Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans Page #5

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And Steve drove for Porsche.

I do some paintings.

You need a place where

you are by yourself.

And of course,

Steve is here too.

[Laughs]

Steve always did it different.

We were talking about reading.

And I said, I don't

like reading too much.

I read my scripts, and aw, I

don't like it either, he said.

I only read one book

in my life, he said,

a book about

Alexander the Great.

And I was very impressed

by one sentence, he said.

I can't get the world, but

I didn't conquer myself.

PRODUCER:
Get off!

DIRECTOR:
Action.

Who are you?

Especially as an actor,

you ask yourself.

Who are you, really?

Sometimes, I had

a feeling he was

always searching for something.

[cars racing]

STEVE MCQUEEN:
My

theory had always

been the racing world

is no less creative

in expression than film itself.

It's only an oddity,

because it's a blood sport.

He wanted to leave

his scratch marks

on the history of filmmaking.

I'm a driver.

I'm an actor, and a filmmaker.

[french speech]

MAN:
He was quasi directing.

He would say, look.

It would be great to

get a shot like this.

It caused quite a bit of

conflict with John Sturges.

This will be a

serious film, and

since the romantic interests

will be kept down to a minimum,

this will concentrate on sports

car racing and the 24 hours

at Le Mans.

Is that right?

Well, I'll go with you that we

concentrate on the race, yes.

Whether anything else is

kept to a minimum or not--

I don't know.

MAN:
Steve was an

executive producer.

He outright Sturges.

This was not the

same McQueen that

worked with Sturges

on "The Magnificent

Seven" or "The Great Escape."

STEVE MCQUEEN:
You've got to

believe in what you're doing.

I believe in what I do.

And if I'm shooting

my best shot for me,

then I'm doing my

best for the audience.

But my obligation's

got to be to myself.

To me, he became the

character, which I

described to him in the mantra.

He made his own rules.

He knew his own right and wrong.

He didn't have to

answer to anybody.

Well, I'll get all these

idiots away from you.

[cars racing]

If they tell you

you're a genius

with sufficient frequency,

you start to believe that.

And I think most people out

there who get that sort of fame

have a great deal of

difficulty handling it.

have a great deal of

difficulty handling it.

[chopper noises]

MAN:
It was a wild time.

It was a time of

great rebelliousness

and attempting to overthrow

the gods of Hollywood.

Jay Sebring was a very

good friend of ours.

And I liked Sharon Tate.

Sharon was married to

Roman Pilanski at the time,

and she was pregnant.

Jay said, why don't

you and Neil come over

and have dinner with us?

And Steve said, oh, yeah, sure.

I knew I wasn't coming,

and I didn't want to go.

MAN:
The bodies will have to

be made in the examination

by the coroner.

REPORTER:
There's no

evident cause of death?

MAN:
Not that we can

say at this time.

People kept calling the next

day and said, is Steve OK?

An employee came to

work at 10050 Cielo

and found several

bodies in the house.

NEILE ADAMS:
And then

I find out that there

had been these murders, and

they thought Steve was there.

A tentative identification

of the persons are as follows.

Sharon Polanski, Jay Sebring.

MAN:
Steve was supposed

to be at the party.

MAN:
Abigail Folger.

MAN:
But he ran into a lady or

something, and didn't show up.

Voytek Frykowski, and

another man who is unknown.

Was there anything

scrolled on the front door

of that house in blood?

MAN:
I can't answer

that question.

MAN:
How you doing, Charlie?

Good.

How are you this morning?

NEILE ADAMS:
His name

was Charles Manson,

and he had a gang of misfits.

MAN:
Body is badly mutilated.

MAN:
This, I'd

rather not discuss.

NEILE ADAMS:
I'd never heard

of people who massacred the way

they massacred these people.

[Laughing]

It's all a play, isn't it?

MAN:
They found his name

on the list of other people

that Manson wanted to murder.

It'd freak him out a lot.

Dear Eddie-- Eddie

Rubin was our attorney.

As you know, I have been

selected by the Manson group

to be marked for death.

In some ways, I find it

humorous, and in other ways,

frighteningly tragic.

But I must, I must

consider it may be true.

If you could call Palm

Springs and have my gun

permit renewed, as it is the

only sense of self-protection

for my family and myself.

I'm waiting for an

immediate reply.

My best, Steve.

This was 1970, on

the set of "Le Mans."

MAN:
Steve was

already what I would

call in a heightened

state; extremely paranoid.

Everything was raised.

The levels of craziness,

anxiety were heightened.

Everything is zz-- up.

NEILE ADAMS:
He was never

the same at any one point.

That marriage was

fraying at the seams.

MAN:
When they appeared on

set, they appeared on and on.

They appeared devoted.

But you can also see in Neile's

expression, a certain weariness

to the whole situation.

He said, by the way,

I'm having friends

visit me from all over Europe.

I said, really?

Who are they?

He said, well,

they're mostly women.

And you know, that

really got to me,

and I remember sobbing away.

MAN:
She was wonderful.

She was a smart woman.

I would say to him, you're

going to ruin your marriage.

What is wrong with you?

Until one night, I told him,

I had gotten even with him.

MAN:
Steve asked Neile whether

she'd ever had an affair.

I said, well, as a matter

of fact, I said, yeah, I had.

I was the one

person in the world

that he trusted, the

one person he thought

he could do anything to.

I would never retaliate.

For him to hear

that coming from me

was totally unbelievable to him.

He was really, really,

deeply wounded.

MAN:
It was him, not her.

He's the one that

just had this hunger.

MAN:
And you think,

my god, the next day

he's got to get up,

and go out, and drive

a 917 at 200 miles an hour.

The whole situation

was problematic.

[car racing]

MAN:
The one thing he wanted

to do is what we were doing.

He wanted to be a racing driver.

STEVE MCQUEEN:

It's a combination

of trying to use a motor car and

yourself as one complete unit.

It's really an umbilical

connection between the two,

the man and the machine.

MAN:
248 miles an hour.

Just imagine losing control

and hitting that Armco rail.

Well, racing, it's life.

Anything that happens before

or after is just waiting.

That's a good

sentence for Steve.

Sometimes, I had the

feeling it is like this.

It meant a lot to him,

almost everything.

And we had a scene where

we get out of the car

after two hours of driving.

Of course, you sweat.

And the makeup man

came, and put some water

in my face, and hair.

And he wanted to

do this to Steve.

And Steve said,

no, no, no, no, no.

He stepped in his car.

He drove a couple of

rounds, got out of the car.

He was sweating naturally.

And he said, Siggy,

look at this.

It's swollen here, the vein.

So that is the perfect thing.

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