Goodbye Steve McQueen

When I opened my newspaper today, I saw a photo series of Steve McQueen in honour of his 80th birthday, had he still been alive. To me, this came as quite a shock, because until now I did not even know he had died back in 1980, aged 50.

Back in those days, I was only 3 years old so chances are slim I knew or even realised. I only discovered (some of) his movies later on in life, and never really took the time to dig up more information about him. Had I done so, I'd have known much sooner of course.

Nevertheless, all this doesn't take away anything from the fact that he has starred in one short of 40 movies, some of which still remain among my personal favourites.

Over the course of the years I've seen The Blob (although I have a better recollection of the eighties remake), Bullit (which I own on DVD), The Getaway (which I'm certain I've seen, but don't remember a lot of), The Towering Inferno, Papillon and The Great Escape.

These last two really stick out for me, as they are my personal favourites.

Papillon tells the true story of Henri Charrière, a French petty criminal (also known as Papillon) who is unjustly convicted of murder in the 1930s. He is sentenced to life imprisonment in a French penitentiary in French Guiana, located on Devil's Island. He attempts several (failed) escapes, earning him many punishments, but after more than a decade (of which he has spent at least seven years in solitary confinement as punishment for his escape attempts), he eventually succeeds in escaping to freedom. Steve McQueen stars as the lead role, Henri Charrière, together with Dustin Hoffman who plays the role of Louis Dega, a fellow inmate who becomes a close friend. If there ever was a story which proves that man can survive and overcome the harshest injustice, this is it.

The Great Escape tells the story of an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during the second World War. Based on the true escape from Stalag Luft III (about which Paul Brickhill wrote a novel), the movie stars Steve McQueen as Captain Hilts aka "The Kooler King". Besides him, several other well-known actors star in The Great Escape: James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance and James Coburn, to name a few.

A lot of popular shows and series still reference The Great Escape, either by using the theme tune (Chicken Run for example), or by mimicking some of the scenes and motives from the movie (as in The Simpsons).

One of the most notable scenes (and a personal favourite) is of course the escape attempt on a motorcycle of "Kooler King" himself, depicted in the shot on the right. No matter how many times I've seen this movie, I'm still hoping he's going to make that jump.

Maybe that's the best way to remember him - some day he'll make that jump.