Steve McQueen was always on the move – even during filming for the racing epic Le Mans he swung between scenes on his motorcycle, roaring from set to set. Without a shirt or a helmet, here he rides cheerfully down the grid, naturally with not one, but two women on his bike!
Le Mans was meant to be a dream come true for Steve McQueen, but it ended up being a nightmare. McQueen had wanted to make this movie for over a decade, he invested his heart and soul into making it and it was nothing but problems every step of the way.
Not only was he told just two days before shooting by the insurance company that he couldn’t drive in the actual Le Mans race as planned, but he clashed so much with the director that he quit. By the time a new director got on board, McQueen still had some rebellion left in him but he eventually relented, came to work on autopilot, and was just glad to be done with it once it finally wrapped.
McQueen was devastated for the duration of the shoot, he ended up suffering a mid-life crisis, having numerous affairs, and did way too many drugs. His wife left him during this production and he partied so hard one night that he wrecked a Porsche 911. Then he crashed a Peugeot, sending his co-star Louise Edlind through the windscreen. Another big stressor for McQueen at this time was the Manson family murders which had just occurred months earlier, police found Steve’s name on their hit list.
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