Steve McQueen

by Greg Laurie

  Still, and understandably, sometimes McQueen couldn’t help but wonder why he was being put through such a crucible.

  “I love the Lord, and I just can’t figure out why He let me get cancer,” McQueen once said to Teena. “I took the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. That was before I got sick. I just don’t understand. But I tell Him I’m willing to do whatever He wants. My life is His. If He wants me to die, I’ll die. I won’t fight it.”

  Steve told him, “My only regret is that I was not able to tell others what Christ did for me.”

  A moment later, he added, “But if He wants me to die, why did He lead me to Kelley? Why am I down here?”

  Sammy Mason and Pastor Leonard DeWitt visited McQueen at the Plaza, and Steve asked Sammy to work up a Bible study program for him.

  DeWitt told me Steve had lost a lot of weight and looked like he was knocking on heaven’s door. Steve told him, “My only regret is that I was not able to tell others what Christ did for me.”

  Actually, he did. Teena has two cassette recordings with her, made by McQueen at the Plaza, and she plays them for me. The first one was a message and prayer he taped for fellow patients:

  We thank Thee, Lord, for all the kindness and understanding, and Your special way that You reach out to all the staff, the doctors, the nurses, all the people who are helping us be healed in this great, great experiment that we’re all a part of. And for knowing in their times of anguish that You’re here for them, as they are very tired and overworked and need the Lord’s love too.

  And for the patients, all of us who have cancer, in our times of anguish and pain, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ is there for us. All we need is faith and the ability to reach out and to accept His love, ’cause He is there for us . . . Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

  This was clearly a vastly different Steve McQueen. His heart had changed. His compassion for others was strong. He knew what his fellow patients were facing because he was facing it, too, and he wanted to help.

  On the second cassette recording, Steve’s voice is weaker, but his message even stronger.

  I really believe I have something—I think I believe, I’m pretty sure I believe, that I have something to give to the world as far as my relationship with the Lord, something I can teach to other people, something about a message that I can give. I don’t know exactly where, but I’ve thought a lot about it when I’m by myself. I think that I should be here to do that . . . if not . . . and I’ve been in excruciating pain, and I’ve always tried to say that I’ve had faith and I never gave up.

  I know now that I’ve changed a lot. I used to be more macho, and now my ass is gone, my body is gone, is broken, but my spirit isn’t broken, and my heart isn’t broken. I would like to think that I do have the determination to beat this thing, and they keep telling me they think I can, but there is a chance that I might not. Every day I go through this thing where my friends tell me I’m not dying, and they say I should take morphine and keep me happy because I get tired of the pain and I wish it would go away. Even with my broken body, I want to go to Ketchum, where I own a place. Move everything. My planes, bikes, antiques, my wife, all my animals. To start living again. That’s what I’d like, and to try and be able to change some people’s lives. To tell people that I know the Lord, what I have to offer, what’s happened to me.

  He was no longer Steve McQueen the iconic movie star. He was Steve McQueen, man of God. He was not playing a part of someone suffering as he did so movingly in Papillon. He was living it.

  These messages, taped for posterity, are a stirring, triumphant testament to the undeniable and unshakable faith of Steve McQueen and his unswerving commitment to the Lord as he faced his greatest crisis and endured such physical suffering as would plummet most people into utter despair.

  He was no longer Steve McQueen the iconic movie star. He was Steve McQueen, man of God. He was not playing a part of someone suffering as he did so movingly in Papillon. He was living it. Steve’s ultimate transformation was close.

  Before it came, he would bear his heart to another messenger of God, a man who insisted everybody call him “Billy.”

  SEE YOU IN HEAVEN

  _____

  For good reason Billy Graham has long been known as “America’s Pastor.”

  It’s estimated that this tireless crusader for Christ brought a message of salvation to millions of people through the global crusades he conducted from 1947 up to his age-dictated retirement in 2005.

