My Family DNA Ancestry Research

As a car enthusiast, I remember my 23rd paternal cousin, Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen from my childhood mostly for his famous chase scene through the streets of San Francisco driving his Mustang GT fastback chasing the bad guys driving a 1968 Charger. I could watch that chase scene over and over again, and I do every time I find it on TV or online! I may be wrong, but I believe that this particular chase scene was the longest in cinematic history, or at least it was for quite a few years. I was only 2 when the movie came out, but luckily for me Bullit continues to be played on the TV even today. Even with all the wild 1970's car chase films, Bullit stands out as my favourite.

 

I can't say that Steve McQueen was directly responsible, but 40 years after Bullit hit the big screen, I purchased my own new Mustang GT, a 2008 - one of the new retro styled Mustangs, and although it wasn't an actual Bullit edition (I have had bad luck with racing green colored cars!), complete with Ford racing exhaust for good measure. It wasn't the fastest car I've ever had, but when Cheryl Crow came on the stereo singing Steve McQueen as I was driving down a dark, deserted and twisting country road on a sultry August night near my home here in Ontario, I turned off the AC, rolled down the windows, and dropped a couple of gears and let that Mustang roar through the night. Years later I can still remember the feeling of freedom and a little bit of rebellion take over on that night.

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That was, of course, long before I knew that I had a distant but direct ancestral tie to this Hollywood icon.

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Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was born on March 24th, 1930 in Beech Grove, Indiana, USA. Steve was the son of Julia Ann, or Julianne Crawford and William McQueen, who was a stunt pilot. William abandoned Steve's mother 6 months after they met, and Julianne was left to raise Steve on her own. Now this was in the midst of the Great Depression and Steve's mother found herself unable to care for him, so she left Steve with her parents, Lillian and Victor, in 1933. Lillian and Victor lived in Slater, Missouri until they were forced by the worsening depression to move in with Lillian's brother Claude, at his farm (also in Slater, Missouri). 

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Steve's great uncle Claude is credited with lighting the racing fire in the young boy when he gifted him with a red tricycle on his fourth birthday. Steve and his grandparents would live together with his great uncle until he was 8, when his mother remarried and brought Steve to Indiana to live with her and his new stepfather. This new living arrangement didn't go well at all, and Steve was on the receiving end of his stepfather's beatings, possibly because Steve didn't adjust well to his new surroundings. Steve, a dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, also didn't adjust well to school. Things grew so bad at home that Steve spent time on the streets at age 9.

A more detailed biography of Steve's early life can be found on Wikipedia at the following link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McQueen

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McQueen joined the U.S. Marines in 1947 which, after a significant amount of difficulty adjusting to the structured rules of authority in the Marines, he eventually found a way to focus his energy on improving himself and learned to accept and follow the required discipline of being in the military. During his stint in the Marines, McQueen was credited with saving the lives of 5 Marines who were in a tank that broke through the ice while on maneuvers during arctic exercises. He was also assigned to the honor guard for the Harry S. Truman presidential yacht USS Williamsburg. In 1950 Steve received an honorable discharge from the Marines, coming out of the military a person leading a more structured life and with better self control.

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McQueen started on his path to acting in 1952 when, using the financial assistance offered under the G.I. Bill he began studying acting at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhow as well as under Uta Hagen at HB Studio. His first speaking role was a brief one-line piece taking place in 1952 while acting in a theatre production. Also during this time Steve began racing motorcycles on weekends at Long Island Raceway where he quickly became a well known racer winning about $100.00 each weekend for his efforts.

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Steve made is Broadway debut in 1955 in the play Hatful of Rain starring Ben Gazzara. Later that same year, McQueen left New York City and headed to Los Angeles to begin looking for acting jobs in Hollywood. It wasn't too long before Steve started landed some roles including his first film appearance (it was a bit part, but nonetheless he was acting!) in 1956 in the film Somebody Up There Likes Me which starred fellow racing enthusiast, Paul Newman.

