Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [105]
Neile had kept scrapbooks of their relationship from the time they first met. As she remembered, it was not long after that confrontation about their marriage that she abruptly stopped and never went back to them again.8
Back in France, Steve began taking his anger and frustration out on John Sturges, the director who, more than any other, had helped make him a superstar. He began the familiar pattern of difficult behavior, criticizing how Sturges set up a shot, refusing to show up on time, insisting again on seeing dailies, and rejecting every attempt that Sturges made to film the shooting script. As it finally came together, the story, slight as it was, focuses on the day of the race and one driver, Michael Delaney (Steve), shot semi-documentary style, with less than a dozen lines of dialogue spoken by Delaney in the entire film.
When Neile arrived at Le Mans with the kids, Steve showed up at the airport to pick her up with a pretty young girl by his side. What else was new. But the worst of it came at the Château Lornay, about forty-five minutes away from where everyone else was staying for the duration of the shoot. Steve’s eyes were dilated and unfocused, and she became alarmed at his deteriorating physical condition. She also realized that he had separated himself from the rest of the cast and crew so he could indulge his use of drugs.
When Neile visited the set, she couldn’t help but notice all the young girls who seemed to follow Steve’s every move. When she confronted him about it, his answer was chilling. “Look, ah, I should tell you. There’ll be women coming from all over the world to visit me this summer.” After a pause, he said, “Well, we are kinda separated, right?”
And with that, he walked away. That night, back at the chateau, Steve seemed to have come down enough to try to apologize to Neile, or so it appeared, but things soon took an even uglier turn. In bed that night, Steve asked Neile if she had ever had an affair. She denied it and said she was outraged by the question, but Steve persisted. He said he couldn’t understand how she could not have; she was young and beautiful, and he had obviously not been monogamous in their relationship. The more she denied it, the more he pushed her. Steve then suddenly got out of bed, went over to the bureau, rummaged through a drawer, and found some cocaine. He took a toot, and then offered it to Neile. She told him she didn’t like that sort of thing, but he pushed her, and to keep the peace between them, she did a little bit. Now Steve lit up a joint. They both got back in bed, and once again, Steve brought up infidelity. Only this time, after the coke and the pot smoke hanging in the air, Neile’s resistance broke down, as Steve had to have known it would, and she confessed she had—with a famous actor who had won an Academy Award.
Silence followed as Steve got up and went into the other room. A few seconds later he returned with a pistol and pointed it at Neile’s head, insisting she tell him who the actor was. When she didn’t answer he cocked the trigger and pressed the tip of the barrel hard against her temple. Again he asked her who it was. Again she didn’t tell him. Steve, twitching and red-faced, shouted at the top of his lungs that he wanted