  In the past century the world has seen a dizzying array of self-styled evangelists, gurus, cult leaders, new age teachers, and other false prophets come and go. Billy Graham has towered over and outlasted them all because he is the genuine article and has remained steadfast and true to God’s Word. He is the gold standard of evangelists.

  Presidents from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush relied on Dr. Graham for spiritual advice and counsel on such complex issues as war, communism, race, morality, marriage, abortion, and, of course, spiritual rebirth. In 2016 he was named among Gallup’s “10 Most Admired Men” in the world for a record sixtieth time. No other living human being has ever held that distinction.

  I am proud to say that Billy Graham is also my friend. I’ve known him personally for more than twenty-five years and have served at his request on his board of directors for the past two decades. I can tell you from personal experience that the private Billy Graham is exactly the same as the public figure. There are not two Billys, just one.

  In person he is warm, genuine, and considerate of everyone he speaks to. On one of our trips to his home in North Carolina, he took as much interest in my Cathe and our son Jonathan as he did in me, if not more.

  He is the most godly man I have ever met.

  Steve McQueen must have agreed and sought him out in the last days of his life.

  Graham had been made aware of McQueen’s illness through Leonard DeWitt. Steve had mentioned to his pastor how much it would mean for him to meet Billy, and as McQueen’s condition worsened, Leonard picked up the phone.

  “I made at least two phone calls,” Leonard told me in Santa Paula, who had a connection to Billy through a member of the church. “The second time was to say that if dr. Graham was going to come, it should be sooner rather than later.”

  “I made at least two phone calls,” Leonard told me in Santa Paula, who had a connection to Billy through a member of the church. “The second time was to say that if Dr. Graham was going to come, it should be sooner rather than later.”

  By the end of October 1980, McQueen’s body was wracked by cancerous tumors so large that his swollen abdomen made him look pregnant. At the Plaza Santa Maria, Dr. Kelley called in Mexico’s most renowned surgeon, Dr. Cesar Santos Vargas, for a consultation. Dr. Vargas said McQueen’s only hope was surgery to remove the tumors. It was scheduled for November 6 at Vargas’s clinic in Juarez.

  As Steve prepared for the flight from Oxnard to Mexico, his foreman Grady Ragsdale received a phone call from Dr. Graham himself.

  “Does Steve still want to see me?” he asked.

  “As soon as possible,” Ragsdale replied. When Ragsdale told Steve Dr. Graham was on his way, he wept tears of joy.

  They met on November 3, 1980. “Though I had never met [McQueen] before,” recalled Dr. Graham later, “I recognized him immediately from his pictures, even though he had lost considerable weight. He sat up in bed and greeted me warmly.

  “He told me of his spiritual experience. He said that about three months before he knew he was ill, he had accepted Christ as his Savior and had started going to church, reading his Bible, and praying. He said he had undergone a total transformation of his thinking and his life.”

  In the small, private plane, they said a final prayer together, and when dr. Graham got up to go, he handed his personal Bible to McQueen.

  McQueen told Dr. Graham how Sammy Mason had led him to the Lord and said it was his faith in Christ that helped him deal with his illness. Dr. Graham read several p
assages of Scripture, and they prayed together.

  Graham then accompanied McQueen to the nearby Oxnard Airport, while Steve asked him questions about the afterlife. In the small, private plane, they said a final prayer together, and when Dr. Graham got up to go, he handed his personal Bible to McQueen. On the front inside flap he had written:

  To my friend Steve McQueen. May God bless you and keep you always.

  Billy Graham

  Philippians 1:6

  Nov. 3, 1980

  Just before Dr. Graham exited the plane, Steve called out, “I’ll see you in heaven!”

  Referring to that visit, Billy later said, “I look back on that experience with thanksgiving and some amazement. I had planned to minister to Steve, but as it turned out, he ministered to me. I saw once again the reality of what Jesus Christ can do for a man in his last hours.”

