‍Steve McQueen was angry that Garner (left) got the star role in the movie ‘Grand Prix’

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‍WHEN movie icon Steve McQueen died of cancer in February 1980, the curtain came down on a blockbuster Hollywood career but his legacy was sometimes one of hatred, envy and bitterness, recorded over the years in the Los Angeles Press.

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‍Loved by the public, both men and women, he was hated by many of his co-stars and many who dared to get close to him.

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‍McQueen, who starred with James Garner in ‘The Great Escape’ was an avid racing driver and desperately coveted the lead role in the 1966 racing movie Grand Prix.

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‍When the part went to Garner instead, because of McQueen’s reputation of on-set antics, McQueen was so furious that he repeatedly urinated onto Garner’s pot plants on his downstairs balcony below in their Hollywood apartment block out of spite.

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‍“Like Marlon Brando, he could be a pain in the arse!” Garner said. “On set he wasn’t an actor. He was a poser movie star who cultivated the image of a macho man.”

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‍Before acting, McQueen served in the U.S. Marines but was busted in rank multiple times for insubordination, one day he went AWOL to sleep with a girlfriend, earning him 41 days in the brig.

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‍Some months later, during a naval exercise, he destroyed his tank’s engine while trying to soup it up.

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‍When he arrived in Hollywood, trouble was his middle name. Actor Paul Newman welcomed him to the set of Towering Inferno. But McQueen reportedly snapped, “Don’t give me that nice guy shit!” From then on Newman referred to him as: “Chicken Shit!”

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‍McQueen refused to do the film unless he got top billing over Newman and after many rows producers used “diagonal billing,” placing McQueen’s name lower left and Newman’s upper right so both looked first. McQueen even demanded the exact same number of lines as Newman to ensure equal screen time so his team had to count Newman’s script lines.

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‍The set of The Magnificent Seven was another battleground.

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‍To appear taller than McQueen in shared shots, lead star Yul Brynner frequently scuffed up small mounds of dirt to stand on, which McQueen would casually kick flat when he walked by.

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‍Brynner eventually hired a personal assistant just to count the number of times McQueen touched his hat to catch the camera while Brynner was delivering lines. McQueen also aggressively tried to steal the spotlight by flipping coins, or rattling shotgun shells while Brynner was speaking.

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‍McQueen even complained that Brynner’s horse was bigger than his and got another one and he publicly ridiculed his co-star’s fancy, ivory-handled gun as a desperate attempt to get attention.

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‍Midway through filming The Great Escape, McQueen walked out after watching just an hour of early footage. He claimed his character wasn’t prominent enough and got major rewrites.

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‍The entire iconic motorcycle sequence was never in the script in the first place. McQueen insisted it was put in and refused to return to the set unless it was. The writers scrambled to add the chase to appease him.

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‍The actor was so obsessed with the scene that he dressed up as a German soldier to film scenes where he chased himself.

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‍True, McQueen insisted on doing his own motorcycle stunts for the film’s famous chase sequence. However, he wasn’t allowed to perform the iconic barbed-wire fence jump. It was made by his friend and fellow racer Bud Ekins.

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‍The tough guy actor also harboured deep resentment towards Robert Redford and vowed never to share a screen with him. McQueen had backed out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid due to a billing dispute.

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‍From then on McQueen openly sneered at Redford behind his back, dismissing him to others as a “spoiled rich kid” and a product of lucky Hollywood favouritism.

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‍My favourite anecdote about McQueen is when he was a neighbour to The Who drummer Keith Moon in Malibu in the 1970s.

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‍Moon’s all-night bathroom light shone directly into McQueen’s bedroom. After repeatedly asking the rocker to turn it off, the actor solved the problem … by shooting out the light with a shotgun.

‍But the star did have a good side. In many of his movies he demanded hundreds of packs of denim blue jeans in varying sizes and insisted on bulk shipments of electric razors and heavy packs of soap.

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‍Lorry loads of casual clothes were also delivered. But McQueen never used a single item. He quietly had then shipped everything directly to the Boys Republic, a Chino Hills reform school for troubled youngsters where he spent time as an angry, unwanted teenager.

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‍ In 1980, twenty years after the Magnificent Seven, McQueen was terminally ill with cancer. Prompted by their mutual co-star Charles Bronson, he reached out to Brynner by phone to apologise for his behaviour on set.

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‍Brynner graciously accepted the apology, responding: “I am the King, and you are the Rebel Prince: every bit as royal... and dangerous to cross.”

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‍McQueen passed away in November 1980, and Brynner died of cancer five years later in 1985.

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‍GIANT SURGEON WHO WAS

‍DEADLY WITH HIS CHOPPER

‍TOP Victorian surgeon Robert Liston was often praised in the Press for his speed and strength in the Lancet and the People’s Journal, but not all patients agreed to go under his knife in the 1820s.

