Steve McQueen

by Greg Laurie

  Don has also been working on the exhaust system, instrument gauges, shocks and alignment, door hinges, side reflectors, and paint job. Now he almost giddily assures me the Ford will practically sing and dance by the time he’s through with it in a few days. I’m not so sure I’ll be singing and dancing when I see the bill, however. (Actually, Don is only charging me cost on the restoration, but the sticker shock is still painful.)

  When I first found my Bullitt, I took it to Don and said I wanted it to look like the car in the movie in every possible respect. He had a million technical questions and observations, as car gurus always do, and after each one I said the same thing: “Uh . . . can you just make it look like the movie car?”

  Now he almost giddily assures me the Ford will practically sing and dance by the time he’s through with it in a few days.

  Everything in the Bullitt is original except for the GPS system and satellite radio I’m having him install for the trip. Don gave me a sideways glance with that request. He’s shamelessly obsessive, borderline religious when it comes to his restorations. His passion is to restore these old cars as closely as possible to their original condition, no matter what it takes. That’s why he pushes for only original parts. But like I told him, if I had to rely on old-fashioned paper road maps and AM radio, I’d be ready for a rubber room before I reached the state line.

  The Bullitt has never been on a long-distance journey before. Till now I mostly took it out for Saturday afternoon joyrides along the coast with Cathe riding shotgun. It’s one of our favorite things to do and never fails to take us back to when we first started dating. In fact, when we get back home and I lovingly wipe the car free of any dust, Cathe jokes that I’m looking at it just the way I looked at her back then.

  So while Don puts the finishing touches on the Mustang, I dive into research on Steve McQueen’s life. The object of the odyssey is to see and experience the places and milestones of his life, seeing them as McQueen did, and for that I’ve needed to find out as much as possible about him. There are plenty of McQueen resources for me to consult—biographies, Internet articles, documentaries—and I’ve noticed that many of the same players show up and are quoted in them. That’s fine, but I’m also going to be on the lookout for people who haven’t received as much ink or interview time but are still important in decoding McQueen’s story. And since I’ve mapped out my trip chronologically as it happened in his life, I’ll be going to Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Washington, DC, New York City, a suburb of Philadelphia called Phoenixville, then back home to Los Angeles.

  The object of the odyssey is to see and experience the places and milestones of his life, seeing them as McQueen did, and for that I’ve needed to find out as much as possible about him.

  One spot on the McQueen itinerary, however, is not yet set in stone in my planner—that awful clinic in Juarez where McQueen died. It will take me a while to decide whether I want to go there, or could even stand it if I did. But there’s plenty of time for that, and frankly I’d just as soon not think about it right now. I’m about to set off for Beech Grove, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis—where Terrence Steven McQueen was born.

  And I need to get there sooner rather than later, it turns out, because according to a report in The Indianapolis Star, the hospital in which McQueen was born is slated for demolition in November, only a month away.

  Opened in 1914 with seventy-five beds and two operating rooms, St. Francis Beech Grove Hospital gradually expanded over the years, eventually servicing more than five hundred beds. But then came a steady downward spiral driven by changes in healthcare, and in 2012 the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration closed the facility and transferred its inpatient care services to a newer campus about seven miles away.

  Catholic nuns ran the old hospital, and what I hope to find out in Beech Grove is how McQueen came to be born there in the first place, as well as whether he was then baptized in the Catholic faith.

  The person best suited to provide the answers is Will Smither at the Indianapolis Public Library. It almost seems mandatory to me that if your name is Will Smither, you should work in a library or be involved in research somehow. Will’s parents moved to Beech Grove when he was a year old. He lived there for thirty-two years. Most importantly, Will was the one who broke the story that, contrary to previously published accounts, McQueen’s mother was not a teen runaway who just happened to land in Beech Grove and give birth to her son there.

  One spot on the McQueen itinerary, however, is not yet set in stone in my planner —that awful clinic in Juarez where McQueen died.

