McQueen: The Untold Story of a Bad Boy in Hollywood

Scheduled for release simultaneously with the biography My Husband, My Friend (reviewed below), Spiegel's book is the more detailed, particularly in accounts of McQueen's early years and apprenticeship in New York. The author, a screenwriter and novelist, interviewed people in Beach Grove, Ill.where Terrence Steven McQueen was born in 1930about his family and his deprived childhood: he was deserted by his parents, although invited occasionally by his mother to live with her and her current lover. McQueen was placed in a boys' home, joined the Marines at age 17 and later studied acting in New York along with Paul Newman and Ben Gazzara, replacing the latter in A Hatful of Rain. When he was fired, the actor added that injury to others he never forgot, even when he was phenomenally rich and famous, according to Spiegel. McQueen married Neile Adams, a dancer in Broadway shows (Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, etc.), and they settled in Hollywood. Gradually, the actor won the roles that made him a star during the 1960s and 1970s. The author records McQueen's sexual excesses and offensive public behavior, as well as his desperate fight against the cancer that killed him at age 50. Photos not seen by PW. January 17