Steve McQueen

by Greg Laurie

  As men grow older, nature relentlessly siphons off our testosterone little by little. It’s important for us to think we can do the same things we did in our teens and early twenties, despite realizing the foolishness of the notion. Laughable, we know, but common. We all grow older, softer around the middle, and, willing or not, we get in touch with our feelings. All the ingredients for a syndrome. But all it takes to reverse the process, at least in our heads, is to get together with other men to watch a football game or boxing match, look under the hood of a car, or . . . watch a Steve McQueen movie.

  But it was late October when this wild hair got under my middle-aged skin. I didn’t have time to analyze how or why it had me in its grip. I just knew it was time for this old dog to hit the road and start barking at the moon.

  Glad to have you riding shotgun.

  THE WIDOW AND THE PREACHER MAN

  _____

  I guess this whole crazy adventure had its start on a rare lazy Saturday afternoon when I plopped down to watch some television. For months I had been pushing myself hard, as usual, multitasking, trying to do too many things at once. Now I finally had some time to myself on a crisp fall afternoon and decided to spend it sitting in one of the four well-worn leather chairs in our family room with a bowl of popcorn and the TV remote. Plenty of college football was on, but I surfed through the channels in search of something more conducive to the nap I felt coming on.

  Ahh . . . what better fare to bring me in for a nice, soft landing than a boring documentary.

  Only this wasn’t one about the mating habits of the threetoed sloth so I got no sleep that afternoon. This documentary was about Steve McQueen, and I was hooked from the opening credits. The documentary did a decent job covering the trajectory of McQueen’s life—his hardscrabble beginnings, his meteoric rise to movie stardom, then his tragic end when cancer claimed him at age fifty.

  But something was missing. In early 1980, I’d heard the surprising news that the King of Cool had given his life to God. And yet this documentary never even mentioned it. Not even in passing. Seemed like a pretty glaring omission to me. How do you leave out such a pivotal event from the story about a man’s life?

  McQueen’s momentous conversion reportedly occurred just before he released his last western film, Tom Horn. In fact, that’s what drew me to the theater to see it, in addition to plain old curiosity. His last big hit, The Towering Inferno, came out in December 1974, smashing all box office records, and was then the highest grossing movie of all time. But then McQueen decided to take a break from filmmaking, except for a puzzling adaptation of an obscure Henrik Ibsen play, An Enemy of the People. In it McQueen grew his hair long and sported a bushy beard and granny glasses, rendering himself virtually unrecognizable. Even worse, An Enemy of the People had no car chases, no gunplay, nothing for McQueen’s fans to sink their teeth into. Not surprisingly, studio executives hated it, and the critics who previewed it were so appalled, the movie was shelved in 1978 without being released. McQueen wasn’t seen again on the big screen for almost five years, which in Hollywood qualifies as a lifetime and a career death sentence.

  In early 1980, I’d heard the surprising news that the King of Cool had given his life to God. And yet this documentary never even mentioned it. Not even in passing.

  When he finally reappeared in Tom Horn, McQueen looked as weather-beaten as an old saddle. I wasn’t exactly Peter Pan myself, but it was hard to see such a symbol of youthful rebellion looking so old. In The Hunter, released on July 28, 1980, McQueen seemed even more a spent Bullitt. The wear and tear on him was evident. He appeared downright lethargic. I left the theater disappointed and sad.

  Not quite three months later, Steve McQueen was dead.

  So his life was worthy of a documentary, for sure, and I enjoyed watching it. But why leave out the biggest, most life-changing decision he ever made? This made no sense. In fact, it bothered me so much that I got right on the Internet and typed “Steve McQueen” and “Conversion to Christianity” into the search engine. A couple of links provided a few vague clues but nothing substantial.

  The wear and tear on him was evident. He appeared downright lethargic. I left the theater disappointed and sad. Not quite three months later, Steve McQueen was dead.

  Yet the subject stayed on my mind. Pretty soon I ordered an out-of-print book written about McQueen by his close friend and ranch foreman, Grady Ragsdale. I was especially intrigued by the story of his fight against cancer that led him to receive rather unorthodox treatment in an obscure clinic in Mexico. I had a lot of questions about that particular time frame, but I figured I would never really know.