  This is the kind of stuff I’m looking for.

  Responding quickly to an email, Will writes back that he’ll be glad to meet me when I get to Beech Grove and give me the background he’s uncovered about the McQueens’ time there in the early 1930s. He may even be able to shed some important light on the matter of Steve’s early religious upbringing.

  Actually, Will’s not the only one who responds quickly to my various requests. Soon I begin hearing from many others around the country willing to share information about McQueen’s life and faith. Their kindness, openness, and offers of help are a revelation. Their easy cooperation allays a nagging underlying fear that’s been bothering me since I started—the notion that I might spend most of my time on the road just staring at old buildings where McQueen once dwelled but whose secrets would never be tapped. What a relief to know this won’t be the case. I’ll be meeting and talking to people who knew McQueen personally and interacted with him, people who can fill in a lot of important blanks.

  Soon I begin hearing from many others around the country willing to share information about McQueen’s life and faith.

  But first I’ll be meeting with Don Oakes, who says the Bullitt is ready to roll.

  I love cars, but what makes them tick is way beyond my understanding. That’s why I go to Don in the first place. My confidence in him is unshakable, even though I had to tell him that McQueen’s Bullitt had a leather-wrapped steering wheel, not a wooden one like mine. I observed this in my umpteenth and most recent viewing of the film.

  “She’s tip-top,” he tells me now, handing over the keys, along with the itemized bill consisting of several grease-stained pieces of paper covered with Don’s indecipherable scribbles. But when I get in the Bullitt, turn over the engine, and gun it, I’m not worried about what his fixes are costing me. That awesome rumble is an internal combustion “Hallelujah Chorus” to my ears.

  Don warns me I’ll need to baby the Mustang by not driving over the speed limit and making sure to stop every three hundred miles or so for gas and oil breaks. Because the car gets only around ten miles per gallon, I won’t need to put a sticky note on the dashboard to remind myself about that.

  When I get in the Bullitt, turn over the engine, and gun it, I’m not worried about what his fixes are costing me. That awesome rumble is an internal combustion “Hallelujah Chorus” to my ears.

  “Where you going, anyway?” asks Don as I put the car in gear.

  “On a very important undercover mission,” I say, fixing him with my best McQueen stare before hitting the gas and peeling out of there at a safe and sane twenty-five miles per hour. Well, sort of.

  LAURIELAND

  _____

  Teaching from the Bible and unpacking the gospel are my great passions in life. I love to study, write, and deliver messages, knowing peoples’ lives are changed by God’s Word. I’ve seen it, marveled at it, and thanked Him countless times for allowing me to play some role in it. That’s why, except in case of emergency, I never miss Sundays in the pulpit. Never have, never will. It’s what I’ve been called to do by the Lord, and shirking this obligation would be a betrayal to the thousands of people who come to church each week to hear me preach. Disappointing them would be unthinkable.

  For this reason, I’ve divided my cross-country odyssey into separate weeklong excursions, each one beginning on a Monday morning and ending back in Southern C
alifornia the following Saturday night, so I can be at church for Sunday services.

  The first leg will take me to Beech Grove, Indiana, about a thirty-hour drive. Then, God willing and the Bullitt firing up, the plan is to hit Slater, Missouri, before working my way back home. Next week—the second and final leg—will be even more demanding.

  For me, planning an itinerary is a lot easier than deciding what I need to take with me. That’s why packing for a trip is high on the long list of things best left to Cathe. If I’d do it, I’d have to rent a U-Haul to pull behind the Bullitt, which would simply not be cool. But when Cathe packs, everything fits perfectly. She is uber-organized, which is one of our “irreconcilable differences.”

  I’ve divided my cross- country odyssey into separate weeklong excursions, each one beginning on a Monday morning and ending back in Southern California the following Saturday night, so I can be at church for Sunday services.

