tom cruise steve mcqueen

Paul Newman – Did he harbor a secret?

February 12, 2016 admin Did You Know? 16

Not many superstars begin their careers with an out and out ‘lemon’, but Paul Newman certainly did. After popping up in a dozen or so TV series between 1949 and 1954, when the television industry was still finding its feet, he landed the romantic lead in a sandals and togas drama called The Silver Chalice (1954). And it very nearly sunk his career there and then. Even his character’s name, Basil the sculptor, was an embarrassment. James Dean and his manager had already rejected the role because they considered the script to be rubbish. And it was. It was billed as, ‘The mightiest story of truth and temptation ever produced’. It wasn’t. During the shoot, Jimmy wandered over from the set of East of Eden to see how it was going, met Newman’s co-star Pier Angeli, and love apparently bloomed on the spot. But not for long. He was killed less than a year later and Pier was heartbroken. ‘Love died in a Porsche’, she told friends.

Pier Angeli and James Dean on the town

The Silver Chalice was the final film to be directed by Victor Saville, a man whose directing career had (somehow) lasted for 42 films, the best of them being South Riding (1938) and Green Dolphin Street (1947). This last effort forced him into retirement. It was that bad. In fact, when it was about to be shown on American TV nine years later, Newman took out ads in the Hollywood trades papers apologising for his inept performance in it, and warning viewers to steer clear of the thing at all costs. Not unexpectedly, the ads merely drew an inordinate number of viewers to tune in out of morbid curiosity. I have sat through The Silver Chalice from beginning to end, (I’m expecting my Victoria Cross in the mail at any moment), and believe me it is a hard slog, even the 115 minute cut version. The picture originally ran an insufferable 142 minutes! Trust me, if this film comes on TV again and you are contemplating watching it, try slamming your fingers in a kitchen draw for 115 minutes instead. You will have more fun. The good news, of course, is that Newman’s career was not still-born, and he went on to do some great things, none of which saw him within a thousand miles of a pair of sandals or a toga. Paul was not one of those guys who made the same mistake twice.

His second movie was much better. In fact it turned him into a star overnight. Once again James Dean was involved, or rather the ghost of James Dean, for he had been set to play Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me  until his death in September 1955 necessitated a change of plans. Newman, you might be surprised to learn, was already 31 years old by then and a number of studio executives were against him inheriting the role. They felt he was too old for it. Of course, several of them still could not erase from their memories The Silver Chalice and his knobbly knees. They also thought he would not be believable portraying an Italian-American. Come to think of it, he looked about as Italian-American as Pat Boone, but his powerful performance managed to pull it off.

As Rocky Graziano in  Somebody Up There Likes Me

Newman would enjoy an illustrious career lasting over fifty years. The year after he was given an Honorary Academy Award (1986) ‘in recognition of his many memorable and compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft’, he finally won an Oscar for real for The Color of Money . In all, he was nominated nine times for his acting, and once as a director for Rachel, Rachel (1968).

with Tom Cruise in  The Color of Money

Newman was married twice and had six children, three to each wife. His second marriage, to actress Joanne Woodward, lasted 50 years until his death. It has since come to light that he was known to have affairs along the way, something that was never publicized to any great extent. His last known relationships were with Italian actress Sylva Koscina and Joan Crawford, both back in 1967. He also had a brief affair with Joan Collins in 1958 and Myrna Loy in 1960. Crawford, by the way, had slept with him a couple of times during his first marriage as well.

with Sylva Koscina in  The Secret War of Harry Frigg

Newman was once asked if he had ever been tempted to be unfaithful to his wife Joanne Woodward, to which he famously replied, ‘Why go out for hamburger when you’ve got steak at home?’ The ever tactless Crawford sneered at his response: ‘What a clever thing to say, but how true is it? First, I think Woodward is hamburger, not steak. As for Paul, he dines out frequently and on the most succulent filet mignon, from what I hear.’ This is all according to writer Darwin Porter, the former next door neighbour of playwright Tennessee Williams and self-proclaimed friend and confidante of numerous show business figures big and small. His book has drawn a lot of comment and speculation, so it might be worth looking at it here. We can decide for ourselves how much (if any) of it is true.

actress Shelley Winters

Porter’s revelations appeared in one of his books in 2009 and caused quite a stir. For one thing, he claimed that Shelley Winters told him of having a threesome with Newman and Marlon Brando! Shelley passed on in 2006, so she (like Newman and Brando) can neither confirm nor deny his story. Indeed, Porter is careful not to include anyone still living in his tales, so how much of the following actually happened is for the reader to decide for his or herself. This is what Mr. Porter had to write about Paul Newman’s love life:

Robert Stack

young Marlon Brando

Newman’s first serious love affair allegedly took place while he was in the US Navy, and it was with future actor Robert Stack (Elliot Ness no less)! While at college Newman allegedly visited Marlon Brando backstage where they had a sexual encounter. There were female conquests as well. Darwin lists Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Susan Hayward, Lana Turner, Natalie Wood, Vivien Leigh and Tallulah Bankhead. But it doesn’t end there. Early in his career, Porter claims, he also slept with Montgomery Clift, Steve McQueen and the future star of Hawaii 5-0 , Jack Lord!

young Monty Clift

a young Steve McQueen

an equally young Jack Lord

According to Porter, Newman allegedly told his good friend Janice Rule that McQueen propositioned him on the set of Somebody Up There Likes Me , concluding the conversation by planting a very wet kiss on Newman’s lips. ‘I thought Newman was arrogant’, McQueen told Porter. ‘When I finally got him into bed, I taught him who the man was.’ Even so, both men were fierce rivals, McQueen turning down the Redford role in Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969) because he refused to take second billing to Paul. Miss Rule allegedly told Porter that Newman had severe man crushes in Robert Wagner, Redford and Tom Cruise, but none were consummated.

Janice Rule

Brandon de Wilde in  Shane

and shortly before his death

Porter makes no bones about Newman’s bisexuality, claiming he also had passionate affairs with James Dean, Tony Perkins and Sal Mineo. There was also an intermittent affair with John Derek in the sixties and a three-year relationship with former child star Brandon de Wilde. He played the little boy in Shane , and would die young in a car accident in 1972. Porter’s allegations may all be true. But they may also be a load of hogwash. Since every affair he mentions involve participants who are no longer with us and, therefore, unable to dispute his information, I would prefer to reserve judgment until someone living confirms some aspect of his stories. Even his sources are all dead; Williams, McQueen, Rule and Winters. Convenient. Joanne Woodward would know, of course, but she seems most unlikely to dignify Mr. Porter’s book by commenting either way. Who could blame her?

with his wife of 50 years Joanne Woodward

• brandon de wilde
• darwin porter
• janice rule
• joan crawford
• joanne woodward
• marlon brando
• montgomery clift
• paul newman
• pier angeli
• robert stack
• shelley winters
• somebody up there likes me
• steve mcqueen
• sylva koscina
• the silver chalice

16 Comments

Back in the 1960’s they were called switch hitters. My husband lived in West Hollywood and had worked at auto dealers in the Valley. He said he met a guy who told him he was Robert Wagner’s lover. Also he said everyone knew Bruce Jenner and Alan Carr were lovers. He saw James Garner, Bill Cosby and Steve McQueen playing pool at Elmer Valentine’s house. Elmer was owner of the Whiskey A Go Go.

Isnt it common knowledge that most “movie stars” went both ways? Debbie Reynolds, Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn (so masculine!) Newman seemed very effeminate. Like all of them. We were under the hollywood illusions, as usual. Cruise is with the head of scientology…..David M. Its common knowledge in the business. Can you imagine how upset the fans would be if they knew???

I believe that Nicole Kidman had to sign a non-disclosure form re their marriage when she and Tom divorced. Who knows what secrets she agreed not to discuss? Then again, maybe that was a Scientology standard divorce requirement? However, it would have been nice to have been a fly on the wall in their home at the time.

We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.

I think much of that can be attributed to our fascination with American movies and television. Thank you for your comment.

Lived in a former British “colony” years ago where, as an American, I was “lectured” on how “you Americans”, mispronounce “sch.” The person went on to tell me how schedule should have the “shh” sound, not the “sk” sound, and then gave me a litany of words spelled with “sch…” which were mispronounced by Americans. I let this person blather on and on, as they puffed up their fine feathers. When finally the blathering stopped, I asked only one question, “Well, then why do you pronounce ‘school” with the ‘sk’ sound instead of the ‘shh…” sound?” Feathers flattened, no more blathering. Also learned why so many words have “extra” letters. When first developing the spelling of the language, those who were doing the gatherings were paid per/letter. The more letters added, the more you were paid. So, it was much to their advantage to have a more letters in words… so much for the extra letters in our language.

Thank you for that information, Charmie. I was unaware of the history behind spelling. Interesting.

After converting an English (UK) brochure, to English (US) you see a little of Greed in all of humanity and will definitely make you chuckle.

Although American, I’m being a bit of a “snob” here, hence the English,”favourite”, in my last comment.

Well, we used to model ourselves on whatever England did, but since WW2 that has changed as we have become ‘Americanized’. Of course watching so many American movies and TV shows has been a monumental influence on our language both written and spoken. Being nearly 69 years old, I still call that stuff that makes my car run ‘petrol’, but my kids all call it ‘gas’.

Alan, Yes, I would be interested in your favourite [I like your spelling better], movies.

Ha! That spelling thing drives me crazy. I am torn between spelling as I have all my life, the English way, and at the same time aware that most of my book sales (and site readers I imagine) are American. Personally, I prefer the American way because it is easier. I mean, why toss in a completely unncessary ‘u’ into ‘favourite’ or ‘harbour’ or ‘colour’,when all three words read and sound like ‘favorite’, ‘harbor’ and ‘color’? I love the English language, but it really does need re-vamping.

I shall post part one of ‘My 50 favourite (favorite) movies tomorrow (Sunday). Thank you for your input.

I’m glad to read that you question Darwin Porter. One of Porter’s criticisms is that he claims sources for his info, but fails to cite, and quotes supposedly “actual” conversations between lovers, etc. [Bogart, again, but probably other books as well.] My guess is that he receives info., and creates scenarios around this. Anyway, I find it tiresome, and don’t care to know all that stuff about most of the stars. Sometime, during the 50’s, or later? my mother told me that Rock Hudson had a “beard”, and did I know what that was? She explained. If she read it at the beauty parlor, it wasn’t a secret during that time. I gather that most reviewers of Porter, have read many, many of his books.

Personally, I could not care less about anyone’s sexual preferences, but those who purchase my books and listen to my radio interviews are apparently fascinated by it. Data I have known about for decades is news to a lot of fans who do not read as widely as I do, so I collect and collate what I believe is interesting (even titillating to some) and write about it or discuss it during my once a month radio spot. As for Rock Hudson, I distinctly recall being told by 9 year-olds in my class at school (in 1956) that he had boyfriends.The term ‘gay’ was not in use then – not in Australia anyway. I did not believe them at the time, but if that was being said in Fremantle, Western Australia way back then, I imagine it was common knowledge in Hollywood long before that.I quite enjoy unearthing details about movie stars that reveal them to be just like most ordinary folk. Nobody is perfect, yet studios went to a great deal of trouble to imbue their stars with an aura of perfection that they simply did not deserve. Acting, after all, is just a job like any other. The only difference is that a great many more of its practitioners are extraordinarily attractive men and women.

I think I might post the first part of my ’50 Favourite Movies of All Time’ on Sunday. Do you think that might be of interest or not? I would appreciate your opinion, Sheila.

You ought to read reviews from those who have read his two books on Bogart! Too much “mashed potatoes and gravy”, from selections I read on internet. I have theory that there may be some truth to what he writes He may attract those w/ more info. [gays] more comfortable talking w/ him, than so called main stream biographers. There’s no way to know w/ bios. I wish Bogart had written his autobiography.

The studios had their publicity people churn out a load of codswallop about their stars, and they did so for about 60 years. Now we have all kinds of ordinary people involved in the industry during the studio system, who are writing their memoirs regarding those days. Some of these people are probably out to make a quick buck, and Darwin Porter may very well be guilty of that. However, he might also be telling the truth. I suppose what really happened lies somewhere between the two. One thing I am certain of, however, is that the studio rubbish was just that – rubbish.

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Screen Rant

Steve mcqueen's 10 best movies, ranked.

Throughout his career, Steve McQueen made some of the best movies of all time and cemented himself as a brilliant action star and performer.

• McQueen's early role in "The Blob" set him on a path toward stardom with a surprising hit that showcased his leading man chops.
• "Le Mans" highlights McQueen's passion for racing and dedication to stunt work, capturing the dangers and thrills of the sport.
• In "The Great Escape," McQueen's iconic motorcycle scene solidified his status as a leading man known for doing his own stunts.

Steve McQueen was a legendary figure both on and off the screen, and his best movies demonstrate how action and thrill rides were as much a part of his professional life as they were his personal. McQueen's story is one marred by tragedy, as he passed away at only 50 years old, but in that time, he made an unforgettable mark on the world. His films were adventurous, exciting, and imbued with true human empathy, as McQueen was himself. It’s unlikely that McQueen and his contributions to cinema will ever go overlooked.

He was an in-demand star, did his own stunts, produced and elevated many action movies, and was known for being particular about his roles and the people he worked with.

Today, McQueen's filmography and fame could be compared with Tom Cruise's best movies , excepting the fact that McQueen was rarely involved in any franchise work. He was an in-demand star, did his own stunts, produced and elevated many action movies, and was known for being particular about his roles and the people he worked with. McQueen was aware that he was a box office draw, and this led to him demanding high salaries and having his pick of projects. Known for putting himself in high-risk situations, McQueen raced motorcycles and cars in his free time, expanding his "bad boy" persona.

Every Steve McQueen Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

10 the blob (1958), as steven andrews, the blob (1958).

*Availability in US

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A hallmark of the classic Hollywood monster movie genre, The Blob combines science fiction, horror, and thriller elements that come together to make a film that holds up surprisingly well. It was McQueen's first starring role as Steve Andrews, a teenager who witnesses the power of the Blob and tries to mobilize his small town to fight against it. It's Steven who realizes how to stop the Blob, and the beginnings of McQueen's chops as a leading man are apparent throughout the film. It's an early example of how strong a performer he is.

Though The Blob was a B movie, it was an unexpected hit and set McQueen on his trajectory toward fame. While elements of the film are campy, and the effects aren't amazing by today's standards, it has a strong internal logic, and it was popular enough that a 1988 remake was greenlit. Its larger themes of mass hysteria, misinformation, and small-town politics aren't too overt but provide enough depth that the film doesn't feel unjustified in its happy ending.

9 Le Mans (1971)

As michael delaney.

One of the best movies about auto racing , Le Mans capitalized on McQueen's love for car racing and his dedication to stunt work. Directed by Lee H. Katzin, the film follows McQueen's character, Michael Delaney, a racer for Porsche at the titular Le Mans race the film is based on. Delaney is haunted by the death of a competitor from the previous year, and the film doesn't attempt to conceal how dangerous a sport racing is. Much of the conflict has to do with the frequent accidents and how life-threatening they can be.

It's clear how close the story is to McQueen's heart, and how in line it is with his personal interests throughout the story.