  A few weeks later, as I mentioned earlier, I shared some of what I’d learned and been told about Steve McQueen’s spiritual journey in one of my messages before a big crowd at Angel Stadium. Part of the evening’s schedule, before my main talk, was an interview with actor Mel Gibson. And in the green room before the event, he and I talked about McQueen.

  “Steve was one of these guys who seemed to be very relaxed with what he did,” Mel said. “Relaxation is the key to any kind of skill at all. His performances were relaxed. They were effortless. He seemed to get his meaning across. He was magnetic. He was cool . . . . Everything about him was very considered, very economic, and he didn’t waste a move.”

  He also happened to be copilot of the airplane that had flown Steve McQueen to El Paso, Texas, in a last-ditch effort to save the actor’s life.

  I then shared with Mel the story of Steve’s spiritual transformation. I could tell he was fascinated, especially when after we’d been briefly interrupted, he turned back to me and said, “Greg, finish that story about Steve McQueen.”

  A week later, a member of our congregation, Mike Jugan, approached and asked to speak with me in private. Mike, a friend and terrific guy, is a pilot for Alaska Airlines. For as I was about to find out, he also happened to be copilot of the airplane that had flown Steve McQueen to El Paso, Texas, in a last-ditch effort to save the actor’s life.

  I couldn’t have been more stunned if Mike had told me he was the archangel Michael. I sat him down and urged him to tell me everything, and not leave out a single detail. Mel Gibson’s admonition to finish the Steve McQueen story was taking shape.

  Mike at the time was twenty-five, flying for Ken Haas Aviation, a Learjet charter company in Long Beach. On November 3, 1980, he and Ken Haas himself went to the airport at Oxnard, California, to fly a party of three to El Paso. The group was registered under the name “Sam Sheppard,” but that was an alias designed to throw off the media. The passengers were actually Steve McQueen and two medical aides.

  Mike couldn’t believe it. McQueen had been his hero since he’d taken up motocross racing as a boy. “Any kid who loved racing knew who Steve McQueen was,” he said, “and we all wanted to be like him. We had seen On Any Sunday about fifty times.”

  “Are you with the Sam Sheppard party?” asked a tall man wearing an overcoat and hat. When Mike answered affirmatively, the man stuck out his hand and introduced himself: “I’m Billy Graham.” Yes, that Billy Graham.

  When Mike and Ken got to the airport, they parked the jet far from the terminal in an effort to afford McQueen as much privacy as possible. As they sat in the cockpit waiting for their passengers to arrive, they heard a knock on the side of the plane.

  “Are you with the Sam Sheppard party?” asked a tall man wearing an overcoat and hat. When Mike answered affirmatively, the man stuck out his hand and introduced himself: “I’m Billy Graham.”

  Yes, that Billy Graham.

  I’ll explain later why Billy Graham ever happened to be a part of the Steve McQueen narrative, especially at this juncture, but suffice for now that he was there on the platform, telling the two pilots that McQueen and the others would be arriving shortly. After a few minutes, sure enough, a camper wheeled under the canopy that had been set up over the forward part of the aircraft. Out of it stepped McQueen, wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a sombrer
o, with a bottle of soda in his hand.

  “Howdy, fellas,” McQueen greeted the pilots.

  “I’m standing there,” recalled Mike, “looking at my childhood hero, and my heart went out to him. You could see his belly was distended and swollen from the tumors.” But Mike also noticed something else: “The look in his crystal blue eyes was predictably fierce. He had this indomitable spirit about him, and he seemed to be at peace.”

  Accompanying McQueen were nurses Teena Valentino and Annie Martell. As the trio entered the airplane, Billy gathered the folks around him and asked God to bless the pilots, the flight itself, and McQueen. Then before leaving, the famed evangelist stepped aboard for a final private word with the actor.

  McQueen had made arrangements for a doctor there to excise his cancerous tumors —a nontraditional approach that would only end up igniting other complications.

  Mike told me that after the plane reached cruising altitude, he went back to chat with McQueen, and found him snacking on crackers and soda.

