For as popular as he was when he was alive, Steve McQueen has completely faded in popularity
Why do you think that is?
sharecos he died years ago
share
MovieChat Forums > Steve McQueen Discussion > For as popular as he was when he was ali...
He's not the only one. Many today have no interest in anything that happened before they were born...unless it's on social media.
SM and others will likely experience eras where interest will be revitalized just as with classic rock music.
This!
I remember when I was around 20, I only knew Marlon Brando as the fad guy who likely likes too much drugs. And Liz Taylor I also just knew as the woman with the 100 marriages.
As they acted mostly in serious movies, I never came across them before I gained interest in movies and easy access to older movies. Other old time stars like Jerry Lewis or Doris Day were much more present to me, as they were repeated in the afternoon as they are light family entertainment.
I thought he was ugly and had a craggy face.
Too thin for me.
He also was somewhat of a primadonna.
Would NEVER accept a role against type which only shows his limited acting ability.
Unlike Newman who accepted every challange.
And though I find Newman just as thin, he could emphasize more with his multiple facial expressions which McQueen so obviously lacked.
I myself like the big boys with HUGE shoulders and there are too few for my satisfaction.
I think there are parallels between Newman and McQueen.
Both creations of Hollywood and kind of flashes in the pan.
Newman had a more wholesome image, but neither of them had
that large of a body of work, or really anything that was that
impressive. When I think of McQueen I think of The Great Escape,
which was a fantastic movie - but he played such a small part in it.
He was mostly hype. Oh, and there as Bullitt, which was pretty
much exploitative trash. McQueen had no range like you said.
"Both creations of Hollywood and kind of flashes in the pan.
Newman had a more wholesome image, but neither of them had
that large of a body of work..."
You know, people did exist before you were born.
I suggest you at least read the Wikipedia page. If only for some easy reading on Newman's carreer and accomplishments.
Awwww, how cute, are you hurt by my saying Paul Newman was not that big of a superstar?
shareHurt? No.
I've come accross you before and am not fool enough to let your ignorance effect me so I merely pointed out your lazy fact finding and obvious lack of knowledge.
Compared to the big stars McQueen and Newman did not star in many movies. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate the movies they did, but that is just fact, hardly ignorance. You just got defensive and overly emotional.
shareHear..Hear!!!
Someday they'll catch on.
>> Newman had a more wholesome image, but neither of them had
that large of a body of work, or really anything that was that impressive.
Lol. Newman had perhaps the best career, with the biggest quota of great films, in Hollywood history.
> the biggest quota of great films, in Hollywood history
How do you figure?
Ok, are you ready? I’m gonna give you a list of films that are great/masterpieces/classics (pick your adjective):
Somebody up there Likes Me
The Long, Hot Summer
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Hustler
Hud
Hombre
Cool Hand Luke
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Sometimes a great Notion
The Sting
The Towering Inferno
Slapshot
The Verdict
The Color of Money (finally awarded the best actor oscar)
Nobody’s Fool
Now that is a list of 15 great movies that spans four decades, and I could have included many more. His career is almost unparalleled.
Although I have to say that there are a few other actors that are up there with Newman. Great actors like James Stewart, Burt Lancaster and Dustin Hoffman - that also have a great volume of masterpieces in their filmography.
Great ... I just did not really like any of those movies, aside from Butch Cassidy and the Sting ... when I was a kid. They are merely cutesy TV movies for the girls.
I'm not shocked that you pick the two most popular and easy-to-digest movies on that list. That's OK, but if Butch Cassidy and The Sting is all you like from all those films then there is no point in trying to convince anybody here.
shareTo compare Steve McQueen or Paul Newman, or even Dustin Hoffman? with Jimmy Stewart or Burt Lancaster is misguided to say the least. Jimmy Stewart was a long time ago, but he was in so many American classics, and similar, though less with Burt Lancaster. Those guys defined a generation.
Paul Newman 1925
Steve McQueen 1930
Robert Wagner 1930
William Shatner 1931
--
Jimmy Stewart 1908
Kirk Douglas 1916
Burt Lancaster 1913
--
Dustin Hoffman 1937
Maybe it's a generational thing, or not just a human generational thing, but a moving picture generational thing. The older stars had a chance to get in on the bottom floor, when the movie industry aspired to make movies for the whole country.