Le Mans is best known for its dedication to realistically portraying racing and the experience of being a driver during the Le Mans race. The film even incorporated footage from the real-life race throughout the narrative. It's clear how close the story is to McQueen's heart and how in line it is with his personal interests throughout the story. Le Mans is a notorious race because it's a grueling endurance test that lasts 24 hours. Though the film was not a particular success, it's a standout of McQueen's career because of how well it showcases his talents and tastes.

Le Mans is available to rent on Apple TV and Prime Video.

8 The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

As the cincinnati kid, the cincinnati kid.

Set during the 1930s Depression, The Cincinnati Kid is an interesting twist on the period, involving a high-stakes poker game between McQueen's character, The Kid, and his rival, The Man, played by Edward G. Robinson. Norman Jewison directed the movie and would go on to take on more dramatic and high-profile work in the wake of the film's success, including the movie adaptation of the stage musical Fiddler On The Roof . The Kid isn't a typical protagonist as he's an early example of the anti-hero archetype, one that McQueen would come to be known for embodying.

McQueen easily slips into the role of The Kid. He’s an over-confident man with something to prove, and the narrative doesn't always work out in his favor. What The Cincinnati Kid does best is give the audience multiple characters to root for and leave them wondering if The Kid deserves to win or not. The film makes distinct visual choices that elevate it above the typical drama and delve into the economic complexity of that period of American history.

7 The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

As thomas crown.

With similarities to contemporaries of the genre like the original Ocean's Eleven and other classic heist films, The Thomas Crown Affair distinguishes itself because of the amazing chemistry and work of the two leads, McQueen and Faye Dunaway.

Taking on another cool, confident, and overly ambitious bad boy character, McQueen plays Thomas Crown in the terminal heist thriller The Thomas Crown Affair . With similarities to contemporaries of the genre like the original Ocean's Eleven and other classic heist films, The Thomas Crown Affair distinguishes itself because of the amazing chemistry and work of the two leads, McQueen and Faye Dunaway. McQueen partnered with Norman Jewison again, with Jewison producing and directing, and the developing report between the actor and director is obvious.

The biggest critique mounted against The Thomas Crown Affair was that it chose style over substance. I t allowed the look of the film and the notoriety of the stars to carry the story instead of crafting a compelling plot. However, for a heist film that's supposed to be a fun, wild ride for the audience, that isn't necessarily bad. The Thomas Crown Affair is enjoyable to the very end and isn't overly concerned with making a grand statement, only with making an entertaining movie.

Watch The Thomas Crown Affair on Tubi or Hulu.

15 Best Heist Movies Of All Time, Ranked

6 papillon (1973), as henri 'papillon' charrière.

McQueen is joined by Dustin Hoffman in Papillon , a film that provides insight into the plight of men in a French prison and their treatment. It's based on the autobiography and life of Henri Charrière, the man on whom McQueen's character is based, with a screenplay penned by two of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr. In the film, Charrière and Hoffman's character, Louis Dega, form an unlikely bond and are a source of solace during times of incredible brutality and suffering.

It can be a challenge to get through the entire two-and-a-half-hour runtime of Papillon , as there are moments when the characters and the audience come close to losing hope completely. Papillon is not meant for casual viewing, but this makes it all the more interesting as a part of McQueen's career. The movie requires serious dramatic acting on McQueen's part, but he delivers at every turn, particularly in the most unbelievable examples of what humans can endure.

Watch Papillon on Tubi or rent on Apple TV.

5 The Towering Inferno (1974)

As chief o'halloran, the towering inferno.

Despite its success and accolades, there was quite a bit of drama behind the scenes during the filming of The Towering Inferno . Paul Newman and Steven McQueen feuded over the movie as both actors wanted top billing and couldn't reach a compromise for a long time. Regardless, The Towering Inferno was made and increased the notoriety of both actors. It's a standout of the disaster movie genre and includes fantastic practical effects that are startling to viewers even by today's standards. The film might rely too heavily on spectacle, but it is thrilling and compelling.

In an incredible turn for the disaster and action genres, The Towering Inferno was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and much of this success can be attributed to the fantastic cast the movie assembled. Not only did Newman and McQueen grace the screen, but also the likes of Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, and William Holden. Like any great McQueen picture, stunts and action are not overlooked, but that doesn't make the story any less important.

4 The Sand Pebbles (1966)

As jake holman.

At the time of its release, the film was seen as a direct comment on the war in Vietnam.

The Sand Pebbles is a fantastic war epic, and in his turn playing a ship's engineer, Jake Holman, McQueen was nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. Although he didn't win, McQueen deserved the recognition for the sheer amount of physical work he put into the role. Within the story, the relationship between the American men on board the ship and the Chinese laborers they hire is put under a microscope and engages with American imperialism and colonialism. At the time of its release, the film was seen as a direct comment on the war in Vietnam.

The film is certainly an epic, as its runtime of just over three hours is a whale of a narrative, but the movie earns it with solid pacing and a compelling story. While McQueen didn't win any awards, his costar, Richard Attenborough, won Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes, though he is now best known for his role in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park . The Sand Pebbles could have made a stronger point with its political themes, but overall, it was a triumph for its time.

Watch The Sand Pebbles on Hulu.

3 Bullitt (1968)

As frank bullitt.

McQueen is the king of chase scenes for many reasons, and though Bullitt doesn't feature his most iconic chase, it does have an epic car scene for the ages. He plays Detective Frank Bullitt, a police officer in San Francisco, a city that lends its beautiful skyline and intricate streets to the film’s atmosphere. Shot on location in San Francisco, the dedication to the city, and realistic portrayal of the environment, especially during the chase scene, is evident. The film is a neo-noir thriller and portrays Bullitt as a morally ambiguous but heroic officer , featuring a complex performance from McQueen.

Due to the nature of the action-fueled thriller, Bullitt won the Academy Award for Best Editing and was nominated for Best Sound. The car chase, in particular, is an extremely influential part of the film, and many similar chase scenes filmed today have Bullitt to thank for reinventing the trope. Lending his typical stoicism and edge to his part, McQueen is a worthy actor to lead the film, and it could not have been as boundary-pushing without him behind the wheel.

The 10 Best Neo-Noir Movies, According to Ranker

2 the magnificent seven (1960), the magnificent seven (1960).

The mythic nature of the West and the fable of the cowboy would naturally hold increased influence over American audiences and become a hit.

In Steve McQueen's best Western movie , The Magnificent Seven , the actor once again displayed his trademark stubbornness and desire to be a star. The film is a remake of the seminal samurai movie, 1954's The Seven Samurai , directed by Akira Kurosawa. Though The Magnificent Seven doesn't quite hit the mark of The Seven Samurai , it still did amazing work translating the story to the format of the American Western. The mythic nature of the West and the fable of the cowboy would naturally hold increased influence over American audiences and become a hit.

The American remake even went on to incur another adaptation in 2016. McQueen's character, Vin, is part of the larger ensemble of the movie and isn't the leader of the band of outlaws he's part of. This role is an outlier for McQueen, as he often preferred to be the star or nothing at all. However, McQueen has great chemistry with the rest of the cast and is a strong foil to Yul Brynner, who plays the leader. Though The Magnificent Seven was underappreciated when it was first released, it's come to be known as a classic today.

1 The Great Escape (1963)

As hilts 'the cooler king', the great escape.

Directed by John Sturges, The Great Escape is considered one of the best action movies of all time. Highlights of the move include the infamous motorcycle scene. The film is based on Paul Brickhill’s novel about British soldiers imprisoned in a German POW camp. The Great Escape is McQueen's best leading role and the role he is most associated with, propelling him into further stardom. This notoriety stems from the fact that he did so many of his own stunts, including the motorcycle ride. This stunt is one of the greatest chase scenes in film history.

For a film that holds so many "greatest" and "best" titles, it didn't receive many accolades when it hit theaters in 1963. McQueen was recognized for his role and won Best Actor at the Moscow International Film Festival, but the film didn't reach the highest levels of critical acclaim, as action movies are rarely lauded as great works of art until many years after their release. Despite this, The Great Escape will never be forgotten because of the timeless themes of wartime struggle and sacrifice.

Tom Cruise and Steve McQueen honoured with greatest motorcycle movie scenes of all time

Steve McQueen’s dramatic fence-jump in the 1963 classic The Great Escape topped the list

• 15:37, 13 SEP 2018
• Updated 16:04, 13 SEP 2018

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Steve McQueen’s dramatic fence-jump in the 1963 classic The Great Escape has been named the greatest movie motorcycle scene ever.

The high-speed leap was made on a Triumph TR6 Trophy by stunt double Bud Ekins, after McQueen crashed attempting the stunt himself.

The scene was described by the panel as the 'quintessential motorbike stunt'.

Maverick’s bike scene in Top Gun, which sees Hollywood star Tom Cruise bombing around the airfield ahead of a mission, took second spot.

The chaotic animated sheep rescue in Wallace And Gromit: A close Shave came third.

A spokesperson for motorcycle insurer Lexham Insurance, which commissioned the study, said: “Nothing embodies the same level of chaotic cool as a well-choreographed bike stunt on-screen, and there have been some classic two-wheeled moments throughout the history of cinema.

“Steve McQueen’s fateful leap is not only the most iconic scene from The Great Escape, but has now been named the best appearance of a motorbike in any movie.”

The study also found two in five Brits think motorcycle stunts or chases enhance movies.

Thirty per cent have been to see a movie purely because of the stunts shown in the trailer.

And one in four gladly admitted they were drawn to a film based on the promise of a dangerous or spectacular bike stunts.

When it comes to the type of bike they want to see on screen the Harley Davidson considered the most ‘watchable’ motorcycle in film.

One in five said they would prefer to watch a sporty super-bike tearing up the tarmac in a blockbuster.

One in four of those surveyed in the Lexham Insurance study said they enjoy a motorbike stunt because they seem tougher for the stunt rider to pull off compared to other vehicular stunts.

And 23 per cent feel a motorcycle stunt helps to inject a scene with a sense of real danger.

On a more serious note, three in five believe bikes on screen give a poor representation of what it is like to ride and crash on a real motorbike.

Of those surveyed, 23 per cent currently own a motorbike or have owned one in the past, and a further 14 per cent would consider owning one in the future.

The spokesperson for Lexham Insurance added: “While an entertaining spectacle in film, it’s important to keep the realities of riding motorbikes in mind.

“Real life isn’t Hollywood, and it is important to observe road safety and resist mimicking the heroes and stunt riders on screen.”

TOP 20 BEST MOTORCYCLE SCENES OF ALL TIME

1. Steve McQueen's fence jump in The Great Escape, 1963 2. Tom Cruise riding around as fighter planes take off, Top Gun, 1986 3. The sheep rescue in Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave, 1995 4. The Los Angeles creek truck/motorbike chase in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991 5. Escaping the Germans in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989 6. James Bond's Saigon motorbike chase in Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997 7. If you want to be a bird,' Easy Rider, 1969 8. Chris Pratt's velociraptor ride in Jurassic World, 2015 9. The mods v rockers scene in Quadrophenia, 1979 10. Audrey Hepburn's Italian Vespa ride in Roman Holiday, 1953 11. James Bond's chase in Never Say Never Again, 1983 12. The 'Bat Pod' scene in The Dark Knight, 2008 13. The ride out to Brighton, Quadrophenia, 1979 14. Zed's Dead,' Pulp Fiction, 1994 15. Vampire bike chase, The Lost Boys, 1987 16. The motorcycle chase in Mission Impossible 2, 2000 17. John Rambo's police getaway, Rambo: First Blood, 1982 18. Motorcycle chase, Mad Max: Fury Road , 2015 19. The freeway chase, The Matrix Reloaded, 2003 20. Riding the Great Wall of China, Tomb Raider 2, 2003

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Entertainment, entertainment | cooler than cool there is no escaping the life, legacy and stardom of steve mcqueen..

DICK STROEBEL/AP

Actor Steve McQueen, left, and racer Carroll Shelby stand by McQueen's Ford-Cobra roadster on June 28, 1963, in Los Angeles.

Harold P. Matosian/AP

Actor Steve McQueen And wife Nellie McQueen arriving for the Hollywood premiere of "The Sand Pebbles" at Fox Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Dec. 28, 1966.

AFP via Getty Images

Actor Steve McQueen pictured during the 24 hours in Le Mans endurance race in 1970.

Toby Massey/AP

Porsche driver Jo Siffert, right, gives movie actor Steve McQueen advice on driving Porsches at the Sebring racecourse in Sebring, Fla. on March 20, 1970. Siffert, of Switzerland, set a new track record with one lap average speed of 121.244 mph driving a Porsche 917. McQueen will drive a Porsche 908 Spyder in the 12 hours of Sebring Saturday.

Actor Steve McQueen and his wife Neile pose with one of his Jaguar sports cars which have been adjusted for regular traffic driving on Sept. 12, 1960. He once used it for high-speed racing.

Dave Pickoff/AP

Actor Steve McQueen, left, and Natalie Wood get instructions from director Robert Mulligan, center, during location shooting of "Love with a Proper Stranger" in New York on March 22, 1963. Director of photography Milton Krasner, right, listens in. Paramount brought a film crew to New York to use Manhattan's lower east side tenement district as a background for part of the picture.

Director Don McDougall gets a point over while actor Steve McQueen takes time out for lunch while on location for a "Wanted - Dead or Alive" episode on Aug. 26, 1959.

Associated Press

Steve McQueen on June 6, 1969.

Michel Lipchitz/AP

Actor Steve McQueen at Le Mans in France on April 13, 1970.

Steve McQueen enjoys rehearsal of his escape scene in the film "The Great Escape," being filmed in Munich, Germany on Jan. 1, 1963. McQueen, who feels at home on a motorcycle, rode the dangerous course without the benefit of a stuntman or stand-in. Other stars featured in the film are James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson and James Coburn.

Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Getty Images

American actor Steve McQueen at the Le Mans trials in France on April 12, 1970. He has been banned from taking part in the race for insurance reasons.

Jimmy Sime/Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

American film actors Robert Wagner (left), Steve McQueen and English actress Shirley Anne Field talking to director Philip Leacock, right on the location set of the film "The War Lover" at Bovingdon Airport, Hertfordshire, on Oct. 31, 1961.

Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and actor Steve McQueen dance the watusi during a barbecue for the Young Citizens for Johnson organization in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Aug. 8, 1964. More than 1,000 persons attended.

Jimmy Sime/Central Press/Getty Images

From left to right, Steve McQueen, Shirley Ann Field and Robert Wagner at Bovingdon airfield, during the filming of Philip Leacock's "The War Lover" on Oct. 31, 1961. Behind them on the runway is a B-17 Flying Fortress, flown in from America to add authenticity to this World War II drama.

American film star Steve McQueen, left, arrives at the Tokyo, Japan District Court Monday morning, April 24, 1978, to testify in a $360 million damage suit filed by McQueen against four Japanese firms for using his still pictures without his permission.

Val Mazzenga / Chicago Tribune

A stunt car drives off the parking garage at Marina City Towers during the filming of "Hunter," starring Steve McQueen on Sept. 21, 1979, in Chicago. The car crashed into the Chicago River below.

Picture taken in April 1970 shows actor Steve McQueen during The LeMans 24 hour race.

American actor Steve McQueen, right, talks with a movie technician on June 23, 1970, as he prepares to drive a Porsche 917 car in a scene of the film "The 24 Hours of Le Mans," now being made by the American director John Sturges on the Le Mans track.

Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

American actor Steve McQueen (1930 - 1980) on the set of "Nevada Smith," in which he played the title role, circa 1966.

