Steve McQueen
The King of Cool may have died in 1980, but even four decades later, Steve McQueen’s tough-guy persona continues to loom large over Hollywood. Example: Chase scenes are a staple in today’s action flicks, and inevitably every chase is rated against either McQueen’s 1968 Mustang chase in the crime drama Bullitt or his motorcycle jump in The Great Escape.
In addition to the lasting impression he left with vehicles, his presence still resounds in Tinseltown in other ways. In the 2016 remake of the 1960 classic Western The Magnificent Seven (which featured McQueen), Chris Pratt’s character Faraday wields a cutdown Winchester rifle in homage to the one McQueen carried for three years in his 1950s bounty-hunter TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive. Younger movie viewers may be interested to know that the American Westerns were remakes of the original Japanese film Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa. More recently in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character was based in part on McQueen.
What escapes most martial arts and action-movie fans, however, is the accurate portrayal of violence in McQueen’s film fights. These scenes are flavored with McQueen’s own knowledge of street fighting, his military training and his martial arts study with worldrenowned masters.
Street Fighter
In Hollywood, there are actors who “play” a role and actors who actually “live” the role. McQueen was a legitimate tough guy, both on and off-screen.
That chip you saw on his shoulder even as he portrayed various characters was based on the violence he endured while growing up. Abandoned periodically by an alcoholic mother and abused by a