That's what I liked about the Sting and Butch Cassidy ... not that they were that great or classics, they weren't, but they were among the last of a type of movie that everyone could watch and enjoy.
By the way, it is really chickenshit to take on this attitude of high brow aesthete, and discount someone else's opinion based on an air of superiority. I don't mean these guys are bad, they just did not do a lot of movies, and of the ones they did, they got a lot of hype, but were really not very good movies.
I'd liken McQueen and Newman to someone like Robert Wagner, though Wagner was born in 1930. or even William Shatner who are both still around but really not great actors. They're big names because they're big names, because the movie industry has to hype itself.
You say a lot of strange things. I can't tackle it all, but I will try to answer a few of the strangest things.
>> That's what I liked about the Sting and Butch Cassidy ... not that they were that great or classics, they weren't, but they were among the last of a type of movie that everyone could watch and enjoy.
Wait, they are not great? Huh, I think a lot of people would disagree with you there. Almost all the 15 Paul Newman movies I wrote above are classics.
You write that they were the last movies people could watch and enjoy? OK. So post 1973 there were no movies people could watch and enjoy? Really? What about Star Wars? ET? Back to the Future? Shawshank Redemption? Forrest Gump? What a strange thing to write. There are literary houndred of films out there post 1973 that everyone can enjoy.
>> By the way, it is really chickenshit to take on this attitude of high brow aesthete, and discount someone else's opinion based on an air of superiority.
Bro, read what you write. I wrote down 15 great Paul Newman films and you reply: "Great ... I just did not really like any of those movies, aside from Butch Cassidy and the Sting ... when I was a kid. They are merely cutesy TV movies for the girls."
Is that how you discard masterpieces like The Hustler (1961) and The Verdict (1982)? Have you even seen them?
>> I don't mean these guys are bad, they just did not do a lot of movies, and of the ones they did, they got a lot of hype, but were really not very good movies.
Nonsense. They made amazing films. McQueen didn't make as many as Paul Newman, but he was a great actor and a charismatic star who made a lot of good movies before his untimely death in 1980.
They have perhaps not been given the easier ride that there male counterparts did.
shareWhy do you think??? Time goes on. As generations go on they will continue to fade. Not completely forgotten but definitely fade.
shareJust did not do that much work.
Reminds me of James Coburn or Paul Newman.
It was the movies they did and not them themselves that were famous.
It's interesting to see that when some of his films have been watched by young viewers on those YouTube reaction channels, they find themselves captivated by his screen presence. The more that sort of thing happens, the more he & other classic stars will begin to be remembered & appreciated again, I think.
shareYou're preaching to two year olds who can only wait for the next BANG or FLASH to be entertained. Their ability understand others is in direct corolation to their ability to show empathy for them.
In short they are narcassistic, sociopaths who only think of themselves.
Clearly evident in their communications.
You can say that about nearly any star from the past. Very few stars of the past are still relevant today.
shareI was around in his "heyday" (the 60s and early 70s), and McQueen was one of a handful of movie actors who reached "superstar level." He did it with a handful of films, with these landmarks along the way:
1960: The Magnificent Seven
1963 The Great Escape (same director and some of the same cast as The Mag 7)
1965: The Cincinnati Kid(surrounded by an all star cast including Edward G. Robinson and two hot babes -- Ann Margret and Tuesday Weld.)
1966: Nevada Smith -- A very violent and sexual Western for its time, with the character "spun off" from the hit sex soap opera, The Carpetbaggers.)
And then McQueen "made his move up." These three in a row:
1966: The Sand Pebbles: a huge war epic, set in China, big, expensive "prestige" -- sad at the end -- and McQueen got his only Best Actor Oscar nomination for this. It was also a big hit -- director Robert Wise's "manly" follow up to his "chick musical," The Sound of Music.
