Steve McQueen was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool."

He was the ultra-cool male film star of the 1960s, and rose from a troubled youth spent in reform schools to being the world's most popular actor. Over 40 years after his untimely death in 1980, Steve McQueen is still considered hip and cool, and he endures as an icon of popular culture.

Steve McQueen’s tough, sexy, and laid-back charismatic personality coupled with a deep, gravelly voice and deep blue eyes made him vastly popular with both male and female audiences.

Steve McQueen films includes The Sand Pebbles (1966), Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), Le Mans (1971), The Getaway (1972), Papillon (1973), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Towering Inferno (1974). By 1974, McQueen became the highest-paid movie star in the world.

He was an avid motorcycle and race-car enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. It was difficult to find motorcycle riders with his skills.

Steve McQueen once remarked, “Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting."

McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the US Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker.

He died too soon at the age of 50 from cancer, but he will always be In Heaven with the Stars.