Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [16]
With nothing to do and Neile away in Hollywood, Steve moped about her apartment for a week or so. Then, out of money, he went to a pawn shop on Eighth Avenue, casually hocked the gold watch that Uncle Claude had given him, and bought a ticket on a cross-country flight to L.A. He missed Neile and wanted to be with her, and that was worth more to him than any watch, even this watch. He called Neile and told her he was coming, and she said she couldn’t wait to see him.
However, at the last minute he changed his mind and went to Cuba with his upstairs neighbor Lionel Olay, who had been to the island many times before and even interviewed Fidel prior to his becoming el presidente. Steve and Olay had hit it off from the moment they met. Both shared a love of smoking weed and often got stoned all day. When Olay told Steve about his upcoming trip to Cuba, Steve said he wanted to go, and when Olay said sure, he cashed in his L.A. ticket and bought one to Havana. Just before the flight took off, Steve called Neile to tell her about his change of plans. She wasn’t happy about it.
When Neile’s film was delayed by the pregnancy of its star, Simmons, Neile suddenly had a lot of time on her hands, and with Steve no longer coming, she decided she would return to New York and wait out the film’s delay there. Then, two days before she was scheduled to fly back to L.A., she received a telegram from Steve—signed “Esteban”—telling her he loved her and that he was broke, and asking if she could wire him enough money so he could catch a flight home from Cuba.
Neile was less than thrilled, and let him know it. She sent him a wire back telling him she would be leaving New York the day after next, that she wasn’t sending any money, and that she loved him, too. She figured if she sent him anything, he would only stay in Cuba longer. What she didn’t know was that Steve and Olay had accidentally ridden their bikes too close to a rebel fort and been arrested as spies. The rebels threatened to send them in front of a firing squad, but instead took their bikes and let them go. By the time Steve’s telegram arrived, he and Olay had somehow found enough money for plane tickets and were already on their way home.
WHEN NEILE resumed work on her film, Steve called her collect from New York almost every night. When he decided he didn’t want to go through another city winter by himself, he scraped together enough money to buy a plane ticket to L.A. This time he didn’t tell Neile he was coming.
One afternoon shortly after he arrived, Steve went to the MGM soundstage where Neile was rehearsing and waited until she was on a break, then swept her in his arms and asked her to marry him. His proposal came with a ring he had had bought in the Village (on which he’d put a down payment of $25, promising to pay the rest off, which Neile eventually did). Despite the warnings of friends, agents, and relatives, especially her mother, Neile said yes and the first weekend she had off they rented a Ford Thunderbird and drove to San Juan Capistrano. “The long-distance phone bills got so enormous we decided to get married instead,” Neile recalled.
They were wed on Friday, November 2, 1956. With approval from the church, they settled on a justice of the peace, after which Neile rented a car and Steve drove them down to Mexico for a two-day honeymoon in Ensenada. Monday morning, Neile, now a married woman, happily returned to the soundstage where her movie was being filmed.
Steve, though, was not so happy. L.A. has always been hell for actors who aren’t working. Every day he’d come by the studio where Neile was filming and hang out, generally making a pain in the ass out of himself. When Robert Wise finally told Neile to get rid of