A series of movies with director John Sturges soon followed, with McQueen holding his own opposite such top stars as Frank Sinatra in Never So Few and Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven before receiving top billing in The Great Escape.
In 1963, McQueen began his own Production Company, Solar Productions, for which he starred in the gritty police drama, Bullitt. The film is still famous to this day for its car chase through the street of San Francisco. Other films which Solar Productions had involvement, and in which Steve McQueen played leading roles, include: The Cincinnati Kid, Nevada Smith, The Sand Pebbles, (for which he was nominated for an Academy Awardâ as Best Actor), The Thomas Crown Affair, (a film in which he countered his typical blue-collar, tough guy roles he had been cast in by taking the suave lead role), and Le Mans.
About the same time, McQueen's 15 and 1/2-year marriage to Neile Adams was on the rocks over his frequent affairs, and sometimes violent rages. Adams is the mother to McQueen's two children, the late Terry McQueen-Flattery and Chadwick Steven McQueen (Chad). Steve McQueen and Neile Adams divorced in 1972, after which McQueen married his co-star in the box office hit, The Getaway, Ali MacGraw. In the midst of a career high for McQueen, which included a bravura performance in Papillon, he once again was hit with personal problems, as he and MacGraw quickly found they were completely incompatible.
McQueen was also becoming disenchanted with Hollywood and forced the producers of The Towering Inferno to fork over a record-breaking $3 million for him to accept a role in the movie. Despite the enormous success of The Towering Inferno, McQueen entered a semi-retirement, appearing in only one movie during the next five years, turning down roles in such movies as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Apocalypse Now.
In 1978, McQueen and MacGraw finally called it quits, and McQueen developed a relationship with a young model named Barbara Minty. In addition, his health was beginning to fail him. He returned to the big screen for two more movies, Tom Horn and The Hunter, after which he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer caused by asbestos exposure. Looking towards the future and refusing to accept his doctor's prognosis, McQueen married Minty in 1980, got a new group of friends and became a born-again Christian. He then went to Mexico for alternative treatments for his illness, but the treatments did not help, and he passed away on November 7, 1980.
