Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [137]
4 The film was “previewed” by Warner Bros. The strategy, according to Warren Cowan, McQueen’s publicist at the time, was “At one location, An Enemy of the People opens at only one theater; at site number two, tickets went to group sales, in city three, the preview was preceded by advertising, including TV spots, and city four got a combination plate, at one theater with tickets for group sales and the general public.” However, the film was pulled after one week of a four-week engagement in Minneapolis—a “group sales” site and not considered an official run. Two years later it was picked up by Joseph Papp’s Public Theater, where it may have been publicly screened once or twice, but it never had any commercial release.
5 Reports vary as to how much Steve agreed to; $5 million is the price quoted most often, but there were reports of as little as $3 million and as much as $10 million. Steve’s nonrefundable $1 million allowed the producers to sell the foreign rights prior to production. Steve was still a very strong attraction in Europe and the producers raised several million dollars off his signature. The film was eventually made in 1986, directed by Daryl Duke and with Bryan Brown in the starring role originally intended for Steve. It is unclear if Steve ever received the rest of his money. He threatened a lawsuit, but it never materialized.
6 According to Variety, $3 million and 15 percent of the gross.
I say to all my fans and all my friends, keep your fingers crossed and keep the good thoughts coming. All my love and God bless you all. This is Steve McQueen.
IN DECEMBER 1979, STEVE BEGAN TO THINK ABOUT MAKING another racing film, this one to chronicle a fictional cross-country bike race set back in the 1950s. It was his stuntman friend Charles Bail who first dared to tell Steve that, despite having shaved off his beard and trimmed a few pounds, he still looked terrible.
When Steve asked Barbara how he looked, she took the opportunity to ask him to get a complete physical before he thought about any more movies. Steve, who hadn’t been feeling well for a while, took her advice and entered Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills the second week in December. He was examined and instructed to undergo exploratory surgery as soon as possible. The operation, performed on December 22, revealed a massive malignant tumor in his right lung. Steve was diagnosed with incurable mesothelioma, a rare cancer that grows between the chest wall and lungs of its victims and which is caused by excessive asbestos inhalation; it is usually detected thirty to forty years after initial exposure to asbestos fibers.1 He remained in the hospital for three weeks on the eighth floor, famously known as the “VIP floor,” under an assumed name. According to a staffer, describing what sounds like early postdiagnosis denial, “He was the hit of the ward. He threw several parties.”
Steve had gotten the bad news from his doctor while still in the recovery room. He had at most a few months to live, and there was little in the way of conventional cancer treatment that would help. Steve made the doctors keep the worst of it from Barbara, agreeing to tell her he had easily four or five more years.
Not long after he was released from the hospital, he shocked Barbara by asking her to marry him. He professed that he was doing it out of love, but he also wanted to make sure she was not cut out of everything she deserved from his estate when the worst happened. And he knew that if she was his wife, she would not leave him, no matter how bad his condition became.
Minty recalled the moment of the actual proposal. It took place in Los Angeles, where they had gone so Steve could take care of some personal business. “It was barely a proposal. We were at the [Beverly] Wilshire when he dragged me to Tiffany’s and said, ‘Here, pick whatever ring