  “Now look down a few entries,” Mike says. That entry is dated November 7, when Mike brought Steve back in a casket. We ride in virtual silence for the next two hours.

  Ever since I decided to undertake this investigation of Steve McQueen’s spiritual conversion, I’ve been uncertain as to whether it was necessary to follow his trail to its very end in Juarez. We know what happened in that dank, depressing, dirty clinic. Would there be anything new to be gleaned there? I don’t know, but now I feel compelled to see the place in which he took his last breath. It’s become almost a hackneyed word, but for lack of a better one, I suppose I’m seeking closure—for Steve’s story and also for myself.

  Instead of driving the Bullitt, a friend with a plane is flying me down. My friend Mike Jugan, the pilot who flew Steve to El Paso and later brought his body back from there to California, is accompanying me. As McQueen did three-and-a-half decades before, we leave from the Oxnard Airport and will fly to El Paso International Airport.

  Upon reaching cruising altitude, Mike hands me a large black hardbound book. On the cover it says “Senior Pilot Flight Record and Log Book.” He tells me to open to the first page bookmarked by a Post-it note.

  “Look midway down the page,” Mike says. “Notice the name of our passenger.” It’s Steve McQueen. The date in front of his name is November 3, 1980.

  “Now look down a few entries,” Mike says. That entry is dated November 7, when Mike brought Steve back in a casket. We ride in virtual silence for the next two hours.

  It’s around noon when we land in El Paso. Mike will stay at the airport while I take a cab to the US-Mexico border. It takes about twenty minutes for me to get processed at the US Customs Border Protection crossing station. Once on the other side, I grab another cab and hand the driver a paper on which I’ve written the address of Clinica Santa de Rosa.

  “As long as there are no patients waiting to be seen, I can show you the room,” she continues. “And it looks like today is your lucky day, señor, as no one is in the waiting room. Please follow me.”

  Fifteen minutes later I step out at the intersection of Brasil and Guerrero Streets in front of a squat building of white and blue stucco that looks more like some kind of detention facility than a medical clinic. All the windows are barred—whether to keep people out or in, I can’t imagine, and don’t want to.

  Inside, a middle-aged woman behind a counter asks, “Señor, how may I help you?” I tell her who I am and why I’ve come and then hold my breath, half expecting sirens to go off and guards to materialize and escort me off the property. But instead the woman says “Uno momento,” and presses a button.

  Moments later another woman appears and introduces herself as the clinic’s head nurse. I repeat what I told the receptionist and again hold my breath. But she actually smiles.

  McQueen’s trusted aide Grady Ragsdale called Billy Graham to tell him the operation had begun, and dr. Graham phoned Ronald and Nancy Reagan with the news. Everyone prayed for Steve.

  “Many people come here looking for the same thing you do,” she says. “My conditions are always the same.”

  How much, I wonder, is this going to cost me?

  “As long as there are no patients waiting to be seen, I can show you the room,” she continues. “And it looks like today is your lucky day, señor, as no one is in the waiting room. Please follow me.”

  As we walk, she explains the hospital has undergone several renovations since it was built sometime in the 1930s, and in fact the newer section we’re passing through looks clean and well maintained. But the wing where Steve was operated on is virtually unchanged. It’s on the south side of the building, where most of the light seems to come through a window overlooking an atrium garden. The interior is a combination of subway tile and aqua blue stucco.

  We take a quick right turn and suddenly are in the room where Steve took his last breath. It has the same wood paneling, tile floor, sink, doorknobs, and lights as then. But it’s spacious, and a receiving area adjoins the bedroom with a view to the atrium.

  The nurse pats a metal-framed queen-sized bed. “This is where Señor McQueen passed,” she says in a very practiced manner.

  “I shall leave you for a few minutes,” she says after a moment. “I need to go back to the front and see if there are any patients. I’ll be back shortly.”

