Steve McQueen was bi-sexual

[Jupiter Jones]

The drama of Steve McQueen's life far surpassed anything he ever played on screen. He followed in the footsteps of his mother, a prostitute, who eventually seduced him as part of an Oedipal fling. Earlier, he'd been brutally molested by some of this mother's "johns," and endured gang rape in reform school. In a bordello in Santo Domingo, he hired himself out as a sex object and porn performer.

Returning to New York, he hustled on the streets of Times Square. Later, in a borrowed tux, he became a "gentleman for rent," the toy boy of rich, aging women, two of whom included Joan Crawford and Lana Turner. When stardom finally came, the abused became the abuser. "The last thing I want is to fall in love with a broad." The string of seductions that followed earned him an almost mythical status as a pansexual Love Machine. His A-list conquests included Jacqueline Bissett, Faye Dunaway, Lauren Hutton, Sharon Tate, Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld, Natalie Wood, and Marilyn Monroe.

Publicly, he insisted that he loathed homosexuals, yet he often went to bed with them, especially if they were bikers or
race car drivers. He had a tumultuous sexual relationship with James Dean, and a longer love/hate affair with Paul
Newman. Other sexual liaisons developed with Peter Lawford, Sal Mineo, Rock Hudson, Chuck Connors, and George
Peppard.

McQueen lived life at top speed, like the machines he raced so famously. His early death remains a source of lurid
speculation, all of it explored within this pioneering biography by celebrity chronicler Darwin Porter.

Steve McQueen, King of Cool, Tales of a Lurid Life by Darwin Porter

[Lobelia]

Paul Newman???

[caramel]

I guess they all loved dick in the old days, nothing changed really

[Brookie]

Chuck Connors? Not "The Rifleman"!!?? (Paul Newman? Please God, say it ain't so. Although there was that kerfuffle over who got top billing for the "Towering Inferno", so maybe their love/hate relationship had something to do with that too.)

[McJag]

This has to be a crock.

[WhateverLolaWants]

Whaaaat?

[harrietcraig]

No way!

[A*O]

Bollox

[Jupiter Jones]

I've heard rumors about Chuck Connors and George Peppard for years. Way back in the 70s, there were rumors the Steve McQueen was gay, but they disappeared and I never heard anything about it again until now.

[Brookie]

On a completely other note, George Peppard is buried in a cemetary about half mile from where I work.

[word]

Review by respected critic PETER SHERIDAN

WITH his icy blue eyes staring challengingly from beneath heavy lids, a sneer on his lips and an air of nonchalant
disdain, Steve McQueen was Hollywood’s epitome of cool.

The star of Bullitt, The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven became the world’s highest-paid actor, a Sixties pop icon slouching through movies as if he had a grudge against the world.

He seemed to have it all – beautiful wives, mansions, planes, fast cars and the film world at his feet. Yet his devil-may-care insouciance came at a terrible price, reveals a sensational new biography to be published in Britain soon, for behind the glittering facade hid a troubled psyche.

In Darwin Porter’s shocking exposé Steve McQueen, King Of Cool: Tales Of A Lurid Life. the actor is described as the illegitimate child of an alcoholic prostitute, beaten and brutalised by a drunken stepfather who pimped him out as a rent boy.

He grew up as a gang member, arsonist and thief, was sent to reform school and seemed headed for a squalid life of crime, Porter claims. “If I hadn’t made it as an actor, I might have wound up a hood,” McQueen confessed.

Between jobs as a circus barker, lumberjack, brothel worker and a stint in the US Marines – in which he was busted down to private seven times – McQueen survived by selling sex, the book reveals.

“He had no morals,” says Porter, who previously penned biographies of Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. “He was an alley cat who would have sex with anyone. Yet that’s what helped make him a star because he was willing to sleep with anybody – men, women, acting coaches, co-stars, rivals, idols – if it could win him a role.”

The actor claimed he slept with all his leading ladies and his list of alleged lovers is a Who’s Who of Hollywood, from Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich to James Dean and Paul Newman. He also had affairs with older actresses including Ava Gardner, Mae West, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.

Porter says McQueen was never happy. “He had suffered so many abuses in childhood that as an adult he could never have enough money, enough sex, could never be satisfied. He was a sad, lonely man.
“Even in his glory days, being paid $5million and 20 per cent of the gross for a movie, he still demanded that producers pay him an extra $250 for his watch because he’d worn it in the film.”

