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Steve McQueen races to the top

Broadcast Date: June 26, 1962

Just three years after becoming a star on TV, actor Steve McQueen is a bankable Hollywood actor on the strength of his performances in 1959's Never So Few and 1960's The Magnificent Seven. It wasn't just luck that got him there, either: "I don't like acting when it's playing house," he says, explaining how he immerses himself in a role. In this relaxed 1962 CBC Radio interview, McQueen also talks about his life outside acting: his family and his beloved hobby of auto racing.

Steve McQueen races to the top

• Steve McQueen was born in Indiana in 1930. After a troubled childhood and youth, he spent three years in the marines and then began taking acting classes in New York.

• In 1963 McQueen starred in The Great Escape, a fictionalized account of a group of Allied PoWs who dig a tunnel out of a Nazi prison camp during the Second World War. McQueen, who often performed his own stunts, rode a motorcycle in the film (as seen in this still) but was not behind the handlebars in the movie's climactic escape scene. However, he was behind the wheel for most of the chase scenes in 1968's Bullitt.

• McQueen died of a heart attack at age 50 following surgery for lung cancer. He had been diagnosed with mesothelioma, a disease of the lungs that is usually caused by exposure to asbestos.

• "What made him world famous was riding a motorcycle in The Great Escape. He dominated that film. Him in the Nazi uniform, trying to escape with his motorcycle - he knows he's probably not going to make it, but by God, he's gonna give it a try. I think that's a masculine trait, and it's very attractive. You think you're going to lose, but you're willing to go down fighting. That's pretty much Steve McQueen." — film critic Andrew Saris, Interview magazine, 1999

Steve McQueen races to the top

Medium: Radio

Program: Assignment

Broadcast Date: June 26, 1962

Guest(s): Steve McQueen

Interviewer: Dick Strout

Duration:

Last updated:
July 29, 2009