Includes filmography (p. [317]-321).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Beautiful wanderer -- Big-screen wonder -- Big wheel -- Bedeviled winds of change -- Cut to black.

From the acclaimed bestselling biographer Marc Eliot comes a definitive look at the life of Steve McQueen---one of Hollywood's most iconic actors who was nicknamed "the King of Cool."

Steve McQueen is one of America's legendary movie stars, also known for his turbulent life off-screen and his impeccable style. His physical beauty, his soft-spoken manner, his tough but tender roughness, and his aching vulnerability had women swooning and men wanting to be just like him. Today--nearly thirty years after he lost his battle against cancer at the age of fifty--McQueen remains "The King of Cool." Yet few know the truth of what bubbled beneath his composed exterior. Now, film historian Marc Eliot chronicles McQueen's tumultuous life, from his hardscrabble childhood to his rise to Hollywood superstar, to his struggles with alcohol and drugs and his fervor for racing fast cars and motorcycles, disclosing intimate details of his three marriages as well as his numerous affairs. Perhaps his greatest talent was to be able to convince audiences that he was who he really wasn't, even as he tried to prove to himself that he wasn't who he really was.--From publisher description.