Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [136]
As it always seemed to on a Steve McQueen movie, trouble arrived even before the first foot of film was shot. At Steve’s insistence, the original script by Richard Levinson and William Link, a well-known writing duo, was thrown out, along with their co-writer and the director of the film, Peter Hyams. Steve then said he wanted to direct the film himself, but ultimately couldn’t, due to Directors Guild of America rules stating that no one previously involved in any way with the production of a film can take over as director if the original director leaves or is fired.
Steve reluctantly approved Buzz Kulik to direct (another director he had worked for back in the days of live TV on a couple of episodes of Climax). After months of haggling and time out for a new script to be written by Ted Leighton, adapted from the Ralph “Papa” Thorson biography by Christopher Keane (Hyams received sole screen credit), the film finally began shooting on September 10.
Steve showed up the first day slimmer than he had been (but not slim) and clean-shaven. His face looked lined and tired. One of the things Steve insisted upon was doing his own stunts, including riding atop a Chicago train at 40 mph in a tunnel with barely any headroom. His goal was to convince people he was at the top of his game. His attitude during the making was as affable as Steve was ever able to be. During one scene he laughingly instructed his makeup man to “make me look halfway between John Travolta and Robert Redford.” At Steve’s insistence, his son Chad was hired as a gofer so he could learn the business in case he ever wanted to be in it.
Kathryn Harrold played the love interest and soon discovered that she and Steve were graduates of the Neighborhood Playhouse. They had a good time together but no romance. Among other things, Harrold couldn’t stand Steve’s habit of chewing tobacco, one of the many tricks he tried in an effort to give up his twenty-five-year two-pack-a-day smoking habit.
The film wrapped in June 1979, early and $300,000 under budget, at which point Kulik and Engelberg, who had gotten along extremely well once everything had been sorted out, started talking about doing another film, one that Engelberg already had the rights to, called Quigley Down Under.
EVEN BEFORE Quigley Down Under was ready to go, and before Tom Horn was released, producers Herb Jaffee and Jerry Beck approached Steve about starring in a film version of Elmore Leonard’s Hang Tough. Steve’s career appeared to be on the upswing and about to return him to the A-list, but it was not to be. Through his agents, Steve abruptly turned the project down. The producers then upped their offer into the stratosphere, but Steve’s answer was still no. They pleaded with him to reconsider. They insisted this was the best script Steve had been offered since Bullitt, perfectly tailored to the way he liked to make movies and sure to return him to superstardom.
But The Hunter was going to have to be Steve’s last film.
He was dying of lung cancer.
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1 He was topped by Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, and Woody Allen. Then came Steve, followed by Gene Hackman. Also, McQueen netted 10 percent of The Getaway’s $35 million worldwide gross, making him the highest-paid American actor in 1973, the year following the film’s Christmas 1972 opening.
2 It was later cut to three days for Marlon Brando, who eventually played the part for a reported $3 million.
3 Fields had decided to get out of the agent business and sold his company to Marvin Josephson’s International Creative Management. Josephson agreed to take over the personal management and agenting of Steve’s career. Steve went along with this, believing that it didn’t matter who managed and repped him, because as far as he was concerned, he was retired from making movies. One of the first things Steve did was to remind Josephson of his “special” deal