  I’m grateful to be left alone. I let my mind go back to what happened in this room starting on November 6, 1980.

  “Hold my Bible and my watch,” Steve told Teena Valentino as he was wheeled in just before 8:00 a.m. Then, to Dr. Vargas: “I want to live. I’m counting on you, doctor.” Barbi, along with Steve’s children Terry and Chad, arrived a few minutes later from a hotel across the street, prepared to wait in the adjoining room.

  McQueen’s trusted aide Grady Ragsdale called Billy Graham to tell him the operation had begun, and Dr. Graham phoned Ronald and Nancy Reagan with the news. Everyone prayed for Steve.

  The Bible given to Steve by Billy Graham—his most prized possession—was tightly clutched in Steve’s hands on his deathbed. No one could explain how it had gotten there.

  When Dr. Vargas opened up McQueen’s abdomen, he was stunned by the amount of cancer he saw and exclaimed, “Oh, my God, where do I start?” For three hours the surgeon snipped and sliced. One of the excised stomach tumors was the size of a baseball and weighed about five pounds. When he finally closed Steve back up, Dr. Vargas literally collapsed from exhaustion.

  Steve came out of the ether around two o’clock. His first words were, “Is my stomach flat now?” Cancer had clearly not infected his vanity. When Dr. Vargas checked on him later, McQueen gave him a thumbs-up and said, “I did it.”

  But it wasn’t to be. Hours later, Steve suffered the first of two heart attacks. Staff worked furiously to revive him, but at 3:54 on the morning of November 7 he was pronounced dead.

  “Do not feel bad, Señor,” she says, reaching for a consoling tone. “You’re not the only man who has cried leaving this room.”

  In her hotel room Barbi was jolted awake by the ringing phone. That’s it, she said to herself. He’s gone.

  Chad McQueen went to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. Teena Valentino was there, and Chad asked for his dad’s watch and cowboy hat. He noticed that his father’s eyes were open, looking as blue as ever. The Bible given to Steve by Billy Graham—his most prized possession—was tightly clutched in Steve’s hands on his deathbed. No one could explain how it had gotten there.

  As I look down at that same bed now, I am gripped by a deep sorrow. I didn’t know Steve personally, but researching this book and talking to so many people who did know him, I feel like I’ve lost a friend.

  Know this: death is no friend to this world. In fact, the Bible refers to death as the enemy. It is so final and seemingly so cruel. But for the Christian who has put faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, death is not the end. For the believer, death is like passing from one shore to another. In truth, we live in the land of the dying and are headed to the land of the living. The moment believers take their last breath on earth, they are taking their first breath in heaven.


  I don’t have a doubt in my mind how Steve’s Bible got there. He went right into the presence of God, I think to myself. Right into the presence of God.

  “Señor, is everything okay?” asks a voice next to me. The nurse has returned.

  “Yes,” I tell her, dabbing at my eyes as we turn for the door. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Do not feel bad, Señor,” she says, reaching for a consoling tone. “You’re not the only man who has cried leaving this room.”

  There may be a hint of mockery there, but it doesn’t matter because all of a sudden I’m laughing so loud the nurse looks alarmed. It’s a joyful laugh of triumph and celebration because in this dingy place Steve McQueen finally was healed.

  The Bible reminds us of God’s power over death.

  Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! (1 Cor. 15:54–57 MSG)

  Thank God, indeed.

  Right then, right here, Steve McQueen had made the ultimate “Great Escape.”

  POSTSCRIPT

  GOOD NEWS IN A BAD WORLD

  _____

  Juarez has approximately 1.3 million residents, but the city seems surprisingly still now at two o’clock in the afternoon. Sunlight greets me as I step outside the clinic, and its warmth is refreshing to body and soul. I wave for a taxi, get in, and head back to El Paso. Even though it’s only been hours, it seems like days since I last saw Mike Jugan. And it’s good to see him again.