Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans Page #3

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I knew we were driving

into the unknown.

You're going to be driving

at speeds that a racing

car's never been before.

It was terrifying.

Go.

[cheering]

It was a very fast

flowing circuit.

Very dangerous, but all

circuits were dangerous.

When I started racing, no

one was worried about safety.

I mean, almost every

race I went to,

someone was killed--

sometimes, two or three people.

Life was cheap.

[crashing]

Those cars weren't very safe.

They were like sharp knives,

if you had an accident.

They cut you to pieces.

A car catches on fire,

and that's the end of it.

ANNOUNCER:
We have trouble!

We have trouble.

Out at Nissan Dodge.

See the smoke billowing.

There is a problem.

STEVE MCQUEEN:
You don't have

time to make two decisions.

You have time only to make

one, and it must be right.

You are sitting in a motor car

that maybe has 600 horsepower

and 30 gallons of gasoline.

So you know that if you

crash in this vehicle,

an impact is going

to be disastrous.

There's nothing very

glamorous about racing,

except when you're winning.

You get to the end of the race.

You're leading the race.

You're almost in tears on

the last couple of laps, just

hoping you can get

across the line.

ANNOUNCER:
Here they come,

toward the checkered flag.

Ford wins the 1969

24 hours of Le Mans.

And you don't get a situation

like that in life very often,

you know.

[crowd cheering]

FRENCH MAN:
You like

speed, don't you?

Hmm?

FRENCH MAN:
You like

speed, don't you?

Oh, it's nice.

It's cold.

MAN:
The original idea

was for Steve to drive

Le Mans the actual 24 hours.

ANNOUNCER:
The real question

here is this is Steve McQueen,

and we are wondering

whether or not Steve

McQueen will run in the race.

If I weren't so rotten

inside for money,

I would probably tell

them to go screw.

[french speech]

But I need the money

to make the film.

[french speech]

And I will not race at Le Mans.

[french speech]

It was too big a risk.

And if something were to happen

to him in the actual race,

that would put the film on hold

and probably never get done.

That's how much it meant to him.

He gave up his shot

at competing at Le

Mans for the sake of the film.

Well, the insurance company

won't let Steve drive

in the race, as he told you.

We're going to be covering the

race itself very extensively,

with cameras everywhere.

And we expect to work

approximately three months

afterwards, staging the picture.

ANNOUNCER:
Solar

Productions ready the camera

car for the race.

My real contribution

was driving the camera

car during the actual race.

It was the car that Steve

and Peter Revson had finished

second at Sebring, and

then they converted

it to carry three cameras,

one in front, two at the back.

MAN:
When the camera car

was being fixed up Le Mans,

Steve was all around that.

And you could see written

all over his face,

I want to be sitting

where you are sitting

and to take this race on.

MAN:
Most important

was the start.

They wanted to get the

start from in the car.

MAN:
Going through the pit area,

with the full grand stand of

don't know how many

thousand people in it-- this

was genuine stuff.

We were told to film

especially the leaders.

So you'd photograph them

coming up behind you,

and then switch

with the front one

on to catch them overtaking

you, and pulling away.

MAN:
Unless they'd had all

the footage that they got,

they could've never

made the film.

They were brilliant.

MAN:
The camera car

was bringing need

to the screen what

a driver would

see-- cars passing at speed, car

dicing, all part of the vision.

Here it is, after

all this time.

NEILE ADAMS:
(SINGING)

And it started again,

and I meant every word,

and I liked what I said,

and I liked what I heard.

And I started to think.

I could think about

starting again.

We were laughing again

over memories, and wine,

and the years in-between

didn't seem a long time.

When I smiled, he knew why.

In a while, it was

starting again.

We had so many similarities.

(SINGING) And I

started to think.

We were raised by mothers who

really were not particularly

ready to be mothers.

Our fathers left us.

We built our career together.

We had children

together, and we were

married for a very long time.

(SINGING) You're walking

along the street,

or you're at a party.

Or else you're alone and

then you suddenly dig--

My mom-- I don't know

how old she is now.

She won't tell me.

But she still does her act.

(SINGING) There's no

controlling the unrolling

of my faith, my friend.

Who knows what's written

in the magic book?

Well, my parents

met in the '50s.

She was a star on Broadway.

And she's good at what she

does, and she enjoys it.

She loves it.

I sure did like that.

She was about the sexiest

girl I ever saw in my life.

I guess it was ever a thing

of falling in love with a girl

at first sight, I guess that

was it, because boy, I sure had

to chase her for a long time.

[applause]

It was just our

destiny to be together.

I walked out of Carnegie

Hall, and he came right to me.

And he said, hi.

You're pretty.

And I was stunned.

And I said, well,

you're pretty too.

I remember there

was a long drive.

Yeah.

This was my home for

three months, man.

The people my dad or

Solar rented it from,

they lived on that floor, there.

And they had a nutty

daughter, if I remember.

We pulled in here, and she

was chasing a chicken around.

And she had a f***ing

ax in her hand.

And she grabbed it

and cut its f***ing

head off, right in front of us.

It was the first time I

ever saw a chicken running

around with no head right here.

I'd come from Brentwood.

[dog barking]

NEILE ADAMS:
I didn't

want to go to Le Mans.

However, because Chad had

been doing badly in school,

I said, OK.

If you improve your

grades, we'll go.

And he did, so I had to go.

I used to wait right out here

to see dad's Porsche coming up.

ANNOUNCER:
The fact

that you're here

with the likes of Hertz and--

Would you like some gum?

Thank you.

When the flower children came

along, everything changed.

Everything changed.

He was almost 40.

There was suddenly free

sex, and free love, and free

this, and free everything.

He said to me one day.

He said, I have to work so

hard for love in this house.

(LAUGHING) He said, I can

get it for free out there.

MAN:
His conquest of

women behind his wife's

back probably averaged

about a dozen women a week.

It was a little

less than two a day.

They wanted to say, I had

sex with Steve McQueen.

He loved cars, liquor,

women, and he was interesting,

and cool, and dangerous.

See, they liked

the danger in him.

Whatever Steve's

activities might

have been when he had a break

in the afternoon, so to speak.

His trailer was never empty.

I had came from the Royal

Dramatic School in Stockholm,

and I was there for the job.

Only if you'd like it better.

He had something hidden.

Maybe that also made him

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