  “I wanted to talk about motorcycles,” recalled Mike, “but he was more interested in the plane and asked what it was like to fly a Learjet. I told him we climbed out at five thousand feet per minute and now were cruising at forty-one thousand feet at about six hundred miles per hour. He chuckled and said, ‘That’s better than my Stearman,’” the World War II-era biplane he’d bought and been learning to fly in recent months.

  When the jet landed in El Paso, McQueen’s party was whisked off to the clinic in Juarez, just across the Mexican border. McQueen had made arrangements for a doctor there to excise his cancerous tumors—a nontraditional approach that would only end up igniting other complications. That’s why four days later, on November 7, 1980, Mike and his boss were notified that McQueen had passed away and were asked to return to El Paso in two jets this time—one for the actor’s family, close friends, and medical staff; the other to carry McQueen’s body back to California.

  “There were times during the flight,” Mike said, “when I looked over my shoulder at the simple wooden box and thought, Steve McQueen’s body is in there. I couldn’t believe it. It was surreal.”

  The scene at El Paso International Airport was sheer chaos, according to Mike. As McQueen’s plain pine casket was ferried to the jet in an aged Ford LTD station wagon, news contingents raced alongside to record it all. They continued to record everything for posterity as the copilots helped Grady Ragsdale (author of the book I had read) and Dr. Dwight McKee load the coffin into the plane. An especially aggressive photographer snapping pictures of the coffin almost got punched out by a member of McQueen’s party.

  Mike piloted the jet that carried McQueen’s casket, while Ken flew the plane with Steve’s widow, Barbara; his children, Chad and Terry; Grady Ragsdale; Dr. McKee, and the other medical personnel who’d devoted months trying to save McQueen’s life. “Before boarding the flight, Barbara was crying,” Mike recalled. “Terry and Chad were crying, the doctors and nurses were crying. It was very sad. I remember thinking to myself that just a few days before, Steve was so positive about the whole trip. I mean, this wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to die.

  “There were times during the flight,” Mike said, “when I looked over my shoulder at the simple wooden box and thought, Steve McQueen’s body is in there. I couldn’t believe it. It was surreal.”

  As Mike was telling me all this, his mention of Barbara McQueen made me wonder how she was doing now, and I asked if he had any idea about that. It turned out he and Barbara were friends, having met at a “Remembering Steve McQueen” event in 2008 in Santa Paula, California (where McQueen lived at the time of his death). Mike had read about the event in the newspaper, and the story mentioned that Barbara McQueen would be the guest of honor. So he decided to go and pay his respects.

  These humans seemed more interested in making a buck off a dying celebrity than actually helping him.

  He found Barbara and a mutual friend together at a Santa Paula hotel lobby and, upon being introduced to her, brought up that he was one of the pilots who had taken her husband to El Paso, and that he’d flown the plane that had brought his body back to California.

  Mike said he’d never forget the look of total shock on her face—how she then excused herself and ran to the ladies’ room. He felt terrible, afraid he had single-handedly ruined what was supposed to be a weekend-long celebration for her and her late husband. But a few minutes later Barbara reappeared, having composed herself, sat down next to Mike and said, “I have questions.” They talked for hours about the two flights, as well as other matters related to McQueen’s death. And as they reached the end of their conversation, Barbara slipped her hand in Mike’s before saying good-bye, a quiet but powerful gesture of trust and kinship. They’d been friends ever since.

  As Mike told me this, it occurred to me that if anyone would know how, if, and when Steve McQueen had given his life to the Lord, it would be the woman who was constantly at his side in his last years. Barbara McQueen was the key to the mystery, and in my growing excitement I asked Mike if he would be willing to arrange for me to meet and talk with her.

  “I’ll give it a try,” he said. “All she can do is say no.”

  “Okay,” Barbara told Mike, “call the preacher man and tell him I’ll meet with him. But it has to be on my turf. He’ll need to come to Idaho.”

  Barbara McQueen was known for saying “no” a lot more than “yes.” Since her husband’s death she had been resolutely mum about him until the publication in 2006 of her book Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, a memoir heavily illustrated with pictures she’d taken throughout their threeand-a-half-year union.

