent him to live with his aunt in Slater, Missouri only to summon him years later to California and abandon him again at The Boys Republic in Chino Hills, California "for wayward boys" had traveled one hell of a journey in this life. He would leave the reform school at 17 to join the Marines. When he was Honorably Discharged, he used the G.I. Bill to obtain acting lessons---and out of 2,000 applicants to New York's prestigious Lee Strasberg School of Acting, only Martin Landeau and Steve McQueen were accepted! Can you even imagine? No other Hollywood star has been so honored with the enduring title of "The King of Cool". And I'm happy to say here that an entirely new generation of 20-somethings is re-discovering Steve's impressive body of film work.

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In "Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool", what emerges is an understandably tortured soul who endured the much storied "School of Hard Knocks" and against all odds became an enduring "Legend" in ever aspect of what that word really means. His acting was borne of pure instinct and timing that can't be taught; it emanates from a man living on the edge, deeply concerned with reality and exposing the truth of a film character's vulnerabilities and defences from the deepest recesses of his soul. Guarded, moody, difficult to work with, explosive, and yet tremendously charitable, Steve left a significant portion of his estate to The Boys Republic, where he visited regularly the children there over the years. And not for "photo ops", but to sit down for an afternoon and have lunch with boys into whose eyes Steve likely peered into and saw a part of himself. At a Thanksgiving Day meal held at an all-black orphanage in the late 1960's, several Hollywood stars promised to show up. Steve McQueen drove to the orphanage on a motorcycle and spent the entire day with the children, while the other stars were "no-shows". This is the type of man with a heart. At the end of his turbulent life, he found happiness with former Cosmopolitan model Barbara Minty. Steve became a Christian and found the spiritual solace he sought throughout his short life. He was later was diagnosed with Mesothelioma, a painful and terminal form of cancer. As he fought the disease, Steve is said to have come full-circle in his life--recognizing that he had hurt a number of people. So, he made those circumstances right. And it is always how I choose to remember my favorite actor: Steve McQueen.

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Let's begin our week-long 'Festival'.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO
"THE KING OF COOL" TODAY!

---Michael