1001 Steve McQueen Facts. Tyler Greenblatt
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that Steve had actually run off. This was Steve McQueen’s first great escape.
19. His carnival days didn’t last long, and he quickly found himself living back with his mother and her husband, Hal Berri. Hal’s beatings picked up right where they left off for 13-year-old Steve, but by May 1943, the couple separated. Julian and Steve moved into an apartment at 3266½ Descanso Drive in Los Angeles. Rather than work and go to school, however, Steve became involved with a “bad crowd” and was once again a juvenile delinquent.
20. After his mother and her husband Hal Berri separated, she made 13-year-old Steve apply for a social security number so that he could get a job and help with the rent, although there’s no evidence that he ever did actually hold a job.
21. Steve McQueen was sent to the Boys Republic School in Chino, California, on February 6, 1945, by a court order obtained by his mother. The school was set up as its own little society in which the students were responsible for every facet of everyday life including running their own government. Students were responsible to themselves and their classmates, which taught respect and inspired confidence.
22. Boy’s Republic School is a well-known, popular reform school today, but when Steve arrived, there were about 100 students, and he was given the number 3188. He lived at the John Brewer dormitory cottage and his mother paid $25 a month for his room and board.
23. Although he looked back at his time at Boys Republic with fondness, while there he and some buddies tried to escape. His friends made it as far as Long Beach, California, before getting caught. Steve had decided to go it on his own and was caught underneath the entrance bridge to Boys Republic. This was the last formal education Steve received, having never made it past ninth grade.
24. On April 1, 1946, Steve McQueen left Boys Republic, after his mother secured his release, and moved to be with her in New York. She was living at 240 Sullivan Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village with artist Viktor Lukens. It was he who pushed for Steve to come live near them, and upon his arrival, Lukens took on a paternal role. They rented a room from an actor down the street for Steve to live.
25. At age 16, Steve joined the Merchant Marines after hearing about the adventures of a couple of sailors he met while drinking in a bar. He boarded a ship, the Alpha, in Yonkers, New York, and headed for the West Indies to pick up a cargo of molasses. Among the jobs he had on his maiden voyage were cleaning the decks under the hot summer sun, cleaning garbage receptacles, and cleaning toilets.
26. The ship caught fire just after leaving port and almost sank. The crew wasn’t sure it could even reach the West Indies. McQueen jumped ship while docked at Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and quickly ended his career as a merchant marine.
27. While in Santo Domingo, Steve secured a job as a towel boy at a brothel, which he often recalled with a certain fondness. His tropical tenure lasted two months before he made his way back to the United States.
28. McQueen finally landed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, working at another carnival. He slept on a park bench, an object that became sentimental to him later. “Sometimes, when I start to figure I’ve got the world by the tail, I think back to the bench and remember that it could’ve ended up a lot differently.”
29. Did you know that Steve once worked as a lumberjack in Canada? He ditched the carnival while there, but his fear of heights led him to quit and return to the United States. He spent 30 days on a chain gang after being arrested as a vagrant, then celebrated his 17th birthday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
30. In April 1947, living back in New York City, Steve reached out to his mother to sign a waiver so he could enlist in the Marine Corps at the age of 17. “I suppose I had heard enough of the stories about how tough the Corps was that I considered it somewhat of a challenge,” he said. Interestingly, he likely had no knowledge of his family’s extensive military service or that his father served in the Marine Corps from 1927 to 1929! On April 28, at the USMC Northeastern Recruiting Division District Headquarters at 90 Church Street, he filled out the official application, falsely saying that he had never been in jail or at a reform school.
31. Although his relationship with his mother was tenuous, he signed over 75 percent of his Marine Corps enlistment pay to her and received the military number 649015.
32. When discussing his time in the military in his later years, McQueen often joked that he had been “busted back down to private about seven times.” However, his service records don’t show a single demotion. In fact, his former drill instructor even said that he had been promoted at an impressive rate for peacetime service. The real joke is that one of his few friends in the Marines nicknamed him “Tough Shit McQueen” because the name on his uniform read “T. S. McQueen.”
33. Although Steve’s documented birthday is March 21, his mother claimed it was really March 24. Interestingly, he always celebrated on the 21st even though the 24th is considered the accepted day.
34. Steve’s Civil War veteran ancestor, Pike Montgomery Thomson, was captured by the Union army and awaiting execution when a Union captain decided otherwise. Rather than hang him like so many others, he exiled Thomson, his wife, and their child from the country. While on their way, the bloody war ended, and they decided to return to Saline County in Missouri. The most interesting part about the whole ordeal? The captain who spared Pike Thomson’s life went by the name McQueen.
35. While growing up on his uncle’s hog farm, Steve noticed that whenever he called, one particular hog came and jumped on him like a dog. Uncle Claude warned him about his relationship with the hog, saying that one day, when the hog grew up, they’d have to eat it. However, Uncle Claude saw how much the animal meant to young Steve, who didn’t have much else in his life, and allowed him to keep it as a pet, sparing his life in the process. Can you guess what Steve named his pet pig? Well, Pig, of course! Every time he called out for Pig, the animal came trotting right up to him.
36. Marine boot camp on Parris Island was rough for McQueen until he was discovered as a potentially good boxer. In his first fight, he went up against the biggest Marine there, who would later end up in Leavenworth Prison for punching several officers. The wiry McQueen got knocked down and got back up to fight nine times before being physically unable to get back up after the tenth knock-down. That fight proved his toughness to his officers and fellow enlistees, and proved that he belonged in the Marine Corps.
37. While living in New York, barely able to make ends meet, Steve entered a professional boxing match. Although he was knocked out in the third round, he earned $65 for the fight.
MOVIE FACTS
38. Steve and Claude’s relationship continued to grow as they developed a mutual respect and appreciation for each other. Although Claude was a tough-as-nails farmer and businessman, he made time on Saturdays to take Steve to their local movie theater, the Kiva Theater on Main Street in Slater. Westerns were his favorite, but in the late 1930s, he would have also been exposed to some of the greatest films ever created in one of Hollywood’s most glamorous and exciting eras.
39. Steve’s favorite actors growing up were James Cagney, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, and Humphry Bogart. “Bogie” (as Steve called Bogart), was his favorite, and an actor from whom he developed much of his own direction. He was later quoted as saying, “Sometimes kids ask me what a pro is. I just point to the Duke.” Another of his quotes is, “Listen, in Taiwan most people don’t know who Lyndon Johnson is, but they sure as hell know who John Wayne is.”
40. While at Boys Republic, Steve developed a relationship with his guidance counselor, Lloyd Panter, who was one of the earliest adults to see great potential in young Steve McQueen. “No one seemed to give a damn about my future life as an adult,” Steve said. “But he did, and it meant a lot to me.” Panter first introduced Steve to Shakespeare and other literature, which he said “laid the foundation for my later interest in the theater.”
41. Carnival life gave McQueen some insight into the entertainment industry because of the variety of performers and the opportunity to study them for days on end. Always the loner, he watched them interact with one another and with show attendees. It’s believed that this