Bob Aylott/Keystone/Getty Images

U.S. film actor Steve McQueen (1930 - 1980) pictured in London in 1969.

Steve McQueen is pictured with new wife Barbara Minty on March 13, 1980, who has appeared in several TV commercials.

Actors spend much of their public lives speaking words written for them by others. Through those words, combined with some ever-mysterious physical alchemy, some of these actors become stars. A few attain immortality.

Think “Bond … James Bond.”

Think the late Sean Connery .

Still, Connery seems unlikely to attain the level of post-death attention, money-generating notoriety or “immortality” that has come to a few others. Think James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and the subject of a new book, “Steve McQueen: In His Own Words” (Dalton Watson Fine Books).

It is a lavish book that charts McQueen’s 50-year life in minute detail. It is the ultimate family album, a fanzine on steroids that will surely delight not only the most ardent fans of the man known as the “King of Cool” but also intrigue those with only a passing familiarity with him. Never a fan of tooting his own horn, I have to think that if McQueen were still alive he would be flabbergasted and perhaps disgusted by this sort of homage, but he might also be pleased that over 500 pages, he remains elusive.

You would have to be a serious McQueen fan to know that he was born in Indiana, a small town named Beech Grove near Indianapolis on March 24, 1930, and had a rough-and-tumble childhood. His parents were alcoholics and moving from home to home, he found in California a path to delinquency and petty theft. He wound up going semi-straight at a California rehabilitation institution called the Boys Republic , a place to which he would return for inspirational talks after becoming a star.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps and that gave his life some structure. Later acting classes in New York gave him a career.

It started somewhat modestly (“The Blob”) but he went on to starring roles in such hits as “Bullitt,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Great Escape,” TV’s “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “The Getaway,” “Papillon,” “The Towering Inferno,” “The Sand Pebbles” and a couple of dozen more. He was, in the 1960s and into the 1970s , as big a star as there was (and most highly paid in 1974), standing on equal box-office footing with such contemporaries as Paul Newman.

And that, even though he turned down starring roles in such blockbusters as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Apocalypse Now,” choosing instead to play a cowboy in “Tom Horn” and a contemporary bounty hunter in “The Hunter,” which was partly set in Chicago .

This book is the work of Marshall Terrill and there is no more energetic keeper of the flame than he, having written six — count ’em — previous books about the actor. He tells of McQueen’s unsuccessful late-in-life attempts to write his own book.

What we have here is McQueen at a slight distance. We meet his three wives (actress Ali MacGraw the most famous and tempestuous), explore his passion for and skill with motorcycles and race cars, see him at parties and galas and at home. We, of course, revisit his films, with some interesting behind-the-scenes movie set photos. All the photo captions are informative.

McQueen was a private guy. In the late 1970s he was once approached in person by Tribune film critic Gene Siskel , who had initially been rebuffed in his attempts to interview the actor.

Siskel asked, “Do you think there’s a chance we could do an interview in the future? Should I call your press agent?”

McQueen said, “Maybe. Look, I’m sorry but I just don’t do interviews. I haven’t given one in seven years. Yes, I have a press agent, but his job is to turn down interviews.”

There is no doubt that this reluctance to talk about himself (especially to writers, he said once, “I just can’t figure writers”) helped to burnish his star. It seems refreshing in this brand-fashioning, what-I-ate-for-breakfast internet age, doesn’t it? Mystery fascinates but does not explain.

Terrill touches on this in the book’s introduction, writing, “McQueen had a reputation as a man of few words … But the actor had plenty to say in real life … (and) spoke frankly and insightfully on many subjects, including fame, cinema, money, sex, feminism, racing, popular culture, politics and the environment.”

He also writes of the actor’s “unique worldview that showcased his brilliant mind, curiosity and homespun wisdom.”

McQueen’s words in the book come from a variety of sources and allow us to speculate about what might have made him tick. Feel free to play do-it-yourself analyst with:

“I was an old man by the time I was 17.”

“Life is a scam.”

“When a horse learns to buy me a Martini, I’ll learn to like a horse.”

“I don’t know what makes me tick and I don’t want to know.”

“With strangers I can’t breathe.”

Those are a few of the 450-some quotations peppering the book’s page. There are more than 500 photos, some redundant (another motorcycle?!) but many interesting as are some archival materials. A few are sad, such as those of the actor’s final year, marked by his desperate seeking of all sorts of suspect “cures” for his cancer.

He died on Nov. 7, 1980, and since then millions of words have been written in attempts to explain the man. Siskel noted at the same time of his death, “It has been said that the greatest male movie stars are both boyish and virile at the same time (thus giving us more ways to relate to them) and McQueen fit that description. … One could always see the mischievous little boy inside his tough guy.”

Even I chimed in , reviewing a pretty good 2014 documentary, “I Am Steve McQueen.”

McQueen continues to “live” in his films. And he is “alive” in commercials for, among many items, sunglasses, booze, watches, jackets, T-shirts, jeans, Zippo lighters, motorcycles and cars, such as the Ford Mustang.

Some old stars never fade away. The London Review of Books just offered a review of two new books about Cary Grant and there are a few Sean Connery biographies in the works. No doubt someone is working on a book about Clint Eastwood because, ghoulish as it might be, Eastwood, like Connery and McQueen, was also born in 1930 and became (need I say?) a cinematic colossus and (happy to report) is still at it.

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"These Stories Needed to Be Told": Steve McQueen and the Golden Age of Resistance

Rainbow Milk author Paul Mendez sits down with the Academy Award-winning film-maker and artist to discuss his new BBC series, Small Axe

On a stifling evening in August, Steve McQueen arrives for dinner at a brasserie in Amsterdam’s Museum Quarter looking perfectly cool and in control. He offers me his elbow— the Covid-friendly way of giving dap — before shrugging off his enormous rucksack and shuffling onto the cushioned bench opposite me at our outside table. He’s wearing a purple T-shirt and grey basketball shorts.

“Hi, I’m Steve. How are you? Sorry I’m late.”

If I’m star-struck, and I am, then I have good reason. This is Steve McQueen, a figure who seems to deal solely in landmarks. In 1999, he won the Turner Prize, the most prestigious award a British artist can receive, for an ICA exhibition harking back to silent Hollywood. While continuing to make artworks, he seamlessly turned his attention to feature films, winning the 2008 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’Or for Hunger , a spare, masterful debut about the 1981 Northern Irish Republican hunger strikes. His ascent to the top was complete when he won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year in 2014 — the first Black director or producer to do so — for 12 Years a Slave , based on the harrowing real experiences of Solomon Northup, a free African-American man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1840s Louisiana. This year, the Tate Modern has displayed a retrospective of his work made post-Turner Prize, and an immensely powerful and ambitious photographic portrait series, of tens of thousands of London’s school children, is on display at Tate Britain until January. He was awarded the OBE and CBE before being knighted at the start of this year, and has proved himself — in his unparalleled 30-year career — to be one of the most vital, original, uncompromising, inspirational, challenging and brilliant creative voices of our time. No wonder my palms are sweaty.

He is immediately jovial and chatty, asking about my flight, where I’m staying, how things are in London (he’s lived in Amsterdam for 20 years with his partner, the Dutch cultural critic Bianca Stigter; they have two children). But we have more pressing things to talk about. A new Steve McQueen film project is always an important moment, but on this occasion, in both scope and scale, it is monumental.

Small Axe , commissioned by the BBC, is not one film, but an anthology of five. The title comes from the so-named 1973 Bob Marley and The Wailers’ track (“So if you are the big tree / We are the small axe / Ready to cut you down”) and all five films are studies of radical Black British life between the late Sixties and early Eighties. Sometimes the radicalism is overtly political, but sometimes it is small acts (“small axe”, remember) of bravery and defiance against inherently and endemically racist systems and institutions.

“It’s not just the big things, it’s the small ones,” McQueen says. “Everyone coming together makes something happen. Like throwing a pebble into a river. Huge reverberations.”

Three of the films concern key political, cultural and societal events that affected the West Indian communities in Britain in the late 20th century. 'Mangrove' is about a tiny restaurant in Notting Hill that became a celebrated focal point for the West Indian community in the Seventies, before becoming the focus of unwarranted police attention and ultimately, the subject of one of the most important court cases in British legal history. Coming-of-age love story 'Lovers Rock' follows a 15-year-old girl as she sneaks out of her family home to attend a blues party in west London. 'Education' is about a boy who is abruptly placed in a school for the “educationally sub-normal”, prompting his mother to investigate the deep-seated cultural bias against Afro-Caribbean children in Britain, and to work tirelessly for a solution.

Two of the films are inspired more directly by real-life individuals. 'Alex Wheatle' is based on the experiences of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning author, who spent his early life in the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home in south London and, later, a spell in prison, where he had a transformative reconnection with his Afro-Caribbean heritage. 'Red, White and Blue' is about Leroy Logan, played by John Boyega, a British police officer in the Eighties whose choice of career put him at odds with his Jamaican father, and led them both on devastating journeys of discovery.

The original plan had been for six hour-long TV dramas, but once McQueen got started he realised his subjects deserved more. “These to me were stories that needed to be told. Stories that shaped the landscape of Britain. That’s how big these stories were. The fire was in me to tell them, and as a film-maker, as an artist, without that fuel called passion, at least for me, there’s no reason to do anything.”

McQueen describes the period covered by Small Axe as “a golden age of resistance”. “All Saints Road [in Notting Hill] was the frontline. When things were being printed in the papers, I remember walking to school with a bit of fear, because everyone, everything around us, was against us, and now, 40 years later, everyone understands [that the march that led to the trial dramatised in 'Mangrove'] was an uprising, and that it wasn’t a riot. People now understand that we do not have the best police force in the world. It took a while, a number of deaths, sacrifices, people dying, thinking we would never get to this place, but we’re here.”

Small Axe comes after several years of feverish productivity for McQueen. When our drinks arrive, we toast the anthology’s imminent release, and he congratulates me on the recent publication of my novel, Rainbow Milk . “I can actually drink this without feeling guilty,” he says, taking a first sip of bubbles. “Two Black people having fun! Haha! What have we done to deserve this?”

Two of the films in Small Axe — 'Education' and 'Lovers Rock'— are based, “to an extent”, on events from McQueen’s own past. In 'Education', Kingsley, an intelligent eight-year-old boy of Afro-Caribbean heritage, is ejected from the mainstream system after failing discriminatory “IQ tests”. The Grenadian revolutionary Bernard Coard’s 1971 pamphlet, 'How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System: the Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain', made it clear that the children of Afro-Caribbean immigrants were being disproportionately targeted for this treatment. As part of the resistance, the National Association of Black Supplementary Schools — which continues to this day, run by community leaders, to help Black children of all abilities with their schoolwork as well as teach them about their heritage — was initiated.

McQueen, who was born in west London in 1969 to Grenadian parents, lived with undiagnosed dyslexia at school, and remembers “sitting at the front of the class with a lazy eye and a patch over it, unable to see the chalk board at all.” It meant, he says, that he “walked into racial discrimination. They assumed I wasn’t capable academically. When I went back to my old school to hand out awards, the headmaster told me that back when I was there the school was institutionally racist. They admitted it, but I didn’t need their confirmation. People were excluded, they were ostracised, graded down, not given a chance. Because of who they were. That’s where it started. It started at school. It was not a happy experience. And, unfortunately, that narrative continues for a lot of Black people. It’s horrific to be confronted with institutional racism from day one.”

He himself was a beneficiary of supplementary schools in Acton and Hammersmith (reluctantly, he admits, because it meant he had to miss Football Focus on Saturday mornings), and he found other ways to get what he needed from his education. “I had such a passion for art, and in a way it made me feel how I could transcend and transform — and I had to put all my faith in that — but I could always draw. I was curious.” He ended up studying fine art at Goldsmiths College where he found his principal medium, film.

In Paris in 2007, I visited the Pompidou, where I was irresistibly drawn to a black-and-white silent film of a Black man, standing still and expressionless, while the clapboard façade of the house behind him collapsed repeatedly, from different angles, over his head. Each time, I expected him to be crushed; as a Black man watching, I expected to be, but he was standing exactly where the empty door frame would fall, so he was saved, perpetually, even while the façade slammed almost audibly onto the ground with a puff of dust. How many chances would we get before we were crushed anyway?

This was McQueen’s film Deadpan (Pince Sans Rire) 1997 , one of his major early works, and formerly part of the show at London’s ICA for which he was awarded the Turner Prize. Since then, his films have often featured Black men in hostile environments: Western Deep 2002 — which was exhibited at his recent Tate Modern show — observes a group of men as they descend two miles underground into one of the world’s deepest goldmines, just outside Johannesburg, where temperatures can reach over 60°C. The men are mostly immigrant labourers from neighbouring African countries, whose livelihoods depend on them passing gruelling physical tests in controlled conditions, stepping up and down from a slippery concrete slab while lights and buzzers go off around them and thermometers are shoved in their mouths. In almost all of McQueen’s work, someone’s endurance is being tested: that of the subject, as in Western Deep , the audience, as in Deadpan , or both, as in 12 Years a Slave .

Which is one of the reasons I can’t wait to ask him about 'Lovers Rock', the second of the loosely personal films from Small Axe . Set at a blues party in west London circa 1979, we watch as a sound system moves its equipment into a West Indian house, and young people pay a nominal fee to enter for the night.

“Those blues parties were there because people couldn’t get into clubs,” says McQueen. “There was a quota. So people made their own sound systems and had a blues. They took the furniture out of the house to make the club. It was beautiful. Wonderful.”

Lovers Rock was co-written with the British novelist Courttia Newland, whose “brother used to hold blues in their house, so Courttia, physically, as a child — he’s younger than me — used to be there.” McQueen’s inspiration was also familial and, to those of us of Afro-Caribbean heritage, familiar. Everything you look at is unshowily on-point: the dresses young women wear; their natural up-dos and subtle make-up; the condensation running down the textured wall-paper; the itchy, cold nylon bedspreads all Afro-Caribbean parents or grandparents had. “I just wanted to make a film about my aunt,” McQueen says, innocently. “My uncle used to leave the back door open for my aunt to go to the blues. She’d come back the next morning and have to go to church.”

“It’s freedom,” he says, of the teenage and twenty something second-generation children depicted in the film. There are balanced shades of fervour and restraint in his voice. “It’s their church, where they can be totally and absolutely themselves and understood, appreciated, loved.” In conflating a blues with a church service, he reminds me of James Baldwin, who, in his final novel, Just Above My Head — which McQueen named a 1996 self-portrait after — wrote that there are two types of Black music: “Saturday night and Sunday morning”.

One of my favourite scenes in 'Lovers Rock' features the anthemic “Silly Games”, a UK Number Two hit for Janet Kay in July 1979. We are in the room for the whole song, from start to finish, watching hands interlock, hips grind, bums wind, then when the music stops, the crowd sings the whole song again in full, a cappella. Where once we were forced to watch the unforgettable, dreadful whipping of Lupita Nyong’o’s Patsey or the failed lynching of Chiwetel Ej-iofor’s Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave — “I wanted people to see the evidence of these lynchings, for people to see how other slaves had to normalise terror in order to survive, what that does to the psyche, and what it does to generations and generations of people after the fact,” he says— now we are allowed to indulge our eyes in pure elation.

