No escape from McQueen’s great demands

HE WAS a legendary Hollywood star; the epitome of cool. But away from the camera, Steve McQueen was anything but cool, judging by the demands laid out in his contract for The Thomas Crown Affair, the stylish caper movie, which has come to light.

The producers had to commit to delivering“a set of bar bells (200lbs/90kg) and a set of dumbbells (80lbs)” to his dressing rooms while he was filming in Boston and transporting his motorcycle to wherever he was.

They also had to provide a first-class limousine and chauffeur for him, his wife, his two children and a nurse, and a car for him to drive himself, along with paying for his secretary’s salary, her transportation and lodging.

The contract demands are revealed in an internal memorandum that has been unearthed by Prof Ira Wells in researching his forthcoming biography on Norman Jewison, who directed McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid and The Thomas Crown Affair in 1965 and 1968.

In 1967, Mr Jewison, now 94, directed his masterpiece, In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier as an intellectual detective and Rod Steiger as a bigoted white police chief in a story of racial prejudice that won five Oscars. By then, McQueen was already a big star, having made films such as The Great Escape.

His contract for The Thomas Crown Affair reveals that he was paid $750,000 (worth £312,000 in 1968) to play the central role, a multimillionaire who orchestrates a bank heist – twice as much as Poitier and Steiger made together on In the Heat of the Night. He was to receive a further 15 per cent of the gross receipts after break-even.

The contract also stipulates that McQueen was to be paid $1,000 in expenses per week and that he would be given “the best dressing room available at the [United Artists] studio”.

Prof Wells, of Victoria College in the University of Toronto, said: “Jewison had a tortured relationship with the actor, and the book portrays McQueen’s insecurity and megalomania. McQueen nickel-and-dimed the production at every turn, once invoicing $250 because Jewison had filmed his watch.”

McQueen became increasingly paranoid over the course of the shoot, and the production had to pay for police for 24-hour security at his rental house.

Jewison once said: “I can’t honestly say that he was the most difficult person I’ve ever worked with because the rewards were so great.”

The contract was among Jewison’s papers, held at the Wisconsin Centre for Film and Theatre Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.