  Here’s my stab at it, for example. I have drawers full of T-shirts I love to wear until there’s not enough left of them to even wash the floor with. I pitch a few of them into my suitcase, followed by long-sleeved shirts, a couple of denim jackets, and a leather one for colder weather. In addition, I pile in some underclothes, pants, baseball caps, and three pair of Converse shoes that are indispensable because they fooled Barbi McQueen into thinking I was cool.

  Enter Cathe.

  “Do you really need all of these?” she says, nodding toward my pile of prized Ts. It’s not so much a question, rather a wry observation.

  Ten minutes later the suitcase is back in the closet, and everything I’m taking on the trip is neatly packed into a single duffel bag.

  I’m also bringing my Bible, some books on the topics I’m addressing next Sunday, and a couple of McQueen biographies. I also have a few magazines, as well as a drawing tablet and felt pens.

  Okay, I’ll let you in on a little secret here. Before I became a preacher, I was a graphic designer and cartoonist. No joke. One of my early dreams was to have my own newspaper cartoon strip, and I actually did get a few of my creations in print. In my early twenties I designed some album covers and posters, but my passion was drawing cartoons.

  I’d say I am more of an advanced doodler than an artist, but it’s always been a place of escape for me. Purely self-taught, I would always have my drawing tablet and some pens with me when I was a boy. It was a private world I could disappear into while waiting up in bars late at night for my mom to finishing her drinking.

  Ten minutes later the suitcase is back in the closet, and everything I’m taking on the trip is neatly packed into a single duffel bag.

  I still have a drawing of my version of Disneyland, which was my very favorite place to visit as a boy. My personal version of the world-famous amusement park is replete with funny gags and antics taking place. The name of my amusement park, however, is different.

  Laurieland.

  It’s a place I visited often in the recesses of my mind because of the harsh realities of my childhood. It’s not a life I would have wished on anyone, but it is my life, just the same.

  Another necessity for this trip are my “tech toys.” I’m a gadget guy and definitely need my laptop, tablet, and iPhone with me to stay on top of things and in instant touch with my family and friends.

  Packing my gear and getting it stowed in the Bullitt takes several hours, but with Cathe’s expert help and enjoyable company, it flies by, and when we’re done I’m ready to hit the sack. My plan is to get up before the sun Monday morning and get out of Dodge ahead of rush-hour traffic. That means 5:00 a.m. at the latest.

  My plan is to get up before the sun Monday morning and get out of dodge ahead of rush-hour traffic. That means 5:00 a.m. at the latest.

  I’m an early riser anyway and never have any trouble hitting the ground running, thanks to a medium 2-percent latte with an extra shot of espresso. (That’s three shots total.) Try it. You won’t blink till lunchtime.

  I also start each day with some espresso for the soul—a daily Scripture reading, which I heartily recommend to you as well, to open your eyes and set the pace for the day.

  Then a bite to eat, after which I gently wake Cathe, kiss her good-bye, and tell her I love her. She sleepily tells me she loves me too and turns over. It’s now 5:15 when the rumble of the Bullitt shakes the garage and probably every other structure on our block. Thanks to me, everybody in the neighborhood today is an early riser.

  As I pull out onto the street, I tune the radio to a local all-news station. I like to keep up with what’s going on in the world, but I won’t be able to relax and get into some tunes until I’m at cruising speed on the open highway.

  After about fifteen miles on California State Route 55, I connect with the Riverside Freeway and head toward Barstow. By six o’clock the heaviest traffic is behind me, and now it’s time to put the headlines behind as well and play some acceptable traveling music.

  I turn the radio dial to a station called “The Bridge,” which specializes in soft rock and adult contemporary hits from the 1960s and ’70s. I grew up listening to that stuff, and under the circumstances it seems especially appropriate because it’s also the soundtrack to Steve McQueen’s reign as the most incandescent star in the Hollywood firmament.

