Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [94]
Neile, worried about Steve’s safety during the filming of the three sequences, and knowing that Steve would want to do as much of his own stunt work as the insurance company would allow, decided during filming of the car-chase sequence that she would surprise Steve on his thirty-eighth birthday, Monday, March 24, by showing up unannounced. She hadn’t gone up the previous weekend, because for the first time, her being on-set had become something of an issue between the two of them. In the past, Steve had always taken her and the children with him on location; they served as his anchor and as his protectors from the fans, from the production, from the press, from everyone. For this shoot, however, Steve told her that she could only come to San Francisco on weekends because “this is gonna be a tough location, baby.”
She went directly to the set. She had planned to stay the entire week. To her surprise (but nobody else’s) Steve was less than thrilled to see her. He told her he didn’t want any distractions. That afternoon, Neile watched Steve and Bisset do a scene together. She couldn’t help notice how well they acted together, and she wondered if their acting was that good.
Her instincts were correct. The two had started an affair almost immediately, and everybody on the set knew it long before Neile arrived and figured it out. Steve was drawn to Bisset, with her silken-haired beauty, husky, sensual voice, and gorgeous body, and she returned the interest, with such obviousness and intensity that no one could miss what was going on, even always-look-the-other-way Neile.
While Steve continued working, Neile decided to go to his apartment and get cleaned up. In the bathroom, she found a lady’s hairbrush. Infuriated, she picked up Steve’s bathroom radio and threw it against the mirror, which it shattered. Then she waited for Steve to come home. When he did, she greeted him by throwing the hairbrush at his head and shouting, “Happy birthday, asshole!” With that, she stormed out of the apartment, caught a cab to the airport, and was on the next flight back to L.A.
Filming was completed two days later. Steve made his goodbyes to one and all, including Bisset, and returned to L.A. to prepare for the big June opening of The Thomas Crown Affair and face whatever strident marital music Neile was going to greet him with when he arrived home.
He felt ready for anything.
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1 When Johnny Carson congratulated Steve for his great motorcycle jump in The Great Escape, McQueen graciously said, “It wasn’t me. That was Bud Ekins.”
2 Dimension 150 had been purchased and developed by Mike Todd, who then coined the term Todd-AO to describe the screen-and-sound processes he used for his epic production of Michael Anderson’s Around the World in 80 Days, which opened at the Rivoli in October 1956.
3 The other seven nominations were for Best Picture (Robert Wise, producer), Best Supporting Actor (Mako), Best Color Art Direction—Set Decoration (Boris Leven, Walter M. Scott, John Sturtevant, William Kiernan), Best Color Cinematography (Joseph McDonald), Best Film Editing (William Reynolds), Best Original Music Score (Jerry Goldsmith), and Best Sound (20th Century Fox Sound Department).
4 Grauman’s cement ceremony is different from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, also on Hollywood Boulevard. Steve’s star, the ninety-third, was added to the walk on June 12, 1986,