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‍At 6 feet, 2 inches, he stood eight inches taller than the average British man — a “giant for his time.” He could remove a leg in less than 30 seconds, and to keep both hands free, often clasped his bloodied knife between his teeth while working at the Edinburgh Infirmary.

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‍But he made mistakes. He once sliced off a patient’s testicle while removing a leg and worked with such speed that in another operation, cut off three of his assistant’s fingers and slashed an innocent bystander’s coat. Both the patient and assistant died of gangrene, and the spectator died of fright. “He had the highest fatality rate in surgical history,” wrote Lindsey Fitzharris, PhD, author of ‘The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine’.

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‍WHO CHOPPED OFF THE HEAD OF OUR KING?

‍The executioner who beheaded King Charles I on January 30, 1649, remains officially unknown, as he and his assistant were heavily disguised with masks, wigs, and fake beards.

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‍Newsbooks, the early newspaper pamphlets of the time, point to Richard Brandon, the official executioner known as The Hangman of London, who got £30 for the job.

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‍But, frightened of reprisals from the public he never admitted to beheading the king for treason on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. Two common troopers were forced to perform the act because he refused, the newsbooks say.

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‍LOVEABLE BEAR WENT TO WAR AND DRANK BEER WITH THE LADS

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‍ANIMALS have always featured in wars from cats and dogs to pigeons and horses, but never a bear. Until Wojtek, the 40-stone, smoking, coffee-and-beer drinking bear came along.

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‍He was such a good soldier that he was promoted from private to corporal after his bravery at the Battle of Monte Cassino. And he made headlines across the world.

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‍The story began in 1942 when the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish army was sent to the Middle East to face Hitler’s Nazi battalions.

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‍A young shepherd traded his Syrian brown bear cub, wriggling about in a burlap sack to soldiers in exchange for a Swiss Army knife, a can of beef, and a bar of chocolate.

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‍The men loved the cub and adopted it as their mascot, after hearing that Wojtek’s mother had been killed by Nazi hunters.

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‍They took it in turns to feed him with condensed milk from an empty vodka bottle, fruit and marmalade and named their furry friend Wojtek (Polish for joyful warrior). He came to trust them.

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‍Private Peter Prendys became Wojtek’s caretaker who taught him to salute, wave, and march, and Wojtek lapped up these duties.

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‍When not training, Wojtek amused himself with the soldiers in the camp by wrestling and boxing with them. In addition to double rations, the soldiers gave him treats like cigarettes and beer. He loved a fag. He even joined in grenade practice, when he chased oranges lobbed by soldiers to practice. And he loved to ride in their trucks.

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‍One of Wojtek’s favourite activities was taking long cold showers, and he eventually learned to turn on the shower by himself. When there were water shortages his comrades forbade him to shower alone.

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‍One day however, Wojtek found the door to the showers open and wandered inside, where he encountered an Arab who had sneaked into the Polish camp to locate its weapons arsenal so local dissidents could destroy it.

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‍Wojtek terrified the interloper when he growled at him, raising the alarm. The enemy surrendered immediately to the Poles. As a reward, the bear earned himself unlimited shower time and two bottles of beer.

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‍But all good things come to an end and in 1944, when the 22nd Artillery Supply Company prepared to ship out to join the Allied military campaign in Italy, the bear-loving troopers ran up against a wall of military rules.

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‍Pets were banned in the army, and to stay with his unit Wojtek needed to officially enlist. So he was given a serial number, and officially permitted to remain with his fellow soldiers.

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‍His presence boosted the morale of the troops and brightened their days. And he was to play a vital role in the war too. Imitating his brothers in arms, he carried artillery shells and ammo crates between trucks and troops engaged in combat, risking his life every day.

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‍Ducking and diving his way through the bombs and bullets. He became a regular sight by both sides on the front line.

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‍In his honour, the company changed its insignia to a bear carrying an artillery shell, and for his service and bravery Wojtek was promoted to corporal.

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‍In 1946, after the war ended, he and his unit were sent to a relocation camp in Scotland, where he amazed other units by downing two bottles of beer a day after evening swims in the pool they built for him at the camp.

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‍And he was kept busy. Wojtek helped his army pals carry fence posts and wire as they worked on a Scottish farm. But all good things come to an end. The troops began to demobilise, but Wojtek had been cared for by humans since he was a cub and could not survive in the wild.

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‍So, in 1947 the loveable bear was moved to Edinburgh Zoo and when his old comrades visited they their corporal beer, candy and cigarettes and were even allowed to wrestle with him.

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‍Wojtek died in the zoo in 1963. A bronze statue of him with his mentor Private Prendys, was unveiled in Edinburgh in 2015. There is another in Krakow, Poland and one in Duns, Scotland.

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‍TERRY MANNERS

‍20 July 2026

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