My Very, very loose connection to Steve McQueen
 

I never new him, But I was watching "The Great Escape" a great 1963 MGM movie if you've never seen it. And it got me thinking,

I met Bud Ekins the guy who actually did the barbed wire jumps for McQueen in the Great Escape,

I was searching for a spark plug for my 1930 Rudge Whitworth at a Laurel Canyon, CA antique British motorcycle shop and got referred to Bud's "Shop". I had showed up in my 1960 Aston Martin, and that got me some kudos. I got to Bud's shop and asked about spark plugs and he referred me to a bucket of old spark plugs and told me to look through it. I thought "what kind of a shop is this". After a few minutes, I figured out it was not a "shop" but his personal space. I didn't know who he was, after a few minutes of talk, I figured out who he was. I asked him point blank about the motorcycle crash scene at the end of "The Great Escape" which he did for McQueen, and he flat out told me he did that jump ten times before the writers decided to re-do the script.

James Garner, from the "Great Escape, I met him several times on our TV show "Eight Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter",

I work regularly with Mario Iscovitch, McQueen's personal manager on many of McQueen's movies. He is now producing a movie for us.

That movie is one of my favorites. Movies back then had a melancholy tragic hero theme. That was a gnarly motorcycle jump.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Kevin bacon

Haha!

Bud Ekins: He was a Legend:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Ekins

My college prof was one of the real prisoners in the Great Escape.

Bud loved bacon.

I have loved Bud and Bacon.....is there anything wrong with that?

Bud and bacon go together like a horse (Clydesdale) and carriage.

Steve McQueen starred with John Coble in "Tom Horn"
John Coble starred with Robert Redford in "The Natural"
Robert Redford starred with Brad Pitt in "Spy Game
Brad Pitt starred with Kevin Bacon in "Sleepers"

So after I have read your classic anecdote about McQueen I suppose I also have a very, very loose connection to the man. :D

No cheating!

https://oracleofbacon.org/

I have a cousin Steve who ate bacon (even though he was Jewish), had a dog named Queeny, and saw the movie so I have a very very very very loose connection to Steve McQueen as well.

I have a 930 McQueen clone, w/o turbo. If I ever get the thing back on the road. I feel his presence and occasionally hear his voice....But then again, I hear many voices. Tim

I traded for a 1908 Thor Twin from Ekins' collection. A very clean original bike. It hadn't run for at least sixty years. It didn't run when he got it and he never did anything with it. I got it running with the help of Lane Plotner and had it at a bike meet. I was riding it around the area and saw Ekins, he laughed at me and said "you will never make the money off that I did" and I laughed back, I am riding it, you never did.

My very, very loose connection: My dad and I were taxiing out of the ramp area at Santa Paula airport in the late '70s (might have been '78), we were in a Citabria and I was about 11 or 12. My Dad points to a biplane also taxiing across the ramp and says to me quickly: "That's Steve McQueen in that biplane". McQueen was a local and had a hanger there.

Hugh, had a friend in Cali in the auto business...he made all of the cars for the movie 'Thunder Road' and was also big in the early Baja racers. Very nice guy.
McQueen asked to test drive one of his rails...basically stole it and ran it at Baja...then returned it used up and said 'thanks' and walked away.
He also told me about a time he was admiring a kids circle track car...the kid asked if he'd like to drive it...he did and rolled it, destroyed it...said 'wow, what a ride' and walked away...the kid was basically a scratch driver and couldn't afford the wreck...so what aye.
Steve McQueen was an arrogant ******* when it came down to it.
This guys wife (friend) was a southern peach and I never heard her disparage anyone...but she told me McQueen was an untrustworthy man.
I believed her.....

My loose connection is Jim Brucker. From a Santa Paula farming family, they had the "Cars Of The Stars" in Buena Park. Had Jack Lemmon's car from The Great Race (told me it was a POS after all those years, studios don't build things to last). Also Ed Roth's stuff and owned the hanger at Santa Paula Airport that Von Dutch spent his waning years at (a total drunk according to him). It was next to Steve's hanger and they hung out a lot (at the hanger :D).

That's where Steve lived towards the end of his life. Jim had the bathroom door from his hanger when Von Dutch lived there, quite the work of art.

I'd heard from people who worked with him that he could be an arrogant shyte, but hey, he's effing Steve McQueen!

My connection to Steve.....I live really close to Chad.

Mario Iscovitch, McQueen' old producer and manager is a great guy, I've worked with him on a dozen movies. He is amazing, you ask him what he worked on with McQueen and he says
The Great Escape', Le Mans, Bullitt, Papillon...