Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [140]
As if in response, Steve released the following statement via Warren Cowan: “The reason I denied that I had cancer was to save my family and friends from personal hurt and to retain my sense of dignity as, for sure, I thought I was going to die. [Now I believe I am going to recover and] hopefully, the cheap scandal sheets and curiosity seekers will not try to seek me out so I can continue my treatment.”
In August, Steve was placed under twenty-four-hour supervision and, in addition to his regular regimen, was given daily coffee and lemon juice enemas, shampoos, detoxification sweatings, live cell injections from fetal pigs and cattle, and blood purification treatments. He was also put on the controversial drug laetrile, extracted from apricot pits. Miraculously, his condition started to improve, and he returned to Santa Paula. At that point, Dr. Kelley confidently predicted that Steve McQueen would completely recover and resume living a normal life.
But then, in October, his condition dramatically worsened. On October 9 he asked a reporter from Televisa, the Mexican national broadcast network, to come to the Santa Paula ranch, where outside the press had set up dozens of cameras, with reporters on hand twenty-four hours a day, to capture any message he wanted released to the public.
In his statement, Steve thanked the Mexican government for allowing him to pursue his choice of treatment there and noted that it had given him “an extraordinary improved quality of life. 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.” The tape was broadcast all over the world. The next day Steve returned to the Mexican clinic.
When Neile heard the broadcast, she rushed to the clinic to be by his side, to help care for him in any way she could. Ali also heard it but chose not to go.
Dr. Rodriguez then issued a statement that said, “Mr. McQueen has shown no new tumor growth, shows clear shrinkage of existing tumors and has a much better appetite.”
On October 29, under a shroud of secrecy, Steve checked out of the clinic and, accompanied by his wife, returned once more to Santa Paula to put his affairs in order and to take one last look at the place he loved so much.
The hospital described it as a “holiday,” made possible by Steve’s improved condition. By now his stomach was grossly distended, and he had to walk with a cane. According to one doctor at the clinic, Steve “looked more pregnant than a fully pregnant woman, and weighed about 150 pounds.” Other unsubstantiated reports placed Steve’s weight at about 100 pounds.
On November 2, after Dr. Rodriguez ordered a CAT scan for Steve at the Eastwood Hospital Clinic in El Paso, he was returned to Mexico for an operation to remove a tumor on his neck (the tumor was officially described as “dead”) before resuming cancer therapy.
On November 3 he was visited in the hospital by the Reverend Billy Graham.
On November 4 Steve was prepped for the surgery Dr. Kelley claimed was necessary to remove the tumor in his neck and an additional one in his abdominal cavity.
Early Friday morning, November 7, just before being wheeled into the operating room, according to Dr. Cesar Santos Vargas, a fifty-two-year-old heart and kidney specialist associated with the clinic who was actually going to perform the surgery, “Steve took my hand and made a signal with his thumb up, wishing me