Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [101]
To be on Nixon’s enemies list was one thing; to make Manson’s death list quite another. Steve was freaked out and rightly so. He had every one of his homes completely wired and burglar-proofed with all the latest security equipment. He was not alone. All over town, celebrities were imprisoning themselves in their homes. Overnight, the peaceful, easy feeling that had permeated Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Malibu was gone, replaced by an edgy paranoia that made it feel like one giant war zone.
Steve began carrying a loaded Magnum with him at all times. However, no matter how safe and secure he made himself and his family, he could not shake the dark feeling of having come so close to death. A simple decision to get laid had saved his life. He would never again go out in public without a weapon, or let himself be as easily accessible as he had been during the wild nights at the Whiskey. No more screaming fans surrounding him like in France that time. His new phalanx of armed bodyguards were instructed to shoot first and ask questions later.
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1 According to cumulative box office receipts, the eight top-grossing actors/actresses of 1968 were, in descending order, Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty, Peter Fonda, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, and Natalie Wood.
2 Faulkner died in 1962, a month after the novel’s publication.
Steve in the ill-fated Le Mans, 1971.
Marriage is really difficult when you’re in the public eye. You’re exposed to so many rumors about other women.… [M]ost marriages in the industry crack up fast, mainly due to this kind of pressure. But me, I’m no party stud. I’m with one woman at a time, and she’s my lady and that’s it until the ball game’s over and we decide to walk in different directions.
—STEVE MCQUEEN
THE MEMORIAL FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE MANSON MASSACRE took place on a warm sunny day, with the strong, dry Santa Ana winds blowing across Southern California. It was a beautiful day to be alive.
Steve attended the mass service for all the victims, and was seated behind his wife, Neile, who sat next to Warren Beatty. Steve was packing, and likely half the other attendees were as well; none of the murderers had yet been apprehended. The FBI was also there in force, as well as uniformed LAPD officers, who stood unsmiling and stiff, white motorcycle helmets held between their forearms and rib cages, weapons loaded, ready for anything.
Toward the end of the service, a male stranger leaped to his feet and threw himself on Sebring’s coffin, screaming, sobbing, spewing incoherent gibberish. Steve and about thirty others drew their guns, ready to pounce. The police grabbed the man and he was gone. A few minutes later, so were the remains of Manson’s victims.
THE REIVERS opened Christmas Day 1969. Cinema Center and its distribution wing, National General, had been divided about The Reivers. Neither knew what to do with it, and they finally agreed if it was anything, it was a good Christmas Day film, despite its many subplots filled with prostitutes, gambling, theft, and racism. They put their money on the climactic horse-race sequence, filmed at Disney, hoping that might be the big draw.
The reviews for the film were for the most part positive, but not for Steve. The New York Times wrote that the film was “a decent adaptation, with a lot of conventional good humor taken almost word-for-word from the book. However, casting McQueen as Boon automatically gives the character an inappropriate tool and shifts the film’s attention from its nominal protagonist, young Lucius.” Ultimately, most critics found the performance too far afield