McQueen was born in 1930 in Indianapolis, Indiana, to beautiful blonde 19-year-old hooker Jullian Crawford. His father, stunt pilot Terrence McQueen, ran off weeks later without marrying her and never saw his son again. Jullian dumped her son on relatives while she walked the streets, occasionally returning to take him back into her squalid life.

Moving with his mother to Los Angeles, McQueen fell in with a street gang, robbing old ladies, breaking into shops and stealing cars. His stepfather beat him up, then had him sent to a brutal reform school to straighten him out.

McQueen’s unhappy childhood would later make him a study in contradictions. “He loved women yet treated them appallingly,” says Porter. Director Henry Hathaway said: “He hated women. He used them for sexual relief and discarded them quickly.”

Porter explains: “He had too strong an attachment to his mother, who never gave him the love he craved. She kept rejecting him. But he was little better. He demanded fidelity yet was never faithful. He cheated on first wife Neile almost daily and didn’t hide his affairs from her. Yet the day she admitted one affair in their entire 15-year marriage he practically killed her. He could never forgive her and filed for divorce.”

His friend actor James Coburn said: “Perhaps because Steve had been abused all his life he suffered from acute paranoia. If everything was going right he felt something was wrong. If there was no ¬trouble he had to stir some up.”

Porter agrees: “He never got over his childhood scars. Above all he wanted to be perceived as a macho man’s man.
He was offered the lead in Breakfast At Tiffany’s but refused to play a kept man. But in real life he was kept for years by his first wife, actress Neile Adams.

“He was a misfit, a bad boy and a rebel just at the time when that became a cool image in Hollywood. He abused drugs, drank to excess, smoked three packs a day and was riddled with self-destructive urges.”

While McQueen did not have a death wish, he clearly harboured a reckless disregard for his safety.
“He was a skilled motorcyclist and racing car driver but crashed repeatedly, nearly killing himself several times,” says Porter. “He claimed that was when he felt most alive.”

It was his sexual appetite that saved his life in 1969 when his sometime lover Sharon Tate invited him to her party in the Hollywood Hills. “He stopped for a drink on the way, met an actress and ended up back at her place,” says Porter.“Everyone at Tate’s home was killed that night by Charles ¬Manson’s followers.”

Semi-literate and barely educated, McQueen made bad career choices, turning down the leads in classic movies including One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Apocalypse Now, Play Misty For Me, The Wild Bunch and Ryan’s Daughter. He dumped Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid because he refused second billing to Paul Newman.

Always “difficult” on film sets, he became a diva, firing crew on a whim. “In the end fewer scripts came his way and he had burned too many bridges,” says Porter. “He was on his way out in Hollywood when he contracted cancer.”

McQueen was diagnosed with mesothelioma, usually brought on by exposure to asbestos. While in the Marines the actor had spent weeks repairing asbestos insulation in buildings and later wore asbestos-lined suits as a racing driver. Diagnosed as untreatable, McQueen went to Mexico where he resorted to experimental treatments that promised to shrink the tumours that ravaged his body. They didn’t work.

McQueen died at only 50 in November 1980. After a simple funeral at his ranch in Santa Paula, California, his three wives – Neile Adams, Ali MacGraw and actress Barbara Minty – all ended up sitting on the actor’s empty bed. “His dream fantasy come true,” said old friend Elmer Valentine, “except he wasn’t there to take advantage. He would have seduced them all.”

Porter adds: “Steve McQueen has become an iconic hero, forever cool, but it’s ironic because he was never really cool; he was a Molotov cocktail that could explode at any time. His fans never knew the real Steve McQueen – until now.”
Steve McQueen, King of Cool, Tales of a Lurid Life by Darwin Porter

[Brookie]

It was his sexual appetite that saved his life in 1969 when his sometime lover Sharon Tate invited him to her party in the Hollywood Hills. “He stopped for a drink on the way, met an actress and ended up back at her place,” says Porter.“Everyone at Tate’s home was killed that night by Charles ¬Manson’s followers.”

Sometimes, it pays to be a ho.

[crackho]

I've heard rumors of Paul Newman being bisexual for years. Doesn't surprise me, and its no big deal.

[Kathie_Moffett]

Holy shit.

I can deal with McQueen, Newman etc. being ambisexual.

But George Peppard?!?

[kingcap72]

Steve McQueen fucked over everyone in Hollywood. Literally.