  And the first song that comes on couldn’t be a more fitting farewell to the Golden State—the Eagles’ “Train Leaves Here This Morning,” written by Bernie Leadon and Gene Clark. That song evokes a lot of memories. It came out in 1972, about the time I was making plans to build our church in Riverside. The long hair and lush beard I had back then were definitely “Duck Dynasty” caliber.

  It’s now 5:15 when the rumble of the Bullitt shakes the garage and probably every other structure on our block.

  I was making all of a hundred dollars per week then and was thrilled to get it. Today that ministry has expanded dramatically. Yes, I’ve worked hard, but what’s happened to my life over the course of the last four and a half decades can only be called a miracle. It’s something for which I am grateful to the Lord every waking moment.

  They say if you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know he didn’t get there on his own. With barely a high school education, I know I didn’t accomplish these things in my own strength either.

  Turning my mind back to Steve McQueen, it’s easy to trace God’s handiwork in his life too. What else could explain the stratospheric ascent of a man not educated beyond the ninth grade, whose alcoholic mom repeatedly cast him adrift through childhood and whose father was a mere shadow in his life?

  McQueen’s rise to the top from the time he started acting to his breakthrough role in The Great Escape took about a decade. When his character Virgil Hilts made the stunning motorcycle jump over the barbed-wire fence with the Nazis in hot pursuit, it minted a throwaway kid into a movie star worth a king’s ransom. Audiences around the globe fell in love with McQueen. He became the first American voted “Best Actor” at the 1965 Moscow International Film Festival.

  They say if you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know he didn’t get there on his own. With barely a high school education, I know I didn’t accomplish these things in my own strength either.

  After The Great Escape’s release on July 4, 1963, Life magazine anointed McQueen “the next big movie star.” Time magazine went even further, declaring him “the next John Wayne.” One veteran Hollywood writer observed, “Not since the exciting days of Bogart, Gable, Tracy and Wayne has there been such a success story as that of McQueen.”

  He went on from there to make some of the most memorable movies of the 1960s and ’70s and remained a global superstar for the rest of his life.

  But notwithstanding all his fame and wealth, a colossal vacuum lived rent-free in Steve McQueen’s heart, a yawning chasm, a lack of purpose rooted in the absence of functional, involved parents. He spent his whole life avoiding his mother and searching for his father—searching for someone or something to stand in for him.

  I know what that’s lik
e because I’ve lived with those same feelings and have done exactly the same thing. That’s my bedrock kinship with Steve McQueen. Reading one of his biographies, I was stunned at the similarities in our childhoods. I, too, was emotionally abandoned by my alcoholic mother and never knew my real father, so I have no trouble closing my eyes and seeing McQueen as a misguided, unloved, unwanted youth. Sadly, I am qualified to tell the same story, based on the same experiences. If you’re still wondering why a preacher would write a book about a movie star, this is why.

  One veteran Hollywood writer observed, “Not since the exciting days of Bogart, Gable, Tracy and Wayne has there been such a success story as that of McQueen.”

  The other connection, of course, is that we both found the purpose we were searching for in the same place. Granted, I came to faith at seventeen, much earlier than Steve, who came to the same realization at forty-nine. But hey, better late than never.

  That’s my bedrock kinship with Steve McQueen. Reading one of his biographies, I was stunned at the similarities in our childhoods.

  Politicians talk a lot about “family values” and most of it is bilge designed to fit into a sound bite and win votes. I’m not running for office, but one thing I know for a fact is that children need to grow up in a stable household with a dependable, loving mother and father. Family values. Without them, no matter how successful you become, no matter what material goods you amass, no matter how many titles and accolades you pile up, something is missing. You can take almost all the social ills of today—from unwanted pregnancies to drug use and alcoholism, even criminal behavior—and trace it right back to a broken home. Specifically a fatherless home.

  Those other things might dull the pain for a while, but the gaping void is always there. A great quote from actor Jim Carrey applies here: “I think everybody should get rich and famous,” he said, “and do everything they ever dreamed of—so they can see it’s not the answer.”