The beauty of McQueen’s film-making is in its atypical perspective and clarity of vision; the tension you feel waiting for something awful to happen — the inevitable deterioration of Bobby Sands, played by Michael Fassbender, in Hunger (2008), or the escalating torment of a sex addict, Fassbender again, in Shame (2011) — heightens the experience. After the year Black people in the UK and US in particular have had, with socio-economic and socio-environmental inequalities demonstrated in real time by disproportionate Covid-19 death rates, and with the public lynching of George Floyd imprinted on our retinas forever, this vision of blackness immersed in joy, rather than anger, in 'Lovers Rock', is a salve.

“Joy! Absolutely,” agrees McQueen. “If anything, I think that was the experience. Yes, trials and tribulations. But at the end of the day we have to thrive to survive. It’s always been about joy.”

S mall Axe was filmed last year and cannot be said to have predicted, or have been made in response to, the surge in support for Black Lives Matter in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others. These events have not affected his work; McQueen says he has “always been on the same track”. Moreover, the new films are specifically about British, Afro-Caribbean radicals responding to persecution here. Our heroes, often regular working-class people going about their days trying to survive and raise their families, have been less eulogised and celebrated than their American counterparts, which is what makes these films so important and timely. I ask why it has taken so long for the story to be told; there is a sad, almost mournful truth to McQueen’s response.

Already, Small Axe is making its presence felt in critical circles. 'Lovers Rock' opened the 58th New York Film Festival in September, while 'Mangrove' will receive its European premiere when it opens the London Film Festival in October. At the time of writing, McQueen was still editing 'Alex Wheatle' and 'Red, White and Blue', but the three films I was able to watch could not have felt more resonant with the times in which we live now. As far as societal progress should be judged, it is damning.

“These stories are as relevant now as they were then,” says McQueen. “It’s only now that people are waking up to the fact that there’s been injustices against Black people for decades in this country, and centuries elsewhere. It took a pandemic. It took a brutal killing. It took millions marching. For people to think, ‘Possibly I should think in a different way.’ And only possibly, it’s not actually done yet. Millions of people on the street before change can even be considered, before people can think that even possibly something could be wrong! The world is not a healthy place. If you really want change, if you are really serious about it then, hey, it starts from the beginning. Education.”

Does he feel any optimism that change can be realised?

“I feel hope because young people now are willing to speak out. And it’s been very moving. John Boyega speaking out in Hyde Park. It’s very healthy, very cathartic. And I’d add to that the #MeToo movement as well. Can this moment be capitalised on? It’s an interesting moment, but we’ll see what happens.”

At some point, it got dark, though the heat and humidity remain. We have finished our meals and are the only diners left in the garden. The waitress has started putting up chairs and taking in cushions. We ask for the bill but are told there is no rush. So we don’t. Perhaps, after decades in which he has produced, with striking urgency, work that has challenged, educated, disturbed and mesmerised, in which he has filled galleries and screens with stories and histories long overdue, Steve McQueen is, just for a moment, happy to take his time.

Small Axe starts on BBC One this November

Steve McQueen is appearing at Esquire Townhouse 2020. Check out the full line-up and find out how to watch the talks here .

This article is taken from the November/December issue of Esquire, available now

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All 9 Steve McQueen Movies Ranked From Worst To Best

What is the next McQueen project and when is it coming out? Truly one of the most important questions concerning film today. He may not get as much hype as Fincher, Joon-Ho, Gerwig, and other contemporaries but McQueen is one of the most formidable auteurs working today.

He is a man synonymous with quality. When he has something in the works, there is a high chance it will be good. And considering Small Axe came out in one year, there really has not been a McQueen project that has been outright bad yet. This is a guy who has been pumping out quality for fourteen years. And these are his projects, ranked.

9. Alex Wheatle (2020)

Alex Wheatle still has some damn good directing moments from McQueen and is energized by its soundtrack, but God is it McQueen playing by the books. Down to the orphanage cruelty, so much of Alex Wheatle is tired and textbook.

It’s a real-life story that, with the right mind, could have been a genuine best-of-the-year contender. And maybe McQueen is that mind, but the roughly hour runtime is a gross disservice to the character development of Wheatle himself. The film is a sprint through his most defining moments but said moments are rendered in such a plain way that not a second of this feels like remarkable filmmaking.

8. Red, White, and Blue (2020)

McQueen is at his worst when he feels like other filmmakers. When Red, White, and Blue’s dialogue isn’t ruined by being overly dewy-eyed it’s boringly snappy. Almost always, it feels either like the type of miscalculated sappy Biopic or the miscalculated biopic trying way too hard to break from the mold. Boyega is a delight here and the characters interactions with his father occasionally feel unique enough to be worthwhile but Red, White, and Blue is mostly McQueen playing it safe.

7. Education (2020)

Education is not a knockout conclusion to Small Axe but it’s hard not to see value in it. First off, it’s a moving dedication to the Black women in 1970s Britain who relentlessly fought for the education of their children. Secondly, Kingsley is such a sympathetic character that one cannot help but be invested in his aspirations. It’s the timeless anguish of a kid having big dreams and then facing the possibility they may never be realized.

Like the two previous Small Axe entries, it’s a character study through and through. But Education has the advantage of being consistent in dialogue quality the whole way through and being inspired enough to not come off as a film not made by McQueen. Even without some of his signature tendencies, Education works quite well despite not having a single quality likely to blow your socks off.

6. Shame (2011)

Shame is a divisive movie. If you really love it, you likely find it to be an oppressive masterwork. Never has New York been so shallow and beautiful at the same time. Never has an infatuation with sex been handled with such coldness yet empathy at the same time. If you really don’t like it, then you’re likely to have a hard time with the subject matter, Carey Mulligan’s performance, and McQueen feeling even more purposefully detached from his characters than usual.

Shame ends up on the lower half of the list but it’s still a great movie. McQueen, as per usual, directs a static long take like nobody’s business and throws in practical classes in how to direct a dialogue-less scene for free. The train scene is an arguable best from him. The cinematography is a delight to look at especially with that selective color palette, and Fassbender steals the show once again. At the same time, Shame is not always profound as it thinks it is. Some of the dialogue either does not ring true or comes out awkward, with Mulligan having some rough patches of delivery here and there.

The film also does not nail the transition from Brandon’s torturous lustful cycle and the greater look at the people in his life. It is not as bad as its most ardent haters say it is, but Shame is McQueen at a less pristine, less dynamic level. But that also says a lot about the director that it stands so tall over so many other movies being made today.

8 Replies to “All 9 Steve McQueen Movies Ranked From Worst To Best”

Shit…. ‘Shame’ should be higher or even given the first place, great movie with lot of emotions and greatest acting by fassy.

Agreed. It’s not even close for me.

Shame has to be in the top 3, not lower than that. Fassbender best performance of his career so far. I’ve seen that movie many times

It’s a shame Shame is that low

Another lame list of a director’s films arranged to the writer’s liking; then petty comments about “this film should be higher” and so forth ensue. All the fellas want the one with Fassbinder’s “big part” on top.

Yes people should definitely be more “polite” when expressing their opinions, but what’s wrong with the films being arranged to the writer’s liking? How else should they be arranged? It’s a subjective medium, there’s no “correct” order.

Shame was the best one of all

Shame is an undeniable masterpiece. Sloting it at 6 is….shameful

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The Great Escape: Uncovering the True Story Behind the Most Iconic Motorcycle Stunt in Film History

April 13, 2023 By Alen Schnell

In the realm of motorcycle cinema, one iconic scene stands above the rest, thrilling audiences and inspiring generations of riders and moviegoers alike. The Great Escape , a 1963 classic war film, features a legendary motorcycle stunt that embodies freedom, adventure, and defiance, leaving an enduring mark on the history of motorcycle movies .

This unforgettable moment, showcasing the incomparable Steve McQueen has become synonymous with the art of motorcycle stunts and adventures. The scene tells a story of courage and skill that continues to fascinate our imagination, even decades after its premiere on the silver screen.

Join us as we uncover the true story behind this exhilarating scene, revealing the secrets of its creation, the unsung hero who made it possible, and the lasting impact it has had on the worlds of motorcycles and cinema. Prepare for a remarkable journey through motorcycle film history and the spirit of motorcycle adventure that defined a generation.

The Making of the Iconic Scene

Few moments in motorcycle cinema have captured the hearts and imaginations of generations like the iconic motorcycle stunt in The Great Escape . Here, we delve into the story behind the making of this legendary scene.

Steve McQueen’s Passion for Motorcycles

A true motorcycle celebrity , Steve McQueen was a skilled and passionate rider who often raced off-road and was a proud owner of an extensive collection of bikes. His love for motorcycles permeated his life and work, ultimately finding its way into his role as Captain Virgil Hilts in The Great Escape .

McQueen’s dedication to authenticity and his desire to portray the sense of freedom and adventure that riding a motorcycle represented was instrumental in the creation of the film’s iconic scene.

The Inspiration for the Scene

The idea for the legendary motorcycle chase in The Great Escape was reportedly inspired by McQueen himself, who wanted to showcase his riding abilities and give the film an unforgettable action sequence.

Drawing on his personal experiences and the spirit of motorcycle adventures, McQueen and the film’s director, John Sturges, crafted a scene that would encapsulate the essence of the character’s daring escape attempt while also creating a thrilling cinematic experience for the audience.

The Process of Filming the Stunt

The execution of the iconic motorcycle jump proved to be a complex and challenging process, requiring meticulous planning, preparation, and skill. With the assistance of stunt coordinator Bud Ekins, McQueen, and the crew painstakingly devised and rehearsed the stunt, which involved jumping a barbed wire fence on a Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle.

Although McQueen was more than capable of performing the jump himself, the film’s insurance company ultimately insisted on using Ekins as a stunt double for the most dangerous parts of the scene.

Despite the challenges and constraints, the hard work and dedication of McQueen, Ekins, and the entire crew paid off. The resulting scene became an instant classic, capturing the spirit of adventure, freedom, and defiance that has come to define the legacy of The Great Escape and the golden age of motorcycle cinema.

The Stuntman Behind the Scene

While Steve McQueen’s passion for motorcycles and his contribution to the creation of the iconic scene cannot be understated, it was another talented individual who actually performed the daring jump: Bud Ekins.

Introduction to Bud Ekins, the Stuntman Who Performed the Jump

Bud Ekins was an accomplished motorcyclist, stuntman, and off-road racer who gained notoriety for his incredible skills on two wheels. It was his expertise and fearlessness that made him the perfect choice to execute the perilous motorcycle jump in The Great Escape .

Ekins’ Background and Expertise in Motorcycling

Born in Hollywood, California , Ekins grew up with a passion for motorcycles and quickly made a name for himself on the racing circuit. By the time he was in his 20s, he had already garnered numerous racing titles and was regarded as one of the top off-road racers in the United States.

His expertise extended beyond racing, as Ekins also became an accomplished motorcycle mechanic and dealer , opening his own motorcycle shop in Los Angeles. It was this combination of mechanical knowledge, racing acumen, and a natural talent for riding that made him an invaluable asset to the film industry as a stuntman.

Relationship Between Ekins and McQueen

The relationship between Bud Ekins and Steve McQueen went beyond their collaboration on The Great Escape . The two men were close friends and shared a deep love for motorcycles and racing. McQueen often turned to Ekins for advice on motorcycle purchases, and the pair even competed together in off-road races, such as the International Six Days Trial.

This bond and mutual respect between Ekins and McQueen allowed for a seamless collaboration during the filming of the iconic motorcycle scene in The Great Escape . Their shared passion for motorcycling and commitment to authenticity played a crucial role in making the scene a timeless symbol of adventure and freedom in motorcycle cinema.

The Motorcycle Used in the Stunt

The exhilarating motorcycle jump in The Great Escape was performed using a specific motorcycle, chosen for its reliability and performance. Let’s delve into the details of this iconic machine and the modifications made to it for the stunt.

The Triumph TR6 Trophy Used in the Film

The motorcycle used for the daring stunt was a Triumph TR6 Trophy, a British-made bike known for its off-road capabilities and rugged design.

The TR6 Trophy was a popular choice among adventure-seeking motorcyclists of the era and was lauded for its performance both on and off the pavement. Its powerful 650cc engine and reliable construction made it the ideal choice for the demanding stunts in The Great Escape .

The Legacy of the Motorcycle

The Triumph TR6 Trophy’s role in The Great Escape has cemented its place in motorcycle history, and the bike remains a beloved symbol of adventure and freedom among enthusiasts. The film’s popularity has also contributed to the enduring appeal of the Triumph brand, as the TR6 Trophy’s success on the big screen showcased the bike’s versatility and performance capabilities.

Today, the motorcycle is considered a classic and is highly sought after by collectors and fans of the film alike.

The Impact of the Stunt on Motorcycle and Film Culture

The legendary motorcycle jump in The Great Escape not only captivated audiences in its time but also left an indelible mark on the motorcycle and film culture. This section will explore the influence of this iconic stunt on future film productions, its lasting legacy in popular culture, and its continued admiration for its significance in motorcycle history .

Influence on Future Motorcycle Stunts in Films

The daring stunt performed in The Great Escape set the bar high for motorcycle stunts in cinema. It demonstrated the thrilling potential of motorcycles on the big screen and inspired filmmakers to push the boundaries of what could be achieved.

As a result, countless films have since featured adrenaline-pumping motorcycle stunts, from high-speed chases to breathtaking jumps. The stunt in The Great Escape undoubtedly paved the way for these heart-stopping moments and has become a benchmark for motorcycle stunts.

The Lasting Legacy of the Scene in Popular Culture

The iconic motorcycle jump in The Great Escape has transcended the film itself and become a symbol of adventure, freedom, and rebellion in popular culture . It has been referenced and parodied in numerous films, television shows, and advertisements, illustrating its enduring appeal and influence.

The scene has also become synonymous with Steve McQueen, further solidifying his status as a Hollywood legend and a symbol of cool.

The Continued Admiration for the Stunt and Its Significance in Motorcycle History

Decades after its release, the motorcycle stunt in The Great Escape continues to be admired and celebrated by both film and motorcycle enthusiasts. Its significance in motorcycle history is undeniable, as it showcased the incredible capabilities of these machines and sparked a fascination with motorcycle adventures.

The stunt also demonstrated the importance of skill, courage, and creativity in pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved on two wheels, inspiring countless riders to embark on their own thrilling journeys.

A Timeless Leap: The Enduring Allure of a Legendary Stunt

In conclusion, the motorcycle stunt in The Great Escape remains an unparalleled cinematic achievement that has captivated audiences for generations.

This daring leap not only showcased the power and grace of motorcycles but also demonstrated the indomitable spirit of those who push the limits of what is possible on two wheels.

Recap of the Importance of the Motorcycle Stunt in The Great Escape

The stunt’s importance in motorcycle and film history cannot be overstated. Steve McQueen’s passion for motorcycles, Bud Ekins’ skill as a stuntman, and the specially modified Triumph TR6 Trophy all came together in a perfect storm to create a moment that would forever change the landscape of action films and motorcycle stunts.

The jump remains an iconic symbol of freedom, rebellion, and adventure, capturing the essence of what it means to escape the confines of ordinary life and soar into the unknown.

The Lasting Impact of the Scene on Motorcycle and Film Culture

The motorcycle stunt in The Great Escape has had a lasting impact on motorcycle and film culture, inspiring countless riders, filmmakers, and authors to push the boundaries of their respective crafts.

