WHAT'S UP WITH THIS MANNING & MCQUEEN STUFF?

Steve holding the 1969 Golden Globe Award

that he won for

"World's Favorite Actor".

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"Somewhere, right now, there are kids going through what I went through. Maybe if they know I survived, they can find hope. I can't promise they'll ever forget what happened to them. But if they hold out, they'll get through okay and learn to live with the bad memories...and still learn to love." ---Steve McQueen

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Go to this site, & Left Click on DOWNLOAD!

http://www.mcqueenonline.com/lorenjanesremembers.htm

Maybe you're tired of it. Maybe this season of our Unofficial "Steve McQueen Film Festival" ran too long, or not long enough; maybe Junior Bonner shouldn't have been excluded and Love with a Proper Stranger should have been included. Nothing and no one is perfect. But whatever I do here, I do for a reason. And since yesterday marked the birthday of Steve McQueen, I thought Sunday might be the right time to tell you a few things that you never knew about "The King of Cool". We all need a reason to Hope and I think what follows will bring Hope to you!

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While Steve was in Taiwan filming The Sand Pebbles in 1966, he and his first wife Neile came across an orphanage for young girls. Most of the girls were prostitutes. The orphanage was run by a Catholic priest named Edward Wojniak. Steve donated $12,500 then and there, and continued to support the mission until Wojniak died in the late 1970's.

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Throughout his life, Steve constantly visited The Boys Republic where he spent his youth. Each year during the holiday seasons (when their self-esteem couldn't be lower because they had no family to visit them) Steve appeared with Christmas toys, Easter baskets and Thanksgiving turkeys. Imagine! These boys, without a family of their own got to see a real movie star each Christmas and on other festive occasions. And no, this wasn't a publicity stunt at all! Steve would sit with them and talk for long periods of time. On one visit, Steve learned that two teenage boys had been sent to an adult prison. He offered to pay for them to be sent to a less severe Boys institution. In his Last Will & Testament, Steve left a large amount of money to The Boys Republic.

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Los Angeles Times columnist Joyce Haber wrote this about Steve in 1971: "A few seasons ago the owners of Four Oakes, a local restaurant, invited fifty black orphans for a free Thanksgiving Day dinner. They also invited several celebrities. McQueen arrived promptly on his cycle. He was the only star to show. I call that the act of a good man".

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When Nicaragua was devastated by a massive earthquake in the early 1970's Steve bought $50,000 worth of food and medical supplies and had it flown in to the victims immediately.

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While stricken with Mesothelioma and in failing health during the filming of his last film, The Hunter in 1979, Steve was so horrified by the poverty in some of the areas of Chicago that they were filming in that he asked his close friend Pat Johnson to go down to a local church and ask the priest what he could do to help. The priest made a list, and Steve pulled out a check book and paid for it all. Steve also gave his long-time stuntman and friend Loren Janes some money, and sent him out on a buying spree to purchase 100 baseballs, mitts and bats, and 100 footballs. Steve then had Loren put them in a local field for all the kids to find. According to Loren Janes, Steve did that many times, in many different areas. I'd like to close with one last story from The Hunter.

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Steve would eat with and talk to all the cast and crew on his films. One day, Steve struck up a conversation with a young 15 year old girl named Karen who worked as an extra on The Hunter. During that conversation, Steve discovered that her mother was in the hospital and dying of alcoholic poisoning. Steve actually went to the hospital with her to meet her mother (who was a big fan). "What can I do to help"?, Steve asked. "All my life I wanted my daughter to go to school. I could die a happy woman knowing my daughter had a way out of this slum", the mother replied. Steve and his third wife Barbara took 15 year old Karen in, eventually enrolling her in a private boarding school close to where they lived, so that she could come and spend weekends with them. That young girl went from the ghetto to studying to become a Veterinarian. Today, Karen remembers the McQueen's with a great deal of love.

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The stories I have just shared with you here came out only after Steve passed away. Yes, he was one of the film world's largest celebrities. He's been gone now 27 years. And yet, women in 2006 voted Steve among the Top 100 Sexiest Men of All Time. We guys smile and call him "The King of Cool". But you know what? None of that really means anything compared to this: he had a big heart. And I shared this with all of you because this is just one of the reasons you see the poster of my Unofficial Home of The Steve McQueen Film Festival all year long whenever you Click-On my BLOG PAGE at the top right hand corner. I launched it because it feels right for me to celebrate a person who personified "living in the moment". He wasn't perfect, but he was "the real deal". That's why I do the festival.

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Special thanks to Crispin Garcia for providing the Superstars of Action - Steve McQueen video.