- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy "The Diamond Jubilee - A Classical Celebration Album" for just £2.50. Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
The Mail on Sunday
Highly entertaining...a compelling portrait of a true original.
Product Description
A full and frank portrait of the complex man behind the icon of cool.
Steve McQueen, one of the first ‘cool’ film stars, remains a cultural icon the world over. His image is used to sell everything from cars, to beer, to a range of dolls. From the Cincinnati Kid to Frank Bullitt, Tom Crown to Papillon, his roles exemplified a certain school of male charm, as well as grit and a hint of menace.
McQueen was born in 1930 into a poor Mid-western family to a highly strung mother and truant father. In and out of reform school from a young age, he was eventually made a ward of court and the resulting sense of abandonment never left him. His big break came with the TV Saga Wanted: Dead or Alive and the now cult-classic B-movie The Blob. Just two years later he was one of the leading lights of tinseltown.
Sandford goes on to chart McQueen’s phenomenal Hollywood career, starring in some of the world’s best-loved films, in tandem with his turbulent private life: his marriages, his bisexuality, the drink, the fast cars, casual sex and violence. As a close friend has remarked: ‘You couldn’t peg him. He wanted to be memorable as an actor – but in his private life you got the impression he was trying to speed up, to get into the next hour without quite living out the last one.’
As Sandford reveals, McQueen’s public demeanour of studied nonchalance hid chronic self-destrutive urges which emerged in his favourite hobbies, including bare-knuckle boxing and porsche-racing, as well as several suicide attempts. His ‘lost’ years at the very height of his fame are illuminated with disclosures of rampant addiction, bizarre health cures, fringe religion and androgyny. McQueen died in 1980 at a ‘wellness’ clinic in New Mexico, having been earlier diagnosed with lung cancer . His last words were ‘Lo hice’ – Spanish for ‘I did it’.
Sandford has spoken to a wide range of McQueen’s contemporaries – Hollywood stars, friends and family – and discovered the man behind the myth, the abandoned little boy underneath the movie-god swagger.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
admittedly, this is my first book into the life of steve mcqueen so there's not much I can compare it with. However, I have read many other film actor biographies and this one rates very highly for me. Its a real page-turner, brings some great stories together from mcqueen's childhood through to his death in 1980 and delves into a character who essentially was very complex and hard to get to know. Read this and in my mind, you won't be disappointed.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a brilliant, insightful and sympathetic biography. However, despite McQueen's brilliance as an actor, open handed generosity to needy children and many others and he was generous, he was a nightmare to anyone who related to him as an adult. His hypocrisy and vicious bloodymindness, including wife beating his saintly first wife make the flesh crawl. As he acquired power he was like a spoilt and cruel child, obsessed with his own importance, drug ridden, alcoholic and with an irresponsible attitude that destroyed without regard to others: friend or foe.
His own childhood was a nightmare: beaten, sexually abused and having to listen to his mother being raped and beaten. He raged against the "suits" or Hollywood authority. But when he acquired authority his perverse, vindictive decisions were worse then what these same suits inflicted on him. McQueen climbed from an abyss that few have inhabited. That he scaled the heights is indeed admirable. What is contemptible is that he chose, unconsciously perhaps, to inflict a vengeance on those closest to him and who deserved it least. Behind the cool facade lay a child, emotionally warped, infinitely destructive, and with an abyss of need that could never be filled.
McQueen was paranoid, he wanted to be the best of the best, but he never aquired the insight to realise that fame, material success, a succession of women would never give him what he craved. That lay within and Steve McQueen lacked the courage, despite his physical bravery, to venture there.
His own childhood was a nightmare: beaten, sexually abused and having to listen to his mother being raped and beaten. He raged against the "suits" or Hollywood authority. But when he acquired authority his perverse, vindictive decisions were worse then what these same suits inflicted on him. McQueen climbed from an abyss that few have inhabited. That he scaled the heights is indeed admirable. What is contemptible is that he chose, unconsciously perhaps, to inflict a vengeance on those closest to him and who deserved it least. Behind the cool facade lay a child, emotionally warped, infinitely destructive, and with an abyss of need that could never be filled.
McQueen was paranoid, he wanted to be the best of the best, but he never aquired the insight to realise that fame, material success, a succession of women would never give him what he craved. That lay within and Steve McQueen lacked the courage, despite his physical bravery, to venture there.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
...there is plenty about McQueen's life beyond just the sex here- focusing more on the films, McQueen's childhood, his business approach, his intended collaboration with Harold Pinter on Old Times & performance in Enemy of the People (a wish to make great art as well as lots of $$$$$), the fact that while a good driver etc- the studios were very uncomfortable- this guy wasn't Senna or Schumacher! I think there's a bit of mythology concering his driving achievments, as this book demonstrates- fan's wet dreaming their hero's talents?
There's some nice photos (great cover) and both a chronology & filmography to back up the 450 odd pages that discuss every facet of McQueen- not just the sex, drugs etc. I'm no huge fan of McQueen- liking The Getaway & Tom Horn the best- but I thought this book presented a complex man and one whom I want to read/view more of. There are a few oblique statements, one comparing Leonard Cohen videos to Lou Reed ones (????) - but in a book this large & complex i'll let it go...
McQueen is well worth reading, though I will read other biogs & contrast/compare- remember, there's no such thing as a definitive reading of a person in the realm of the biog! This is a very entertaining book, with a passion for its subject and well worth a read...
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Whatever Happened to Steve the McQueen?
Writing a biography is no easy task. You have to prevent yourself from hero worshiping and also write something that reads well. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Sam
Twisting my Melon
There is little I can add about this book, which I have just finished reading, which hasn't already been written in other reviews (the best of which, in my opinion, is by "Broga"). Read more
Published 9 months ago by J. Rottweiller Swinburne
Compelling and memorable
A well-researched biography, presenting its subject as a great actor but as an awkward and difficult man. Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2008 by DDH255
Two different books in one.
This is a very interesting read up until fame broke for McQueen. His childhood and teenage years were disturbing and dark but it is fascinating none the less. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2008 by Jonny Ramon
Candyass
A rambling biography loosely based on the chronology of his films. If you prefer a traditional biography, with chapters on parents, schooling, formative years etc, then this is... Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2007 by bibliobiblio
Don't waste your time
This book, I am afraid to say is awful. There's no disputing the facts which have obviously been deeply researched, including little insights which nobody could possibly have known... Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2003
A poor effort
Lots of words, yet very little to say about one of Hollywood's most enduring icons. The films are mentioned almost in passing, very little is said about McQueen's closest friends... Read more
Published on 31 Oct 2002 by "windsweptltd"
Jumbled Mash
There have been many biographies of McQueen over the past 20 years, so when I saw this latest effort I hoped for something new. I was generally disappointed. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2002
Damaged Goods
The king of cool is a man who came from the worst of abusive, neglected childhoods to become one of the most famous men in the world. Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2001 by C. Collinson
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