Its influence can still be seen in the daring motorcycle stunts that continue to thrill audiences in modern films, in the enduring fascination with motorcycle adventures, and even in motorcycle history books .

The scene has also left its mark on the world of exhaust notes , as the distinct sound of the Triumph TR6 Trophy roaring to life continues to evoke feelings of excitement and freedom. As we look back on this legendary scene, it serves as a powerful reminder of the potential for triumph over adversity, the importance of pursuing one’s passions, and the enduring allure of the open road.

About Alen Schnell

Writer, Editor, and Motorcycle Enthusiast here at Biker.Report. Follow me on twitter or facebook .

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Nasty On-Set Feuds That Were Kept Quiet For Years

There's always been a public interest in behind-the-scenes showbiz feuds. There's something exciting about two actors fighting behind the scenes. It's especially interesting when that animosity supposedly leaks into the finished product. Sure, plenty of backstage beef is cooked up by rumors, lies, and hyperbole, but where there's smoke, there's often fire. The latter is what we're here to discuss. 

While studios, production companies, and agents often try to keep a lid on bad blood between stars, the dirty truth tends to reveal itself sooner or later. In this case: much, much later. Were the ladies of Sex and the City  and The Golden Girls besties when the cameras weren't rolling? Find how who socked Tom Cruise in the face, who had a nasty nickname for Marilyn Monroe, and which Star Wars stars wanted to stay far far away from each other. These nasty on-set feuds were kept quiet for years, but we're about to spill the tea.

Betty White and Bea Arthur prove that silence is golden

It's easy to watch The Golden Girls and buy into the on-screen relationships. The stars look like they're having a blast and, to hear them tell it, they really were. Well, for the most part. When the show ended in 1992, largely because Bea Arthur wanted out , the talk about off-camera drama picked up. Most whispers spoke of a rift between Arthur and Betty White, but nothing was confirmed for years. Then, in 2007, Rue McClanahan dished the dirt in her memoir, My First Five Husbands...And the Ones Who Got Away .

According to McClanahan, Arthur was bothered when White won the first Emmy for The Golden Girls in 1986 and called White some unsavory names. In 2011, two years after Arthur passed away, White finally opened up about the situation. Arthur "was not that fond of me," White said (via the  Village Voice ). "...She found me a pain in the neck sometimes. It was my positive attitude — and that made Bea mad sometimes. Sometimes if I was happy, she'd be furious!"

Arthur's son, Matthew Saks, tried to downplay the feud between the two women, but he agreed that Arthur wasn't White's biggest fan. Speaking with Closer Weekly , Saks said, "My mom unknowingly carried the attitude that it was fun to have somebody to be angry at. ... It was almost like Betty became her nemesis, someone she could always roll her eyes about at work."

Dustin Hoffman vs. Meryl Streep on Kramer vs. Kramer

Despite Meryl Streep's Emmy win and her Tony and Academy Award nominations, when she was cast in 1979's Kramer vs. Kramer , she was seen as an inexperienced rookie next to Dustin Hoffman. On camera, Hoffman and Streep shared undeniable chemistry, evidenced by their Academy Award wins for their respective roles. Off-camera, however, the two actors went about their business very differently. We just didn't know about until years later.

In 2016, Michael Schulman's unauthorized Streep biography and subsequent Vanity Fair piece included shocking claims about Hoffman's treatment of the beloved actress. According to Schulman, Hoffman, a known-method actor, used some shady tactics to draw a more emotional performance from his co-star, including slapping her across the face. Streep addressed the alleged slap in a 2018 interview with  The New York Times . "This was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me," she said. "And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping."

This wasn't the only unsolicited "help" Hoffman supposedly gave Streep. According to Schulman's interview with producer Richard Fischoff, Hoffman also mocked the recent death of Streep's partner, John Cazale, to incite her. "He was goading her and provoking her," Fischoff said. "[Hoffman was] using stuff that he knew about her personal life and about John to get the response that he thought she should be giving in the performance."

A rocky road for Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino

Few people noticed any tension between Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino before 2018. They seemed a perfect match while working together on Pulp Fiction  and the  Kill Bill films. In a 2014  Rolling Stone interview, Tarantino called Thurman his "muse" and no one batted an eye. No one, except maybe Thurman. 

"I don't think I did any musing," she said in that Rolling Stone interview. "I think I listened to a lot of scenes and gave Quentin my opinions and killed myself trying to help him make the movie great." Years later, in February 2018, those veiled comments came into focus. In an interview with  The New York Times , Thurman described (and posted footage of) a car accident she experienced in 2002 while filming a scene for the saga. Driving a reportedly unsafe vehicle, Thurman was injured in the crash. It took Thurman 15 years to get the footage because the incident was allegedly covered up.

That supposed cover-up took a toll on Tarantino's relationship with his muse. "It affected me and Uma for the next two to three years ... a trust was broken," he told  Deadline . "She blamed me for the crash and she had a right to blame me for the crash. I didn't mean to do it. I talked her into getting in the car, I assured her the road was safe. And it wasn't."

Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn battle over a guy

When Twin Peaks: The Return came and went in 2017 without Lara Flynn Boyle making an appearance, the long-rumored tensions between the actress and some of the cast and crew seemed all but confirmed. While Boyle remained quiet about the alleged conflict on the set of Twin Peaks in the early '90s, Sherilyn Fenn, the actress who played Audrey Horne, started talking. 

In an interview with The A.V. Club , Fenn claimed Audrey and agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) were supposed to get together on the show, but that story arc was canceled "because people got mad and jealous." Apparently, the jealous one was Boyle. "What happened was that Lara was dating Kyle, and she was mad that my character was getting more attention," Fenn said. "So then Kyle started saying that his character shouldn't be with my character because it doesn't look good, 'cause I'm too young." Showrunners supposedly cast new love interests for both Fenn and MacLachlan to keep the peace — a move that angered Fenn. In the "Twin Peaks Unwrapped" podcast, Fenn blamed Boyle for ruining "an astonishing thing."

The magnificent feud between Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen

During filming of  The Magnificent Seven , a number of reports surfaced about a feud on the set between Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. Brynner vehemently denied any bad blood. "I never feud with actors. I feud with studios," he said (via  Michelangelo Capua's biography about Brynner ). Brynner supposedly ordered McQueen to follow suit, thus keeping their power feud under wraps for years.

According to the book, Brynner was already an established star in 1960, and he apparently utilized some creative tactics to assert his dominance over McQueen, such as building mounds of dirt on his marks to make him appear taller than the rising star. Word is that McQueen would kick at these mounds whenever he passed by, thus gradually bringing Brynner back down to size. 

McQueen allegedly tried to even the playing field in other ways too. When he realized he had very few lines in the original script, he reportedly insisted director John Sturges give him more. McQueen supposedly worked to draw more attention to his character every chance he got. Even when standing in the background, McQueen would flip a coin, play with his hat — anything to allegedly upstage Brynner.

McQueen saw it differently. "When you work in a scene with Yul," he said , "you're supposed to stand perfectly still 10 feet away. Well, I don't work that way."

Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker wanted to stay far far away

Many Star Wars fans have dreamed that Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker, the men inside the C-3PO and R2-D2 costumes, respectively, were real-life comrades. Unfortunately, that fantasy was shattered nearly three decades after the first film's release. Rather than grow closer over the course of the franchise, the rift between these two continued to widen.

In 2005, Baker finally got the public mudslinging started when he suggested Daniels was rude and antisocial. "He never wants to have a drink with any of us. Once when I said hello to him he just turned his back on me and said, 'Can't you see I'm having a conversation?' I was blazing with rage," Baker told Hollywood.com . When asked about attending a Star Wars reunion, Baker said , "It depends. If you invite his lordship, the one with the golden balls. If he comes, I won't be there."

Daniels claims he didn't distance himself from the rest of the cast to be antisocial. "I was actually signed to secrecy. The studio wanted people to believe C-3PO was a real robot," he said (via the   Mirror ). That doesn't mean Daniels isn't above taking a shot at Baker. "I never saw him," he said. "I mean, R2-D2 doesn't even speak. He might as well be a bucket."

Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise threw down in The Outsiders

One of the most amazing things about The Outsiders is the incredible cast, a who's who of '80s superstars. While fans may enjoy watching all that burgeoning star power on screen, Rob Lowe said the film set was a competitive and, sometimes, violent place to be.

In his 2011 memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography , Lowe reveals that he and co-star, Tom Cruise, came to blows during rehearsal. While preparing for one of the brawl scenes, Lowe accidentally punched Cruise in the nose. Cruise didn't take too kindly to it. "He goes into a rage," Lowe said, "and begins to pummel me mercilessly in the chest and ribs. It's getting way out of hand, and finally Emilio [Estevez] and Tommy Howell step in and stop the fight." 

According to Lowe, physical altercations were commonplace on set. "We all beat the living s**t out of one another," he told  The Telegraph . "We were all competitive. It wasn't just Tom. We were hardcore."

Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe loathed one another

Long were there rumors of Sir Laurence Olivier's contempt toward certain actors, but it wasn't until Philip Ziegler published the biography, Olivier , in 2013, that some of the most some controversial stories were confirmed. In his research for the book, Ziegler scoured through unpublished Olivier interviews to reveal that the actor despised many stars of the day, but perhaps none more than Marilyn Monroe.

Olivier and Monroe's alleged feud blossomed in The Prince and the Showgirl . According to Ziegler (via The Independent ), Olivier described his hatred for Monroe as "one of the strongest emotions [he] had ever felt." Cinematographer Jack Cardiff claimed Olivier referred to Monroe as the "b***h" for the rest of his life. Monroe didn't take Olivier's abuse lying down. According to The Telegraph , she called him "a pain in the arse" and mockingly referred to him as "Mr. Sir" because he'd been knighted. Co-star Jean Kent, who witnessed this feud firsthand, told  The Telegraph , "I think poor Larry must have aged at least 15 years during the making of that film."

No glee for Naya Rivera and Lea Michele

Over the course of Glee 's six seasons, there were plenty of rumors about cast feuds and most of the stories involved stars Lea Michele and Naya Rivera, who played Rachel Berry and Santana Lopez, respectively. The tabloids went into overdrive when  Rivera was reportedly let go from the show prior to the Season 5 finale following an alleged fight on set. Though she did return for the show's sixth and final season, unconfirmed gossip about a strained relationship between Rivera and Michele continued. Michele tried to diffuse the situation on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2014. "It's really frustrating, the way people like to pit women against each other and it's really annoying and really sad," she said. Shame on us for thinking otherwise, right? 

Not so fast. Rivera finally broke the case wide open when she released her memoir, Sorry, Not Sorry (via Perez Hilton ). In the book, Rivera said her friendship with Michele broke down as "Santana moved from a background character to one with bigger plot lines and more screen time. I think Rachel — erm, I mean Lea — didn't like sharing the spotlight." Rivera also claimed Michele "blamed [her] for anything and everything that went wrong," adding that during the entire final season, Michele "didn't say a word to me."

Beef and the city starring Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker

Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker kept the details of their strained relationship private for years. They continually denied reports of a feud on the Sex and the City set, but in 2008, The Telegraph reported that Cattrall and Parker weren't speaking to one another. There was also talk that Cattrall sat alone during mealtimes on set, much like she did at the 2004 Emmys. Meanwhile, the actresses continued to scoff  at the rumors. Cattrall told the  Daily Mail   the public was to blame, claiming people "have too much invested in the idea of two strong, successful women fighting with each other." 

By 2017, Cattrall was singing a different tune, telling  Piers Morgan  that she and Parker have "never been friends," adding, "I don't know what [Parker's] issue is." The jig was up. When Cattrall's brother died, Parker sent her condolences, and Cattrall  responded:  "Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven't already) You are not my family. You are not my friend."

24H LE MANS

24h Le Mans

• Steve McQueen and Paul Newman: when Hollywood talents tackle the 24 Hours of Le Mans

24 HOURS CENTENARY – ONLY AT LE MANS ⎮ Did you know? We will not only be celebrating the centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2023. The huge Hollywood sign that sits on the hill overlooking the Los Angeles film-making district will also be 100 years old next year. To mark this double anniversary, we look at the stories of two American movie idols who both came to Le Mans: Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.

1968 marked a real turning point in the actors’ respective film and motor racing careers. That year, Paul Newman played driver Frank Capua in James Goldstone’s film Winning, set against the backdrop of the 1968 Indy 500.  Meanwhile, Steve McQueen set up his own production company, known as Solar, and scored an immediate hit with Bullitt. Directed by Great Britain’s Peter Yates, this urban crime thriller is famous for its car chase through the streets of San Francisco, pitting a Ford Mustang driven by McQueen himself against a Dodge Charger steered by Bill Hickman, the best American car stuntman of the time. The sequence was so memorable that the car chase would subsequently become a recurring feature of every crime film set in San Francisco for decades to come.

STEVE MCQUEEN, LE MANS… FROM REAL LIFE RACING TO SILVER SCREEN DRAMA

However, like Paul Newman, Steve McQueen had his sights set on the race track. In April 1969, the actor first revealed in TV series  Wanted, Dead or Alive  visited Le Mans where he met Gonzague Mordret, General Manager of the ACO at the time. He then did some location scouting during the 37th running of the French endurance classic.

Steve McQueen intended not only to produce and star in a film about the 24 Hours, but also to compete in the race in a Porsche 917 shared with none other than Jackie Stewart, reigning Formula One world champion. However, his insurers vetoed the idea. The actor still managed to take part in the 12 Hours of Sebring in March 1970. With teammate Peter Revson in a Porsche 908, McQueen came close to victory, but finally had to make do with second place. Their Porsche was used as a camera car when filming during the 24 Hours three months later.

The film, simply titled Le Mans, encountered a series of difficulties during production. It combined scenes filmed during the race itself with sequences re-enacted at the circuit from June to November 1970. However, the film’s director John Sturges, who had previously shot McQueen in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, was concerned about a lack of script and eventually quit the project, to be replaced by Lee H. Katzin. With McQueen, however, no expense was spared: Solar recruited around forty drivers, built a village especially for the production and commissioned the French composer Michel Legrand to write the music. It was a box-office flop that almost bankrupted the actor on its release in spring 1971. However, the film has gained cult status over the decades and is especially admired for the realism of the race sequences, shot at real speed.

When McQueen died on 7 November 1980, aged just 50, French TV changed its schedule to broadcast Le Mans as a tribute.

PAUL NEWMAN, FROM  WINNING   ON SCREEN TO A PODIUM IN LA SARTHE

Steve McQueen and Paul Newman only came together once on a film set. That was when they starred opposite one another in disaster movie The Towering Inferno (1974), one of the biggest box-office hits of the 1970s.

At the same time, Newman was enjoying a motor racing career that he had embarked on rather late in life, after filming Winning. He competed in both the Trans Am (the American grand touring sports car championship) and in endurance racing, and finished fifth in the 1977 24 Hours of Daytona. He then set up a team to race in the CanAm Challenge, contested in Canada and the United States. His drivers included Keke Rosberg, the future Formula 1 world champion.

A decade after McQueen’s first visit to La Sarthe to scout for locations for Le Mans, Newman arrived to compete in the 24 Hours at the wheel of a Porsche 935. He teamed up with Dick Barbour, driver and team owner, and Rolf Stommelen, admired for his prowess at the wheel of the German manufacturer’s cars and polesitter in a Porsche 917 at the 1969 race.

