Steve McQueen begged forgiveness from famous co-stars when he was dying Pain in the a**

'The Towering Inferno' trailer (1974)

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McQueen is back on TV screens this afternoon, battling for survival  alongside an all-star cast in the classic disaster B-movie The Towering Inferno. the Hollywood action star shared the screen with some of the biggest names in the business over the years, and managed to fall-out with many of them. His great escape co-star, the usually upbeat James Garner famously spilled the beans in his no holds barred memoir, The Garner Files, and let his co-star have it with both barrels. Another massive star did it to his face in set in a series of notorious clashes.

Garner played Hendley, opposite McQueen’s Hilts in the World War II prison drama and said: “Like Marlon Brando, he could be a pain in the a** on set. Unlike Brando, he wasn’t an actor. He was a movie star, a poser who cultivated the image of a macho man.

“He had a persona he brought to every role and people loved it but you could always see him acting. That’s the kiss of death as far as I’m concerned.”

It wasn’t just McQueen’s talent (or lack of) that was an issue. His behaviour on set frequently caused disruption throughout his career, but he almost walked off The Great Escape when he had a tantrum over his role.

This situation deteriorated so much that the director told Garner that they were restructuring the film so that he would be the main star instead.

He added: “I didn’t see how it could work, so I sat down with Steve and asked what the problem was.

“He said he didn’t like the part because he wasn’t the hero and the stuff they’d had him doing was corny.

“Steve could be a stubborn little cuss, but the director added some motorcycle stunts to pacify him and changed his character to a guy who goes out to reconnoitre the countryside then unselfishly allows himself to be recaptured so he can share information with others.”

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Garner and McQueen stayed friends, primarily because the former seemed to be a rare star with very little ego. The same cannot be said for some of the Hollywood heavyweights who tangled with McQueen on The Magnificent Seven.

Yul Brynner infamously liked everyone else to be still and silent when he was speaking his lines so McQueen would purposefully remove his hat to shade his eyes or fiddle with his gun, learning to do fancy flourishes for just that reason. In group scenes, like when the Seven cross a river on horseback, McQueen would lean down to scoop up water with his hat – pulling focus from everyone else. A bold move in a cast that included another tough guy, Charles Bronson.

The shaved and shiney-headed Brynner eventually shouted: “If you don’t stop that I’m going to take off my hat, and then no one will look at you for the rest of the film.”

Brynner was also notoriously sensitive about his height, at just under 5’7. Shooting outside, he would scuff the earth and dirt into low mounds for him to stand on so that he looked taller. McQueen, in return, would casually flatten them as he walked past.

He later said: “We didn’t get along. Brynner came up to me in front of a lot of people and grabbed me by the shoulder. He was mad about something. He doesn’t ride well and knows nothing about guns, so maybe he thought I represented a threat. I was in my element. He wasn’t.

“When you work in a scene with Yul, you’re supposed to stand perfectly still, 10 feet away. Well, I don’t work that way.”

And McQueen certainly wasn’t prepared to tolerate being manhandled by his co-star.

The Magnificent Seven Trailer

McQueen added: “I don’t like people pawing me. ‘Take your hands off me’, I said. What had I got to lose from a little fight? I’ve got a busted nose and teeth missing and stitches in my lips and I’m deaf in the right ear.”

Brynner even hired an assistant with the sole job of monitoring McQueen’s misdemeanours and counting how many times he fidgetted during scenes.

In response, McQueen complained that Brynner’s horse was bigger than his and ridiculed his fancy, ivory-handled gun as a desperate attempt to get attention.

When things got so bad that it was being reported in the press, Brynner grandly issued a press statement: “I never feud with actors. I feud with studios.”

The film made McQueen a star but the bad blood with Brynner continued until his dying days, when he was struck down by cancer in 1980.

In his final months, McQueen wanted to clear the air before he died and called Brynner to thank him, saying: “You coulda had me kicked off the movie when I rattled you but you let me stay and that picture made me, so thanks”.

Brynner apparently told him, “I am the king and you are the rebel prince: every bit as royal and dangerous to cross.” 

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