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McQueen's first starring film role was in one of my favorite 50's horror films, The Blob (1958). Tame by today's standards, The Blob is still a fun film to take in if you find it on the late-late show one night! Following this film, McQueen subsequently landed roles in Never Love A Stranger (1958) starring John Drew Barrymore and then in The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery in 1959 in which McQueen played a college drop out who was the getaway driver.

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McQueen's breakout role came in the TV series Wanted Dead or Alive which ran for three seasons from 1958-1961. McQueen played the starring role of bounty hunter Josh Randall, quickly becoming a household name. This role also helped McQueen develop his trademark "antihero" image that was prevalent throughout his career, and which adds to his sense of mystique and coolness associated with this Hollywood icon.

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Big film roles would follow throughout the 1960's, including: The Great Escape, The Carpetbaggers, Love with the Proper Stranger, The Cincinnati Kid and The Sand Pebbles. The last film earned McQueen his only academy award nomination.

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Of course, this author's favorite Steve McQueen film, and often the one most associated with him was Bullitt which was released in 1968. During filming McQueen did all of the driving during close-up scenes, and contrary to some beliefs, about 90% of the driving during the epic car chase through San Francisco and the highway beyond, was done by professional stunt drivers. Bullitt became a box office hit, but not before Warner Brothers had cancelled McQueen's contract for 7 more films due to the huge overrun on the film's budget. Realizing their mistake too late, the studio tried to woo McQueen back, but he refused, instead making his next film, The Thomas Crown Affair, with an independent studio. You have to give Steve props for giving Warner Brothers the middle finger and continuing to successfully follow his dreams!

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In the early 1970's McQueen continued to make various movies. On the set of The Getaway in 1972, McQueen met his future wife, actor Ali MacGraw. One of the most memorable films of the 1970's and arriving during Hollywood's epic disaster movies that would continue throughout the decade was The Towering Inferno (1974). I remember watching that movie at the drive-in (that was the only way my family watched movies back then, and in my humble opinion,  still the best way to see a movie!) and developing a fear of skyscrapers and the possibility of being caught in one during a fire. Of course in the '70s I also developed a fear of flying, being on a ship, swimming in anything but a pool (and then only after double checking to make sure nothing was in it!), earthquakes and probably a number of other phobias, most of which I have outgrown, all thanks to Hollywood's obsession with block buster disaster movies. I think a lot of psychiatrists made a lot of money from those of us who watched these movies in the '70s. ​

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After The Towering Inferno, McQueen took a break from acting to focus on motorcycle racing, not returning to the big screen until 1978. 1980 would be the end of McQueen's films with the releases of a Western movie called Tom Horn and The Hunter, a movie in which he starred as a modern day bounty hunter. On November 7th, 1980, Steve McQueen died from a heart attack in Juarez, Mexico after flying there to have an operation to remove a 5 lb. tumor from his liver. American doctors had warned McQueen that the tumor was inoperable and that his heart would not be able to handle the stress of the operation. McQueen had been battling cancer since it was discovered in 1979.

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Steve McQueen was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Pacific Ocean.

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McQueen had married 3 times during his life. Steve's first marriage was to Filipino actress and dancer Nellie Adams in 1956. Steve and Nellie had 2 children together, a daughter, Terry Leslie (June 5, 1959 - March 19, 1998) and a son, Chad (December 28, 1960 - September 11, 2024).

Steve's second marriage was to actress Ali MacGraw in 1973. Although Ali became pregnant during their marriage, she tragically had a miscarriage and lost the baby.

McQueen's third and final marriage was fashion model Barbara Minty in January 0f 1980, just months before his death. 

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While researching this distant cousin of mine, I was reminded of a strange coincidence as it relates to my extended family tree. Steve McQueen was friends with Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, who were murdered by the Manson Family along with my 17th cousin (3x removed) Abigail Folger. Several months after the murders it was reported that the police found a hit list created by Manson that included Steve McQueen's name. After the murders, McQueen began to keep a handgun on him at all times, including at Jay Sebring's funeral.

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