And then a 'two-fer" in 1968:
Early in the year: "The Thomas Crown Affair," a stylish but rather dull caper movie that nonetheless hit big on a key gimmick: "working class and blue jeans Steve McQueen" wore three piece suits as a wealthy, Ivy League educated millionaire who sets up bank robberies for the thrill and fun of it. McQueen lobbied hard for the career change, and it paid off(with sexy Faye Dunaway, hot off of Bonnie and Clyde, as his co-star.)
Late in the year: "Bullitt." THAT one did it. Not only did it have a historic car chase (no process screens) but McQueen dominated the movie -- and its iconic poster -- with his iconic cool. This was an era when most major movies were dramas and action movies were "B" -- McQueen and that car chase turned action into something very BIG. The movie ran from late 1968 well into 1969, sometimes at the same theater for months. McQueen here "caught up" to his rival Paul Newman as a major star.
CONT
But what to do with that stardom?
In late 1969, The Reivers was released. The poster showed McQueen's face -- it FILLED the poster. HE was the reason for the movie -- this was well before the time that special effects and Marvel comics ruled the screen. A movie star could still be THE reason to see the movie. This was a light-hearted period piece set in the South of the early 1900's; it had a dollop of sex and a dollop of violence but was really quite warm in the "To Kill a Mockingbird" tradition(the "nice" part of that movie.) Not much of a hit though -- McQueen's superstardom got a little wobbly as the 70's came in.
The "wobbly" period included a vanity project about racing ("LeMans") that nobody saw and a mighty fine non-violent Sam Peckinpah movie about a rodeo rider and his family ("Junior Bonner") that nobody saw -- except me, on its release, at drive-in in the summer of 1972(before "summer blockbusters" became the order of the day.)
Then commenced McQueen's "final run of 70's hits," one Christmas at a time:
Christmas 1972: The Getaway(a VIOLENT Peckinpah action movie with Ali MacGraw fresh off of Love Story.)
Christmas 1973: Papillon (a rather dull prison adventure , but from a bestseller, with Dustin Hoffman as a superstar co-star.)
Christmas 1974: The Towering Inferno -- the classiest, and maybe the best -- of disaster movies with McQueen and Newman finally sharing the screen as equals.
Perhaps McQueen knew that his three big 70's hits were "shared" with starry co-stars: MacGraw, Hoffman and especially Newman. Still, he dominated all these movies with his quiet macho charisma.
And he "cashed in and semi retired." After scoring off of Inferno, McQueen pretty much took the rest of the 70's off.He made no movies in 1975, 1976, 1978, or 1979. The one movie he DID make, in 1977 (Enemy of the People) was an obscure art film(from an Ibsen play) that got little release.
CONT
THIS made McQueen even MORE legendary. "The reclusive star who would not come out of retirement." He was offered roles in Close Encounters, Apocalypse Now, and Sorcerer. He turned those down. He ALMOST got the big Robert Redford role in the all-star A Bridge Too Far, but stalled too long and Redford got it. (Distributors DEMANDED either Redford or McQueen in that part -- the biggest two stars of the day and McQueen wasn't even working.)
Then came the anti-climactic finale. Out of nowhere, McQueen returned with two 1980 releases -- the Western Tom Horn and the modern day action movie The Hunter. Neither film was as good as McQueen's former great ones, and folks wondered: had McQueen been away too long? Could he come back?
He never got the chance. He died in the same year that he released those two underperforming movies. Cancer. Pretty damn young at 50. Which made him still MORE of a legend. Men born the same year as him -- Eastwood, Connery, Hackman...kept going for decades.
To the question: "Why isn't he remembered anymore?" ...the answer is: new generations have no sense of movie history past and, frankly, most of McQueen's movies would be considered too small, slow and dramatic now.
But he WAS remembered then. McQueen was a top star and in that weird way of Hollywood, became BIGGER when he retired and withdrew. And then yet still BIGGER when he died young.
Actors of the time like James Coburn, Rod Taylor, George Peppard, and even James Garner couldn't reach McQueen's level. Only Newman and Connery really were up that high at the time. McQueen made a name for himself and set a price for himself and was bigger than anyone when he was on top.
So maybe not well remembered NOW, but VERY major and worshipped THEN.