The #70 935 moved up into the top ten in the second hour of the race and put in a steady performance, despite the rain, and broke into the top five in the tenth hour. Despite the tremendous pressure he was under from the public and the media, Newman drove an exemplary race and by the fifteenth hour, the actor and his teammates were in second place behind the other 935 driven by leaders Klaus Ludwig and Bill & Don Whittington. When the latter was struck by fuel injection issues shortly before the finish line, the #70 was thought to have won. However, it too was set back by a faulty head gasket and finished the race at snail’s pace. On this, his only Le Mans entry, Newman thus finished second overall and winner of his class, which the #70 Porsche had dominated almost from start to finish.

He later joined forces with Carl Haas (no relation to Gene Haas, owner of the eponymous F1 team), a Lola chassis importer in the United States, to create the Newman-Haas team in the American single-seater CART and Champ Car series. The team played a pivotal role in Sebastien Bourdais’ career: he won four consecutive seasons with them from 2004 to 2007, joining Mario Andretti and his son Michael, along with former Formula One world champion Nigel Mansell, on the team’s honours list. As a sign of their close friendship, Newman made one of his final trips to Europe in May 2006 for Bourdais’ wedding in Le Mans. Born on 28 February 1979, Bourdais was just three and half months old when the actor climbed on to the second step on the 24 Hours podium.

Meanwhile, Newman continued his glittering film career, which saw him win a Best Actor Oscar in 1987 for his role in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money. In that film, he co-starred with Tom Cruise, another fan of motorsport and high-speed action. Newman turned 70 in 1995, which didn’t stop him from coming third at the 24 Hours of Daytona that year. He lined up on the grid again ten years later (aged 80!), teamed with Bourdais and Brazilian Bruno Junqueira, his two Champ Car drivers at that time.

A few weeks before his death on 26 September 2008, Newman treated himself to one last automotive experience, bringing together family, friends and loved ones at Lime Rock Raceway, about 100 kilometres from his home in Westport, Connecticut.

PHOTOS: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), 24 HOURS OF LE MANS CIRCUIT – TOP TO BOTTOM (Copyright: ACO ARCHIVES): the Porsche driven by Paul Newman, Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen finished eight laps behind the winners; fitted with three cameras at the 1970 24 Hours to shoot footage for the film Le Mans, the Porsche 908 entered by Steve McQueen’s production company was driven by Herbert Linge and Jonathan Williams; McQueen at the 24 Hours circuit in 1970 to shoot Le Mans; Newman at the prize-giving ceremony in 1979, when he went into the race’s history books.

• 24 Heures du Mans

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The wild bunch cont. ……………… casting call part 2, a wilder bunch, casting call part 2  /  dutch engstrom / ernest borgnine the wild bunch 1973.

Wikipedia says:  “Among those considered to play Dutch Engstrom were Charles Bronson , Jim Brown , Alex Cord , Robert Culp , Sammy Davis, Jr ., Richard Jaeckel , Steve McQueen , and George Peppard . Ernest Borgnine was cast based on his performance in The Dirty Dozen (1967).

Who would you have Cast?:

Charles Bronson Western Filmography 1954 Vera Cruz /   1954 Drum Beat   1954 Apache /   1954   Riding Shotgun 1956 Jubal /   1957 Run of the Arrow 1957  Showdown at Boot Hill / 1960 The Magnificent Seven 1961   A Thunder of Drums 1968 Villa Rides 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West  /  1968  Guns for San Sebastian

Jim Brown Western Filmography 1964 Rio Conchos 1969 100 Rifles 1970 El Condor 1975 Take a Hard Ride

Alex Cord Western Filmography 2009 Fire from Below 1977 Grayeagle 1972 Gunsmoke (TV Series) 1966 Stagecoach 1995 Walker, Texas Ranger (TV Series) 1995 Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (TV Series) 1965 Branded (TV Series) 1961 Laramie (TV Series) 

Robert Culp Western Filmography 1963 The Raiders / 1971 Hannie Cauldur

Robert Culp   TV Westerns   Trackdown (1957–1959) Tate   (1960) /  Johnny Ringo   (1960) Outlaws  (1960) /   The Westerner (1960)  Zane Grey Theater ( 1957-1960) Rawhide   (1961) /  Bonanza (1961) Rifleman ( 1960-1962) /  Wagon Train (1962) The Virginian  (1964)  Gunsmoke  (1964) The Hanged Man  (1964)  Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) Lonesome Dove: The Series   (1994)

Sammy Davis, Jr. Western Filmography Zane Grey Theater (TV Series) /   Lawman (TV Series) Sergeants 3   (1962) /   The Rifleman (TV Series) The Wild Wild West (TV Series) / The Trackers (1971) Gone with the West  (1975)

Richard Jaeckel Western Filmography The Gunfighter   (1950) /  Apache Ambush (1955) 3:10 to Yuma (1957) /  Cowboy (1958) Cimarron City (TV) (1958) /  The Texan (TV) 1959 Trackdown (TV) 1959 / Zane Grey Theater  (TV)   (1960) Tales of Wells Fargo (TV) (1960) /  The Rebel (TV) (1960) Flaming Star   (1960) /  The Tall Man (TV) (1961) Lawman (TV) (1961) /  Frontier Circus (1961–1962) Have Gun – Will Travel (TV) (1962) /  Wagon Train (TV) (1961–1963) The Dakotas (TV) (1963) /  4 for Texas (1963) The Virginian (TV) (1964) /  Town Tamer (1965) The Wild Wild West (1966–1967) /  Bonanza (1964–1967) Chisum (1970) /  Ulzana’s Raid (1972) Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) /  Gunsmoke (TV) (1963–1975) The Last Day (1975) /   The Oregon Trail (1977) Kit Carson and the Mountain Men (1977) Go West, Young Girl (1978) 

Steve McQueen Western Filmography Trackdown (TV) 1958 /  Tales of Wells Fargo (TV) 1958 The Magnificent Seven (1960) Wanted: Dead or Alive (TV) 1958-1961 Nevada Smith (1966) /  Junior Bonner (1972) Tom Horn  (1980)

George Peppard Western Filmography How the West Was Won  1962 / Rough Night in Jericho   1967 Cannon for Cordoba  1970 /  The Bravos  1972

Another decent group of candidates. From among this Bunch I think a popular vote would likely see  Bronson  and McQueen  win out. But I can’t guess who would win between them? Bronson had appeared in a couple of movies before with Borgnine, including Vera Cruz (1954) – if that means anything?

Next let’s have a look at Warren Oates’ role of Lyle Gorch …

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Massive UPDATE: The Magnificent Seven Page …

The Magnificent Seven Official Soundtrack theme … Elmer Bernstein

Yul Brynner / Chris

Yul Brynner as Chris

“I’ve been offered a lot for my work, but never  everything .”

It’s said that the idea of (“An Americanization of the film,  Seven Samurai  (1954)”) to  The Magnificent Seven , was Yul Brynner’s idea. In any case, it’s no secret who the Star of this film was: Yul himself. And a magnificent Star he was – surely one of the most charismatic actors in Hollywood history. The whole success of the film and it’s cast – one the the major Western Classics even carries to this day – where constant rumours or a remake swirl. A remake, which would possibly be an impossible task in it’s challenge to find Stars of the stature or a Yul Brynner – and the rest of the cast. A very daunting task. Brynner cemented his image as Western Film Star and went on to appear in several spin-offs – none of which were as imposing as Magnificent Seven – yet still worthy of a look due to Brynner’s Star power. Alas dying far too early at the age of 65 from lung cancer.

Yul Brynner Western Filmography The Magnificent Seven  / 1960 Invitation to a Gunfighter  / 1964 Return of the Seven / 1966 Villa Rides  / 1968 Adios, Sabata  / 1970 Catlow  / 1971 Westworld / 1973 _____________________________________________

Steve McQueen / Vin

“We deal in lead, friend.”

Billed 3rd behind Yul Brynner and Eli Wallach , McQueen’s shameless antics to steal scenes is the stuff of movie legends – as McQueen evidently feared Brynner’s notable charisma would overshadow him – and eventually started a one-upmanship duel between  Brynner  and McQueen throughout the filming. Steve, of course, eventually went on to become a big Star and success in his own right – and I wonder if they both didn’t share a chuckle about all this later on. In the long run, it’s interesting that both of these great Stars seemed to pass before their time: McQueen of cancer at age 50 and Brynner of cancer at age 65 – both from smoking. Tragic, as both would have undoubtedly continued to make good work.

Steve McQueen Western Filmography: Tales of the Wells Fargo / TV Western / 1958 Guest Appearance Trackdown / TV Western / 1958 Guest Appearance (2) Wanted: Dead or Alive  / TV Western / 1958 Series Star / 1958 – 1961 The Magnificent Seven / Co-Star / 1960 Nevada Smith / Star / 1966 Junior Bonner / Star (Directed by Sam Pekinpah) / 1972 Tom Horn / Star / 1980 ___________________________________________

James Coburn / Britt

“Nobody throws me my own guns and tells me to ride on.  Nobody .”

James Coburn Western Filmography 1959 Ride Lonesome 1959 Face of a Fugitive 1960 The Magnificent Seven 1963 The Man from Galveston 1964 Major Dundee 1967 Waterhole No. 3 1971 Duck, You Sucker!  / Renamed A Fistful of Dynamite for U.S. release 1972 A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die  / Renamed Massacre At Fort Holman for U.S. release 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid  / Sam Peckinpah 1975 Bite the Bullet 1984 Draw ! 1990 Young Guns II 1994 Maverick 1996 Ben Johnson: Third Cowboy on the Right 2000 Texas Rangers

Charles Bronson / Bernardo

Bronson  seemed (to me) to be a man that had paid his dues (he had) and this seemed to shine through his on-screen persona.

But he had that soft side too – as we see with the kids in  The Magnificent Seven . Maybe that comes from his upbringing in a real life family of 14 brothers and sisters.

When we are introduced to  Bronson  in  The Magnificent Seven  we encounter him chopping wood. You better believe that no acting was necessary. And he could just as easily have been swinging a pick.

It’s a smart casting trick: choosing people who don’t need to act.

Bronson ’s unique looks, however, allowed him to play roles of different cultures and races. Mexicans, Indians … his name in  The Magnificent Seven  is Bernardo O’Rielly … Italian Irish ?

___________________________________________________________

CHARLES BRONSON / Charles Dennis Buchinsky

WIKIPEDIA:  Bronson was born  Charles Dennis Buchinsky  in Ehrenfeld in Cambria County in the coal region of the Allegheny Mountains north of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. During the McCarthy hearings, he changed his last name to  Bronson , fearing that Buchinsky sounded “too Russian”; the name was taken from Bronson Avenue in Hollywood, where the famous gated entrance to Paramount Pictures is located.

He was one of fifteen children born to a Lithuanian (Lipka Tatar) immigrant father and a Lithuanian-American mother. His father, Walter Bunchinski, who later adjusted his surname to Buchinsky to sound more “American”, hailed from the town of Druskininkai. Bronson’s mother, Mary (née Valinsky), whose parents were from Lithuania, was born in the coal mining town of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. He learned to speak English when he was a teen, before that he spoke Russian and Lithuanian.

Bronson was the first member of his family to graduate from high school. As a young child, Bronson did not initially know how to speak English and only learned the language while in his teens. When Bronson was 10 years old, his father died. Young Charles went to work in the coal mines, first in the mining office and then in the mine itself.  He earned $1 for each ton of coal that he mined . He worked in the mine until he entered military service during World War II. His family was so poor that, at one time, he reportedly had to wear his sister’s dress to school because of his lack of clothing.

In 1943, Bronson enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces and served as an aerial gunner in the 760th Flexible Gunnery Training Squadron, and in 1945 as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress crewman with the 39th Bombardment Group based on Guam. He was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds received during his service.”

“I admire your notion of fair odds, mister.” ~ Charles Bronson / The Magnificent Seven.

____________________________________________________

Robert Vaughn / Lee

“Till you lose your nerve. You can  feel  it. Then you wait … for the bullet in the gun that is faster than you are …”

Lee is probably the most complicated Character of the Seven.

Vaughn ’s and (Director)  John Stuges’  portrayal of Lee is be-gloved, dapper, dudish, white shirted, articulate gentleman gunsfighter – with a string tie, who had lost his nerve and his touch. A washed up gunslinger.

A bit of a tragic figure to be sure … only redeemed moments before his death – a death we sense is somewhat of a relief for him from the torture of the failure that he feels himself to be. It’s pretty well telegraphed to us from the beginning that Lee will not be one of the Seven who rides off into the sunset.

Robert Vaughn Western Filmography Good Day for a Hanging  (1958) The Magnificent Seven  (1960) TV Work: Gunsmoke  (1956) Guest Frontier  (1956) Guest Tales of Wells Fargo  (1957) Guest The Rifleman  (1958) Guest Law of the Plainsman  (1959) Guest Wichita Town  (1959) Guest Laramie  (1960) Guest The Man from Blackhawk  (1960) Guest Bonanza  (1961) Guest The Blue and the Gray  (1982 mini-series) _______________________________________________________

Horst Buchholz / Chico 

I wonder if people really appreciate the acting of  Horst Buchholz  in  The Magnificent Seven ? I doubt it.

Here’s a young German actor who comes over here … and does a Mexican Hat Dance, a mock bullfight, handles the romance, the action, some comic relief, and is also brilliant in the several dramatic scenes including the famous ‘audition scene’ with Yul Brynner. Displaying a breadth and depth of emotion throughout the movie.

Pretty heady stuff.

Brynner and Buchholz …. renegotiating

Horst Bucholz and Rosenda Monteros

________________________

Brad dexter / harry luck.

Brad Dexter as Harry Luck The Magnificent Seven

Bronson, Dexter, Vaughn

Let’s call it Luck … bad luck, because sadly, strangely, unfairly, movies often all boil down to that intangible element called Charisma. You either got it … or you don’t.

The Magnificent Seven

The proof is in the most famous trivia question of Western Film: “Who was that Seventh guy anyway?”

Even when people are shown his picture … most people STILL don’t know his name.

Brad Dexter

Playing Harry Luck.

Against the other members of the Seven … Brad simply fell into shadow.

Oh,  Brad Dexter  was cast correctly for his part alight – as the cynical member of the  Seven  who was ‘just in it for the money’.

But most everyone else in the cast was already an established Star ( Brynner, McQueen, Wallach ) – or moving swiftly up the ladder toward bright daylight ( Bronson, Coburn, Bucholz  and  Vaughn ). Brad simply fell back – and never quite made it.

___________________________________________

Brad Dexter /  Veljko Soso April 9, 1917 – December 11, 2002

Yet Dexter still had a successful film career that spanned some 50 years and included at least 40 movies.

Luck had nothing to do with it. ________________________________________

Eli Wallach / Calvera

“My first Western was called The Magnificent Seven.” ~ Eli Wallach

Eli Herschel Wallach  (born December 7, 1915) Eli Wallach  is 97 years old.

In his acting career Wallach appeared in approximately 90 films and 85 Television shows.

“I never dreamed I would do Westerns.” ~ Eli Wallach

Eli Wallach Westerns

The Magnificent Seven   (1960) How the West Was Won  (1962) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly  (1966) Mackenna’s Gold  (1969) Long Live Your Death  (1971) Shoot First… Ask Questions Later  (1975)

Wallach  says he once received a letter from the Pope who told him that his favorite Wallach Movie was  The Magnificent Seven .