  While Mike went to bat for me with Barbara, I read everything I could find about her. In one McQueen biography the writer detailed the misery of McQueen’s last days as he wasted away in the Mexican cancer clinic which, according to American medical experts, dispensed only snake oil and false hope. It was McQueen’s choice to go there, and Barbara dutifully went with him. But what she saw there was horrifying—a constant parade of cancer-cure peddlers, doctors, and administrators. These humans seemed more interested in making a buck off a dying celebrity than actually helping him. They were faith healers and soothsayers offering high-priced mystical healing, all while straining to make themselves heard over the incessant drone of helicopters overhead, packed with camera crews hoping for a photo of the famous patient. It was like being in an anteroom of hell. Yet she stayed. For Steve.

  A few days after my sit-down with Mike, he called with the news that Barbara McQueen unequivocally refused to talk to me about her husband’s faith, saying it had been an intensely private matter to him and was not for public consumption, that she wasn’t about to have some “preacher man” glom on to a story and exploit it for his own purposes.

  That stung (especially the “preacher man” part), but I could understand how she felt. Lord knows the number of pitches she fielded from people trying to horn in on the legend of Steve McQueen, likely on a daily basis. Add to that the fact that we preachers have not always enjoyed the best reputations . . . .

  I told Mike not to press the matter with Barbara. But, God bless him, he didn’t listen. He suggested to Barbara that she go online to watch a sermon of mine. She did and then called Mike back.

  “Okay, he’s cool,” Barbara said. “I liked his sneakers. He seems real. What’s he like?”

  Mike arranged for her to receive print and DVD copies of my 2008 autobiography Lost Boy. She was struck by similarities between my life story and that of her late husband. McQueen and I were each abandoned by our fathers; we had mothers who married multiple times; and we both had abusive stepfathers.

  “Okay,” Barbara told Mike, “call the preacher man and tell him I’ll meet with him. But it has to be on my turf. He’ll need to come to Idaho.”

  November 8, 2016, was Election Day in America, when voters would make either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump the next president of the United States. The whole
country was wrought up. Me, too, but not about politics.

  This preacher man was heading for Idaho.

  THE LAST CHANCE RANCH

  _____

  I’m ten thousand feet above the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho. God’s artistry is breathtakingly evident as the plane winds its way through the Wood River Valley, offering a magnificent panorama of snowcapped peaks, pine trees, farms, rustic homes, and wildlife.

  The jaunt from Orange County, California, to Hailey, Idaho, is surprisingly short—only about an hour and forty-five minutes. Friedman Memorial Airport is equipped to handle daily flights from half a dozen or so major cities and even includes a terminal for private jets. That’s how the patrons of Herbert Allen Jr.’s annual weeklong retreat arrive, whose Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference brings together the world’s top CEOs, political leaders, dot.com moguls, and philanthropists every summer to brainstorm ideas that impact the economic life of the whole planet. Oh, to be a fly on the wall . . . .

  I imagine quite a few people would wish the same thing concerning my impending meeting with Barbara McQueen.

  Mike Jugan told me that in the years since her famous husband’s death, the former model has transformed into a very successful businesswoman, with varied real estate holdings that even include a shopping mall. Obviously she has a lot on the ball and on her plate, and for Barbara to grant me a whole day of her time to discuss my book and documentary proposal is quite generous, humbling, and frankly a little nerve-wracking.

  I pull into the driveway of Barbara McQueen’s house. I didn’t need GPS to find it, having only to look for the artwork in the yard—a vintage leopard-skinned truck with a wild collection of skis sticking out of the cab in every direction, like don King’s hair. I love it!

  The ride from the airport to her house in Sun Valley takes me fifteen miles north on Highway 75. Everywhere you look are new homes, condominiums, mountain retreats, and boutique hotels. The area is known for some of the best skiing in the world and over the past few decades has become the playground of numerous A-list celebrities and wealthy entrepreneurs. After getting their first taste of it, many of them purchase or build second homes here. A common lament of veteran local residents is that “the billionaires are pushing out the millionaires.” I’ll bet a lot of municipalities would love to have that problem.