TUESDAY MORNING BOOKS I'M INTO...

Preparations for our 2009 4th Annual "Steve McQueen Film Festival" has started as a "work in progress". And I'm happy to announce a Link with McQueenonline.com starting next March when the festival resumes. Over the years, Ali MacGraw's 1990 book, "Moving Pictures" was my first read from Steve's second wife. While a labor of love in 2007, as I've documented here on this site, I worked phenomenally hard on the 2nd Annual Festival. This year, we adjusted the length and it was a huge hit. Afterwards, I enjoyed a careful and most enjoyable read of Barbara McQueen Brunsvold's "Steve McQueen: The Last Mile". Most recently, I was thrilled to order Neile McQueen Toffel's incredible revised book, "My Husband, My Friend". Written with pure Class and the wisdom Neile gained from her 15 plus year marriage to Steve, she was--as Robert Vaughn attests--of inestimable help in molding Steve's career. An extremely well written and open book, Neile celebrates the good times and the couple's gradual rise as a team. From building their lives and career from scratch along with parenthood, to 1968 when unresolved conflicts and difficulties annealed so deeply in Steve's youth that tortured him for life coincided in a parallel path with his meteoric fame that peaked in 1970 and his searing descent with mid-life, the new drug culture, abusiveness, destroyed friendships and ultimately (in shocking detail) the loss of his marriage to Neile. As Steve's one time Personal Assistant Mario Iscovich said of Steve during this self-destructive period, "He lost a great lady; he lost himself". Earlier, I used the word "incredible" because Neile wrote this book to come to terms with Steve's mercurial life and it's effect on her, but without bitterness. What emerges is Steve's often dark and complicated life blown out of proportion and on a perilous course fed only by fame that clouded his judgment and made him feel invulnerable.

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Back in 1970, there were no Betty Ford clinics, and face it. If we knew then what we know today about personality development and human behavior, with the therapies now available, I have to wonder if this would have changed many aspects of Steve's later years. Neile is above all, a survivor. Thankfully, she found lasting love with Alvin Toffel for 25 years. Sadly, Al died in 2005; Neile and Steve's beautiful daughter Terry passed away in 1998. A Mother to son Chad, and a Grandmother, Neile has embarked today on yet another chapter in her life with a return to Acting, Singing and Dancing. This book is written with endearment, forgiveness and uncommon insight from a still beautiful lady who has a CD due out shortly. She remains good friends with Steve's subsequent wives Ali and Barbara. This is the real story, a human story about a man torn by complications, yet who tried to the best of his individual ability to make things right in a young life cut short. I am looking forward to Neile's new CD as this lady is unstoppable and serves as an inspiration to the rest of us. I recommend this fine book.


The endlessly fascinating and breathtaking beauty of horses was brought across to me as a kid by my late cousin. And this hardbound book published just last summer by Nicola Jane Swinney is my current book on the mantle.

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Finally "on deck" is a book I snapped up from a different antique shop than the Swinney book. Yes, "The Greatest Generation" by broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw. As Tom tells us, "They came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America---men and woman whose everyday lives of duty, honor, achievement, and courage gave us the world we have today".

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With my parents in mind, who lived through this period of time, as I'm certain many of your parents did too, I am most curious about Tom's well received book. I'm back to playing guitar finally and that's about it from here!

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HAPPY TUESDAY TO ALL!