“As an actor I’ve played more bandits, thieves, killers, warlords, molesters, and Mafiosi than you could shake a stick at.” ~ Eli Wallach

Below is my favorite  Wallach  scene from the  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .

I heard  Wallach  say that Director  Sergio Leone  basically gave him free reign to improvise that scene any way he wanted. Nicely done.

Amazingly, by today’s standards for Western Badguys,  Wallach  was a pretty nice chap. In  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly  he may be Ugly and ornery, but he’s basically comic relief, while  Eastwood  and  Van Cleef  handle the drama.

Likewise, in  The Magnificent Seven , after Wallach and his gang get the drop the Seven, he merely scolds them … and then lets them go! THEN, he gives them back their guns !!! Nice guy. The Seven promptly ride back and kill all the bandits – including  Wallach .

He’s also pretty clean … nice red shirt and vest … no tortilla stains, no spitting, cussing, abusing, raping … a little bit of pillaging … but that’s it.

And those peons … in immaculate white togs.

Fact is, the Mexican government was furious at the way Mexicans were depicted in a previous Western,  Vera Cruz  (starring  Burt Lancaster  and  Gary Cooper ) and therefore placed people on the set whose job it was to censor any negative depictions of Mexico or Mexicans.

Funny, but nobody seems to notice this … unless someone points it out. Sorry. ________________________________________________________________

“I always end up being the evil one, and I wouldn’t hurt a fly.” ~ Eli Wallach

Let’s ride !

The Magnificent 7 Update 2 … project revived ??

Britt (Coburn): “Nobody throws me my own guns and says run. Nobody.”

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‘magnificent seven’ remake continues with new writer, but loses tom cruise.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/magnificent-seven-remake-continues-with-new-writer-but-loses-tom-cruise-20131226?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

MGM are leaving no stone unturned in their catalogue when it comes to remakes. With “Robocop” and “Poltergeist” on the way for 2014, and “Road House,” “Death Wish,” “WarGames,” “The Idolmaker,” “Ben-Hur” and more all in development, the name of game seems to reboots over original material. And that brings us to the classic western “The Magnificent Seven.” In the works for a couple years now, the project gained some serious steam when Tom Cruise put his name to it in 2012, with a writer added over this past summer. But heading into 2014, the redo will need to find another star as a screenplay gets more work.

The Wrap reports that John Lee Hancock (“The Blind Side,” “Saving Mr. Banks”) has been brought in to re-write the first draft of the script by Nic Pizzolatto (“True Detective”). For now, it’s just a writing gig for Hancock who has no plans to direct, but with credits to his name including “The Alamo,” “Snow White & The Huntsman” and next year’s “Maleficent,” he knows his way around spectacle. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise has exited the project mostly because his plate is currently full with about five zillion other movies on the go, so he could probably do with one less.

So the remake machine continues on this project, and we’ll ask you this: who do you think can direct or star in this movie and at least attempt to do justice to the original?

__________________________________________________

My Favorite Westerns: 

I’ve already posted my own fantasy cast which I will boldly match up against anybody else’s projections. Except for Tom Cruise, of course, who has now bailed out. This leaves a VERY large hole – as casting Yul Brynner’s former role was the biggest challenge of them all.

My Favorite Westerns casting for The Magnificent Seven / Remake:

Yul Brynner … TOM CRUISE

Steve McQueen  … VIGGO MORTENSEN

James Coburn  … GUY PEARCE

Charles Bronson  … WILLEN DAFOE

Robert Vaughn  … BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

  Brad Dexter  … BRENDAN FRASER

Horst Buchholz  … AARON PAUL

Eli Wallach   …  ANTONIO BANDERAS

O’Reilly (Bronson): “ I admire your notion of fair odds, mister.”

The Magnificent 7 Update … project in jeopardy

Published: Sun, December 29, 201

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/450888/Tom-Cruise-shoots-down-Magnificent-Seven-remake

Tom Cruise shoots down Magnificent Seven remake

Tom cruise’s departure from a planned remake of the star-studded western has put the project back to square one.

HOLLYWOOD studio MGM has “called in the cavalry” to rescue a planned remake of classic 1960 western The Magnificent Seven after Tom Cruise stunned producers by quitting.

Cruise, 51, blamed a personal “scheduling conflict” for his departure more than six months after agreeing to a lead role.

As he rode off into the sunset, studio bosses hired John Lee Hancock, who directed current box-office hit Saving Mr Banks, to re-write what was seen as a troubled script.

The turmoil comes at the end of a year in which the original Magnificent Seven was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of America’s Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”. It starred Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter and Horst Buchholz.

Yesterday a senior MGM source said: “Tom’s departure has thrown a real wrench in the wagon wheel.

“Now it’s a case of going right back to square one in terms of casting and having John Lee Hancock re-write the script from top to bottom. You might say he’s leading our cavalry on a rescue mission.

“We’re hoping that once John Lee has completed a first draft of a new script, we will be firmly back on track and in a position to attract some of Hollywood’s best-known actors.”

Hancock, a hugely respected Hollywood figure, is no stranger to the genre, having directed 2004’s Disney remake of another 1960 western classic, The Alamo.

Even before Cruise backed out, studio bosses had become concerned about committing a reported £100million-plus to the film. They saw rival Disney take a financial hit earlier this year as an equally costly remake of The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp as Tonto, flopped.

Los Angeles-based media analyst Mike Raia insisted yesterday: “I believe the western can survive and even thrive as a genre.

“However, the onus is on the filmmakers to make their modern versions resonate with today’s younger audiences as well as older fans.”

Cast Introduction: The New Magnificent 7 … plus One

Cast introduction: the new magnificent seven.

As they say: The atmosphere is electric.

But I hate these tuxedo affairs.

DAMN! I just spilt some wine on my boots.

“Oh Hi Mickey”

Rourke. … Everybody is here.

OOP – The lights are going down … better get to my seat. _________________________________________________________

“Ladeeeez and Gentlemen!!!” … announces a disembodied voice:

“Introducing your “ NEW MAGNIFICENT SEVEN !!! “

Generous Applause … Hopeful enthusiasm … tinged with fear.

“Reprising the main role of  Chris  made famous by  Yul Brynner  …”

“T OM CRUISE !!!”

Whoa !!! Tom gets some large appreciation. No problem. But his selection was already out of the bag.

Tom take a bow … waves … flashes his famous grin.

“Tom’s role by default”, I’m thinking. He’s good though. Sometimes great. But the inevitable comparisons with ( Yul Brynner ) It’s tough.

“No matter” I mumble, “I think he’s up to it.” __________________________________________________________

Moving along …

“Ladies and Gentlemen!!”

“Reprising the role of  Vin Tanner  played formerly by  Steve McQueen  … “

“ VIGGO MORTENSEN  !!!”

I notice people sitting forward in their seats. Nodding … yeah … YEAH ! Lots of applause … LOTS. Viggo  is popular.

Viggo looks dapper, casual … salutes.

“VIggo as Vin” I say. (I think I aced that one)

… 5 to go. __________________________________________________________

Next …

“Reprising the role of  Britt  that was played by  James Coburn  … “

“ GUY PEARCE !!!”

“OH !”  “I love  Guy .” I hear Spielberg’s wife exclaim. Steven nods. “Yes … yes. That should work very well.”

Guy is welcomed … tanned and grinning.

I feel a swell of growing enthusiasm.

Things seem to be working.

But I’m still sweating. __________________________________________________________

“Ladies and Gentlemen !!!!”

“Reprising the role of  Bernardo O’Reilly which was played by the very popular  Charles Bronson  … “

“ WILLEN DAFOE !!!”

Willem shakes hands with Tom, Viggo, Guy … waves …

“Yaaa !!! Yeahhh !!!” I yell. I can’t help it.

A lot of people are standing now … __________________________________________________________

Next intro …

“Ladies and Gentlemen!!

“Hot, from his role as the Villain in Star Trek ,,, and playing the role of  Lee made famous by   Robert Vaughn  … “

“ BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH  !!!”

*silence* … a gasp or two !! “Well I’ll be damned !!” says Harrison Ford. “How the hell did they get him !?” “Inspired.”

Excited applause arises … Ringing !

Cumberbatch is dapper, unscarved.

… I wasn’t too sure …

“Way to go Ben” !!! __________________________________________________________

The next intro …

“Reprising the part of  Harry Luck that was   played by   Brad Dexter … “

“ BRENDAN FRASER  !!!”

“Wooo hooo” … I hear Sly yelp. “Nice call!” “Make it sing Brendan!”

Fraser throws his cowboy hat into the crowd.

“YEAH !! YEAH !!”

I can’t believe it …

It rocks ! __________________________________________________________

“And now Ladies and Gentlemen!!”

“The last of the Seven … “

“Reprising the role of Chico  that was performed by  Horst Buchholz … “

“ AARON PAUL  !!!”

Aaron runs onto the stage …

The joy is high.

The SEVEN are complete !!

Everybody’s standing now … OVATION … !!!

The New SEVEN take a bow … __________________________________________________________

“And Lastly” … intones the MC, above the din …

… Ladies and Gentlemen …. “

“Reprising the part of the Mexican Bandito  Calvera – formerly played by the great Eli Wallach   … “

“ANTONIO BANDERAS !!!”

“O My …. Goodness !” shouts Gene Hackman. “Way to go Tony !!!”

Antonio has his hair slicked back. Looks a bit shy. … takes a mock poke from Fraser.

Thunderous applause !!!

___________________________________________________

All is well. ____________________________________________________

“Whew!”

I slump into my chair

“Monsieur JC …?”

I turn. A waiter hands me a bottle of Canadian Club. “Complements of Monsieur  Cruise .”

The tag reads:

“Mission accomplished” _____________________________________

I just hope my cheque is in the mail. _____________________________________

Wanted: Dead or Alive … Steve McQueen

Wanted: Dead or Alive  – A Western television series starring  Steve McQueen  as the bounty hunter Josh Randall. It aired on CBS for three seasons from 1958–61. The black-and-white program was a spin-off of a March 1958 episode of  Trackdown ,  a 1957–59 western series starring  Robert Culp . The series launched McQueen into becoming the first television star to cross over into comparable status on the big screen.

The Magnificent Seven … ??? Casting Steve McQueen …

The magnificent seven: casting steve mcqueen.

I haven’t come up with anybody to fill Yul Brynner’s boots .. yet. I’m working on it. But there’s at least one actor that might work for Steve McQureen’s role as the character,  Vin .

I’m thinking of Viggo Mortensen . Viggo has already been in a couple of excellent Westerns:  Appaloosa , and  Hidalgo . His breed and his bloodlines are good. But can we talk him into it? That might well depend on who else we can sign up …

Yeah … a decent Vin

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Tom Cruise, anti-imperialism and zero body-fat: Bruce Lee’s legacy 50 years after his death

He made just four films and was crudely stereotyped, but brought Hong Kong-flavoured action to Hollywood and changed the face of Asian cinema for ever

I t is not certain that Bruce Lee would have seen a kung fu duel involving sex toys as a fitting tribute to his legacy, but the Oscar triumph of Everything, Everywhere All At Once earlier this year is a reminder, 50 years after his death, of what a trail he has blazed. Lee smashed down the door for Asian representation pretty much single- (and bare-) handedly, even if he died too soon to be a beneficiary of it.

Lee is one of those rare stars who is bigger than his movies. Despite leaving a slim body of work – just four complete films – he practically spawned a whole genre, and wrote the book for Hollywood action to this day. Lee runs through the DNA of global culture: video games, hip-hop and mixed martial arts, not to mention the general rise of the super-fit, zero-body-fat masculine physical ideal. The fact that he died young, in perplexingly banal circumstances (a reaction to a painkiller) only burnishes his myth.

Lee also built a unique persona – intense, disciplined, physical yet cerebral – light years away from western stereotypes of Asian masculinity that were very much in play when he first came to Hollywood in the mid-1960s. He was born in San Francisco, then grew up in Hong Kong before returning to the US, aged 18. It was a time when east Asian men were depicted as servants, sinister villains or buck-toothed buffoons (often played by white actors – see Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s). Lee grew exasperated at being used as a subservient sidekick in the TV series The Green Hornet . Despite training a roster of celebrity students in the martial arts (including Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Sharon Tate), Lee realised the US was not ready to accept an Asian leading man.

The final insult came with the 1970s TV series Kung Fu. Lee’s involvement in developing the show, which followed a Shaolin monk in the old west, is contested. Either way, he auditioned for the lead role, only to be passed over in favour of David Carradine , who had neither Chinese ancestry nor any knowledge of martial arts.

Returning to Hong Kong in 1971, Lee churned out four movies in two years, and exploded into global superstardom. As well as displaying his dazzling physical skills, Lee’s movies were narratives of resistance. He stood with the oppressed factory workers and against criminal corruption in The Big Boss ; in Fist of Fury , he embarked on a one-man crusade against colonial oppression in 1920s Shanghai (and, by extension, British-ruled 1970s Hong Kong), forcing his Japanese adversaries to literally eat their words, describing China as “the Sick Man of east Asia”. In The Way of the Dragon , he saves the family restaurant and tears a strip off Chuck Norris at the Colosseum. It wasn’t just local audiences; Lee became a universal symbol of defiance: a man of colour seeking to express himself with the tools he had available. When Hong Kong students were resisting Chinese authoritarianism in 2019, they adopted Lee’s maxim: “Be water.”

The success of these films caught Hollywood’s attention at last, but, even with his classic Enter The Dragon (released a month after his death), Lee wasn’t trusted to carry the movie alone, so Jim Kelly and John Saxon were cast alongside him. The 70s kung fu craze fed into everything from comic books (Marvel’s Stan Lee once described Lee as “a superhero without a costume”) to pop music. By that time, Lee had also reinvigorated the Hong Kong film industry, which has sent a flow of actors westwards ever since: Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Maggie Cheung and, of course, Michelle Yeoh. Not to mention a stream of western martial artists, from Jean-Claude Van Damme to Jason Statham.

Equally significant was the export of action film-makers such as John Woo and Yuen Wo Ping, the latter famously giving The Matrix its distinctive action flavour. By the 21st century, Hong Kong-flavoured action had become the must-have ingredient of action cinema and it has remained so ever since. You could draw a direct line from Lee to, say, Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible (Woo directed the second instalment), Marvel’s Shang-Chi (the comic was inspired by Lee) or Keanu Reeves’ John Wick (whose star and director, Chad Stahelski, both cut their teeth on The Matrix).

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And, let’s not forget Quentin Tarantino, who borrowed wholesale from Hong Kong cinema in general (Reservoir Dogs lifted the plot of Ringo Lam’s City on Fire) and, in Kill Bill, Uma Thurman wears a trademark yellow Bruce Lee tracksuit, facing off against … David Carradine. Tarantino did little to return the favour in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which depicted Lee (played by Mike Moh) as “a little man with a big mouth”, in the words of Brad Pitt’s stunt man, who almost beats him in a fight. It was regarded as an insulting caricature by many, including Lee’s daughter, Shannon . “They didn’t need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive,” she said.

The problems have not totally gone away, in terms of the “whitewashing” of Asian content, stereotyping and industry underrepresentation. But, there has been progress, and it is Lee we should thank. Beyond that, he is still exhilarating to watch on screen. Much about his movies now appears dated but Lee’s physicality and presence are still awe-inspiring. He was the consummate self-made man, but also a man of the people. No wonder he still strikes a chord.

