Watching Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid on Turner Classic Movies Sunday, I didn't recognize the significance of the date. Thirty years ago, McQueen -- the actor who best personified the American anti-hero -- died at age 50 in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Receiving treatment for lung cancer, McQueen died of a heart attack.
The passing of the great American anti-hero seems much longer than 30 years. Many would assert that no actor has assumed the role -- largely because no actor can fill McQueen's proverbial shoes. Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis were celluloid action heroes who fit the comfortable mode of convention. Tom Hanks, Will Smith and Denzel Washington (with the exception of his Oscar-winning role in Training Day) generally portrayed characters who operated within the establishment. The three also moonlight as as producers and directors. Today's most bankable and critically acclaimed film stars are too angry (Sean Penn), ironic (Robert Downey Jr.), and quirky (Johnny Depp). Brad Pitt or Matt Damon... don't make me laugh. James Franco spent a summer vacation playing a villain on General Hospital. Leonardo DiCaprio? Probably as close as you'll get in this red state/blue state world.
A real-life rebel, McQueen endured a childhood with a physically abusive stepfather who remanded the teenager to a reform school, the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino, CA. Prior to entering the military, McQueen worked odd jobs ranging from a lumberjack to a janitor in a brothel. McQueen served in the United States Marine Corps, and used funds from the GI Bill to study acting.
Chart McQueen's career, and you'll see the making of anti-hero. McQueen's Vin was the most personable and likable of the hired guns in 1960's The Magnificent Seven. Three years later in The Great Escape, McQueen's "Cooler King" defied both Allied officers and the Nazi authorities in the Prisoner of War (POW) camp. At the end of the movie, you believed that the Cooler King - riding a replica of a TR6 Trophy motorcycle - could evade the inevitable pursuit of German soldiers. McQueen's Eric Stoner in The Cincinnati Kid (1965) was cynical and aloof -- the antithesis of the mugging, goofball poker players you see on so-called sports and game-show networks. As Machinist 1st Mate Jake Holman in the Sand Pebbles (1966), McQueen personified alienation.
By 1968, McQueen's Frank Bullitt was disconnected from the violence he witnesses as a San Francisco Police detective. Dressed in a turtleneck sweater and driving a 1968 Mustang GT, McQueen screamed "too cool." Insubordination came naturally for Bullitt, who flaunted direct orders from his superior officers. When an unctuous politician threatened him with a writ of habeas corpus, Bullitt nonverbally communicates that the slime ball isn't worth a "bring it on."
The famous car chase in San Francisco puts The Fast and the Furious and The Matrix Reloaded to shame. Special effects don't replace cool.
Funny thing, while the public embraced him as a rebel McQueen was tended to political conservatism. Actor Paul Newman celebrated making President Richard M. Nixon's "Enemies' List." McQueen -- who ironically voted for Nixon -- seemed perplexed when his name inexplicably appeared on the fabled list and flew a large American flag in front of his house in response.
With friends like Dick Nixon, who needed enemies?
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