Steve Mcqueen, King of Cool (ebook)

Argumento de Steve Mcqueen, King of Cool (ebook)

?With astonishing focus and intensity, Darwin Porter shows how Steve McQueen arrived in New York City as a poor and obscure 20-something determined to carve out a path to fame and fortune. His close-up of McQueen along with insights into the icon?s psychology should prove endlessly fascinating for his fans. Darwin Porter approaches Steve McQueen through his cinematic image: "A man's man and a woman's dream" to his admirers or a star saddled with a face that "looked like a Botticelli angel who had been crossed with a chimp" to those less enchanted with his Bad Boy appeal. Exhibiting a tabloid reporter's enthusiasm for dirt, Porter investigates how McQueen developed the unique persona that captivated audiences in such movies as The Magnificent Seven and Bullitt. McQueen's early years were a nightmare of abandonment, neglect, abuse and exploitation. His mother was an alcoholic; purportedly one of his "step-fathers" put him on the street as a child prostitute; he spent time in reform school and ran away to kick around brothels as a towel-boy. All that was a nasty prelude to a direction-changing three-year stint with the Marines (he enlisted at 17) and acting classes in Greenwich Village. If McQueen was secure in anything, Porter assures us, it was his physical appeal and sexual allure. Notorious for having the morals of an alley cat (according to many sources), he admitted to one of his girlfriends that he would do anything with anybody--men, women, acting coaches, co-stars, competitors, idols--if it landed him a part. He told Rod Steiger, "I became a slut in New York looking for sluts." There are no complaints on record. McQueen may have wanted to remain a tantalizing mystery to everyone, but even women he bedded suspected his competitive friendships with James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Rock Hudson, George Peppard and others went beyond a few beers and shop talk. Lee Strasberg and Shelley Winters shared their own theories about McQueen's sexuality with Porter, and they are suitably lurid. To his credit, Porter, although at times tarnishing McQueen's reputation, celebrates his star to the heavens and yet, miraculously, bring us closer to him? (John McFarland in SHELF-AWARENESS.COM, October 30, 2009)0