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Bill Murray - He's one of only two comic actors on this list. That's how cool he is. He never let a laugh interfere with his cool.

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Al Pacino - The world would be out of whack if I left out Michael Corleone.

Don Cheadle - This underappreciated actor has always been cool.

Michael Douglas - His willingness to take on challenging roles makes him cool

Daniel Day-Lewis - His coolness never misses a beat.

Vince Vaughn - I know he has his detractors, but "Swingers" is so cool, it makes up for all his transgressions.

Pierce Brosnan - He did OK as Bond, but he plays it pretty cool in every role (except "Mamma Mia!" of course).

Denzel Washington - Just say the name "Denzel" and a picture of cool emerges.

Alec Baldwin - This guy can play a jerk cooler than anyone around.

Bruce Willis - He somehow manages to remain cool after all these years.

Samuel L. Jackson - He rarely is not cool in a role, and that's saying something because he's in about five new roles a week.

Javier Bardem - We intentionally did not use the photo from "No Country for Old Men" because we would have had a hard time justifying this selection with that haircut.

Which role would you pick to demonstrate the screen cool of Steve McQueen? We went with "The Great Escape." We could just have easily gone with "Bullitt," "The Cincinnati Kid" or "The Magnificent Seven."

Viggo Mortensen - If you saw "A History of Violence" or "Eastern Promises," you'd understand.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx - "Miami Vice" wasn't very good, but they were cool.

Morgan Freeman - One has to be pretty cool to play God.

Daniel Craig - What can I say? He is a worthy 007.

Sean Connery - Bond, James Bond. The one and only.

Jason Statham - Not everybody can pull off the cool chauffeur trick.

Antonio Banderas - He brings Latin cool to every role, even the silly kid movies.

Harrison Ford - He speaks softly and carries a big whip.

Jack Nicholson - He's the only star listed whose cool transfers from the big screen to the front row of the Oscars.

George Clooney - He would have made the list in the 1940s. He's got old-school cool.

Clint Eastwood - Go all the way back to "Rawhide." Come all the way forward to "Gran Torino." Check every role in between. Clint's always cool.

I never wanted to be the grumpy old man who complains incessantly about how everything used to be better in the good old days.

But, sometimes, I can’t help myself.

I was reminded of the good old days recently through a series of events. The first was the 30th anniversary of Steve McQueen’s death. He died at the age of 50 in Mexico on Nov. 7, 1980. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

The second event, which was tied to the previous event, was the release of a warts-and-all McQueen biography by Marshall Terrill, who wrote an earlier biography of the actor. His updated book is called “Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon.”

The third event was the publication of the annual People magazine “Sexiest Man Alive” issue, in which Ryan Reynolds was anointed. Apparently, George Clooney was busy that day.

The magazine really brought it home for me. They sure don’t make them like Steve McQueen anymore. No offense to Ryan Reynolds, of course.

From his entry into the movie business with “The Blob,” and through a succession of roles in movies such as “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Great Escape,” “The Cincinnati Kid,” “Nevada Smith,” “Bullitt” and “The Getaway,” Steve McQueen always played it cool.

In an industry that has included the likes of Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Warren Beatty, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Robert Mitchum and Paul Newman, McQueen is widely considered the coolest guy who ever drove across the cinematic landscape.

Pundits throw the word “cool” around like it is interchangeable with “attractive” or “hot” or “sexy.” But there is a reason why People magazine doesn’t annually declare the “Coolest Man Alive.”

Sexy, hot or attractive are words that can be bandied about on a yearly basis, but cool is so rare that it is considered generational.

OK, that might be a slight exaggeration. Still, cool is so much cooler than sexy.

Trying to define “cool” is near-impossible. Cool is something you know instinctively when you see it. And, of course, cool – like art – is in the eye of the beholder.

For instance, I acknowledge that Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Russell Crowe are huge movie stars. Some might even find them incredibly attractive. In Pitt’s case, I have always believed that he is the identical twin my mother neglected to tell me about.

But I wouldn’t put any of these high-powered actors on my list of cool movie stars. To be fair, each has had his cool moments on the big screen (Cruise in “Top Gun,” Pitt in “Oceans 11” and “Snatch” and Crowe in “L.A. Confidential” and “Gladiator”), but not on a consistent basis.

On the other hand, name a movie in which Steve McQueen was NOT cool? Go ahead; I’ll wait.

But I’m not trying to say that the concept of cool died three decades ago with McQueen. There are a number of cool guys working in Hollywood today, but they’re not necessarily named Ryan or Ethan or Brendan or Jake or Ben or even Keanu.

However, they might be named Johnny. Here, in no particular order, is my idea of Hollywood cool, circa 2010 .

Before we start this exercise in coolness, I am obliged to say that Robert De Niro ordinarily would appear this list, but there has to be a penalty for “Little Fockers.”

One more thing; the original question we posed – “Who’s cooler than Steve McQueen?” – is a trick question. Nobody’s cooler, but these guys might be close.

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10 Motorcycle Movies Every Biker Will Enjoy

There are lots of choices when it comes to movies with motorcycles but these movies capture the true essence of riding.

Avid motorcyclists know that it is nearly impossible to truly capture the feeling of riding a motorcycle and translate it into a movie scene accurately. That's why certain movies just come off as corny while others manage to get closer to evoking the emotions felt by riders when out and actually riding. Bikes featured in the best motorcycle movies go on to become cultural icons, with specific bikes from the likes of BMW , Triumph, and Kawasaki all famous for their supporting roles in blockbuster and grassroots films alike. Some actors have a real love for motorcycles and thus play a big part in making sure motorcycle scenes get included in movies and get featured prominently and accurately. Steve Mcqueen owned an epic motorcycle collection and of course, Tom Cruise loves motorcycles and is one of the most famous examples of this. This list of essential movies with motorcycles in them as well as motorcycle shows that turned into full-length movies features films that focus on motorcycling as not just a sport but a lifestyle as well as some blockbuster movies with epic motorcycle scenes .

RELATED: Sold To The Highest Bidder: Steve McQueen's 1969 Honda CB750 Sandcast Motorcycle

10 On Any Sunday

Release date: 1971.

On Any Sunday is an absolute must-watch movie for motorcyclists worldwide and anyone interested in motorcycle culture as a whole. The 1971 film by Bruce Brown, who also narrates the upbeat and light-hearted movie, showcases the motorcycle lifestyle in an extremely positive light and manages to capture the essence of what makes riding so great: the enjoyment and feeling of being out riding and having a good time with like-minded riders.

Steve Mcqueen's quote in On Any Sunday sums it up perfectly, “Every time I start thinking the world is all bad, then I start seeing people out there having a good time on motorcycles; it makes me take another look.”

It's no wonder that manufacturers like Triumph made special motorcycles honoring Steve Mcqueen for all he did to bring motorcycling into the mainstream through his passion and that passion for bikes is truly felt in On Any Sunday. The movie will make you want to turn the TV off, get outside in the world, and just enjoy riding motorcycles in whatever style or way you prefer.

9 Long Way Round

Release date: 2004.

Long Way Round is a 2004 TV series turned movie that brings the idea of adventure bike riding to another level. Actor Ewan McGregor has a true love for motorcycles , as does his friend Charley Boorman. Together, they embark on a motorcycling journey that is nothing less than epic, riding through 12 countries over 115 consecutive days.

The movie needs to get watched to truly understand just how crazy of an undertaking this ride actually is, with just the planning involved enough to require a full team supporting McGregor and Boorman. They ride from London to New York going East across Europe, winding around through Asia, then hop over to Alaska and ride across Canada and the US from Calgary ultimately to New York.

Of course, the meat and bones of the riding documentary are the encounters they have along the way with all types of challenges and issues inevitably coming up. Ultimately, they experience all kinds of different cultures and ride through innumerable different terrain and landscapes.

Long Way Round has an 8.6/10 rating on the IMDB website which shows that the series was a smash hit as far as motorcycle movies go.

8 Long Way Down

Release date: 2007.

The sequel to Long Way Round, Long Way Down is a 2007 mini-series turned movie with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman getting after it once again, this time on a different route.

Starting from John o' Groats in Scotland which is essentially the furthest Northern point of the British mainland road network, the guys embark on a trip to the most Southern point of Africa. The majority of the movie focuses on the guys riding across and down the entire African continent which is not exactly a safe, easy route to say the least.

The BMW R 1200 GS Adventure is a tried and true adventure bike and workhorse and served as the steeds of choice for McGregor and Boorman for the ride which lasted almost 3 months, from May 12-August 4, 2007. The 3rd and latest installment Long Way Up features McGregor and Boorman riding electric bikes across the Americas and got released in 2020.

RELATED: These Celebrities Have The Coolest Motorcycle Collections

7 Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Release date: 2023.

The most recent movie on this list Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One was just released in July 2023 . Not exactly a movie with motorcycles at its heart, Dead Reckoning does at least feature a ridiculous motorcycle stunt with who else but Tom Cruise behind the bars.

Hate him or love him, it's a fact that Tom Cruise does all of his own stunts. Tom Cruise's motorcycle stunt in Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning is not one to bat your eyes at, as he launches a dirtbike off of a huge ramp directly off a cliff. Cruise jumps off the bike mid-air and goes straight into a base jump off of the mountain top.

There have been some great behind-the-scenes videos of Cruise's motorcycle jump and the effort that went into it.

Release Date: 1986

The 1986 blockbuster movie Top Gun needs no introduction. Top Gun made the 1985 Kawasaki GPZ900R an iconic motorcycle model with the bike featuring prominently throughout the movie. Cruise's character is on the bike multiple times and funny enough Cruise became known for not wearing a motorcycle helmet in any of his riding scenes.

Top Gun may not solely focus on riding motorcycles, but damn if it isn't an all-time classic American cinematic piece. The motorcycle riding scenes, most notably when Cruise is riding along the runway next to fighter jets taking off, are undoubtedly some of the most iconic movie scenes featuring motorcycles ever made.

RELATED: A Detailed Look At The Kawasaki Motorcycle That Tom Cruise Rode In Top Gun

5 Top Gun Maverick

Release date: 2022.

Keeping on the Tom Cruise theme, Top Gun Maverick is the sequel to the original Top Gun and of course, had to feature some of the most iconic Kawasaki motorcycles lest the motorcycle masses revolt. Top Gun Maverick features the 2022 Kawasaki Ninja H2 Carbon which was a great choice to feature next to the original 1985 Kawasaki GPZ900R in the film of course.

The Kawasaki Ninja H2 Carbon is one of the most badass Japanese motorcycles made today and Cruise riding the 200 hp supercharged inline-4 bike down the airstrip next to fighter jets lived up to the original Top Gun movie's bike scenes.

4 No Time To Die

Release date: 2020.

The 2020 James Bond film No Time To Die is a great movie made greater by its epic motorcycle scenes. There have been some awesome motorcycles in the James Bond movies over the years, and this iteration is no different with Bond riding a heavily modified Triumph Scrambler 1200 XE.

The epic motorcycle scene near the beginning of the film has Bond flying through the air on a motorcycle with a majestic Italian city as the backdrop in true Bond fashion. Daniel Craig's stunt double that pulled off the feat was actually a four-time World Enduro Champion named Paul Edmondson.

Triumph produced a limited edition replica bike with a special run of 250 bikes calling it the Triumph Scrambler 1200 XE Bond Edition as well as a Triumph Tiger 900 Bond Edition which featured in No Time To Die as well. ​​​​​​​

3 Mission Impossible - Fallout

Release date: 2018.

All the films in the Mission Impossible franchise feature motorcycles in one form or another, mostly in epic bike chase form. Mission Impossible - Fallout is no different with an epic police chase scene featuring Cruise riding a BMW R NineT Scrambler. The BMW R NineT Scrambler is dripping with style , even more so when Cruise is doing a 360-degree burnout surrounded by European police vehicles.

Weaving through traffic and ultimately biting the dust, the motorcycle scene does not disappoint and adds to the great movie as a whole. ​​​​​​​

2 The Great Escape

Release date: 1963.

The Great Escape is a 1963 film featuring the infamous motorcycle chase scene with Steve Mcqueen's iconic bike jump scene. Mcqueen rode a 655 cc Triumph TT special bike painted Olive Green as the WWII-era BMW motorcycles were not durable enough to stand up to the abuse McQueen threw down, sliding both tires and testing the suspension to the max.

Nobody was going to go as fast as Mcqueen back then on set, so he doubled as the German soldiers chasing his character as well. The Great Escape is an old-school movie that is slow-paced by today's standards but it's humorous and builds up over the almost 3-hour run time(!) to end with an epic bike chase scene.

Triumph released a limited-edition Triumph Scrambler 1200 Steve McQueen with a run of just 1,000 bikes produced, paying homage to the late actor's iconic role in The Great Escape.

1 TT3D: Closer to the Edge

Release date: 2011.

TT3D is a 2011 film narrated by Jared Leto which follows the 2010 edition of the Isle of Man TT race. The Isle of Man TT is one of the most dangerous racing events in the world, let alone motorcycle races. Unfortunately, death is a real possibility as these modern-day gladiators reach mind-bending speeds with their bodies and bikes less than inches away from street curbs, walls, and other hazards on the real road course.

The TT started in 1907 and is still held, going on to be one of the last vestiges of real-road racing that has claimed so many lives over the years with circuit racing in a controlled racetrack environment proving to be much safer, albeit not without its inherent risks as well of course.

TT3D shows just how insane the Isle of Man TT really is and shows the human side of the sport.

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Steven Spielberg Developing New ‘Bullitt’ Movie Based on Steve McQueen Character

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After the success of his “West Side Story” remake, Steven Spielberg is continuing to mine the canon of 1960s cinema for inspiration. According to a new report from Deadline , the Oscar winner is attached to direct an action film based on “ Bullitt ,” the 1968 film starring Steve McQueen . Rather than a remake, the project is reportedly a new original story featuring the character of Frank Bullitt, originally played by McQueen.

“Spotlight” scribe Josh Singer is set to write the script, and Steve McQueen’s son Chad and granddaughter Molly McQueen will board the film as executive producers. Spielberg has been eyeing the project for years, but drawn-out negotiations with the McQueen estate over the character have caused him to prioritize other films. However, it appears that the two sides have reached an agreement and are ready to move forward with the film.

The original “Bullitt,” directed by Peter Yates, stars McQueen as a San Francisco police officer who turns violent in his quest to take down the crime boss who killed a witness he had in protection. Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn also star in the film, which was adapted from the novel “Mute Witness” by Robert L. Pike. In addition to being one of McQueen’s most well-known roles, “Bullitt” is regarded as one of the greatest American car chase movies, with its chase through the streets of San Francisco going on to inspire many other filmmakers.

The decision to adapt another classic film makes sense for Spielberg, as his recent slate of film projects has been increasingly nostalgic. The “West Side Story” remake fulfilled his long-standing dream of directing a musical, but he recently expressed interest in directing another popular genre from Hollywood’s Golden Age: the western . His next film, “The Fabelmans,” is a semi-autobiographical story about the way Spielberg’s childhood in Arizona led him to become a filmmaker. Seth Rogen, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, and David Lynch star in that film, which Spielberg co-wrote with Tony Kushner.

There is currently no word on when Spielberg plans to begin work on his “Bullitt” movie, though Deadline reports that it is unlikely to be Spielberg’s next project. His next outing as a director, “The Fabelmans,” hits theaters on November 23, 2022.

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