Or was it part of an invented persona? I only say this because I have read remarks from other actors that no matter how bad your live experiences were, Steve always had a worse story about his. (This isn't because I don't like him, I just am suspect of some of the older Hollywood stars and what the studios might have made up for them.)
shareIt was really that bad from everything I've read about him. Also, by the time McQueen became a star, movie studios weren't as involved with creating fictitious backgrounds for up and coming stars as they had been in the golden era of Hollywood (pre-1950), and, McQueen was not under exclusive contract to any particular studio.
"Life is a scam" - Steve McQueen
No, it was pretty bad. Father abandoned the family when he was 6 months old (never met him at all); Mother was irresponsible and left him in care of her relatives multiple times, she was also a floozy and drank too much. Steve also had dyslexia, which wasn't even diagnosed back then, but it hindered his learning and he dropped out of school in the 9th grade. And to top it all off, he was born in 1930 just as the Great Depression began. A lot of strikes against him from an early age.
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