Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [41]
Steve, realizing he had made a silly gaffe, tried to regain his composure. “Now, I throw ideas at the director all the time,” he continued. “Maybe four or five hundred. I don’t say they’re all good. Maybe only one hundred and fifty are usable.”
Siegel came right back at him. “I don’t care who I get the ideas from—the grip, the electrician. My name goes on the screen as the director. But there’s one thing you better be damn sure you understand.” Siegel than banged the table for emphasis. “I’m the director! Come hell or high water.”
According to Siegel, Steve was so stunned at the outburst, he had what appeared to be an epileptic attack. His face contorted and he had difficulty breathing. At that point, Siegel excused himself and went down the hall to where his agent, Marty Baum, was waiting, to tell him he thought he had blown it. Baum told him to go back in and save the deal. When Siegel returned, a recovered Steve came up to him and said quietly, “Don’t ever do that again.” At that point, Elkins looked at his watch, announced it was lunch-time, and suggested everyone eat together. They all agreed, except Carr, who curtly excused himself.
A few minutes later, in the Paramount commissary, Steve opened up to Siegel, telling him all about the trouble he had had so far with this picture. Rackin then turned to Steve and, assuming (or hoping) the deal was set, told Steve to get his wardrobe together and prepare for some publicity photos. In response, Steve shoved the lunch table hard against Rackin and said through clenched teeth, “Don’t push me, Marty.”
After lunch, everyone’s deal was finalized and the film was scheduled to go into production.
THE FIRST thing Steve wanted changed was the title of the film. Separation Hill didn’t do it for him. He told Siegel it didn’t make any sense, and Siegel came up with The War Story. Better, Steve said, and then suggested Hell Is for Heroes. It was a great title, one that surprised and impressed Siegel, who was all for it until he quickly discovered that Paramount already had a film in production with that title—something that no doubt Steve had heard about on the lot. When Siegel said it couldn’t be used, Steve threw a fit and went directly to Rackin, who was in no mood to have any more confrontations with his temperamental star. Rackin changed the name of the other film, an Edmond O’Brien melodrama that the highly respected but fading actor was both producing and directing, to Man-Trap. O’Brien was furious but could not do anything about it. He had by this time lost any clout he might have once had as one of Hollywood’s better character actors. In the Hollywood rulebook, character actors enriched movies, but leading men brought in the money.
The film’s ensemble cast was filled out with an unusual mix of actors and personalities. Fess Parker was a struggling B-movie actor (Gordon Douglas’s 1954 atomic ant horror flick Them) before gaining enormous popularity and becoming an icon of 1950s TV for his portrayal of Davy Crockett in Walt Disney’s weekly television series, but was still trying to make a name for himself on the big screen. He was a large, strong, handsome man, and based on his ability to act as a leader, as demonstrated by the Crockett TV show, Siegel wanted him to play the squadron’s company sergeant.
For the role of Pvt. Corby, a moody, volatile personality, Siegel chose Bobby Darin, another fifties pop sensation (“That Darin young man!”). A Bronx-born product of New York City’s Brill Building school of singers and songwriters, Darin had done okay with a series of original hit tunes until in 1959 he recorded a version of “Mack the Knife” from Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera that catapulted him into superstar status. He was suddenly being compared to Frank Sinatra (Darin boasted he would be a bigger star), and moved into film.