Steve McQueen Turned Down More Great Movies Than Any Other Actor

Steve McQueen,was born March 24th 1930 and died November 7th 1980 at the age of 50.He was one of the most popular and highest paid actors ever and he turned down many leading roles in movies,quite a few of which ended up being very popular and are now considered classics...

Heres a list of the leading roles in movies he turned down,followed by the actor who was eventually chosen...

The Execution of Private Slovik - Martin Sheen

Oceans Eleven - Richard Conte

Breakfast at Tiffany's - George Peppard

Marooned - Gregory Peck

King Rat - George Segal

Return of the Seven - Robert Fuller

Bob,Carol,Ted & Alice - Robert Culp

The Kremlin Letter - Richard Boone

Ice Station Zebra - Rock Hudson

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Robert Redford

Dirty Harry - Clint Eastwood

The French Connection - Gene Hackman

Fort Apache, The Bronx - Paul Newman

Grand Prix - James Garner

Play Misty for Me - Clint Eastwood

The Betsy - Robert Duvall

First Blood - Sylvester Stallone

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Jack Nicholson

Apocalypse Now - Martin Sheen

Raid on Entebbe - Peter Finch

Raise the Titanic! - Jason Robards

A Bridge Too Far - Robert Redford

California Split - George Segal

Grace Quigley - Nick Nolte

The Missouri Breaks - Jack Nicholson

The Bodyguard - Kevin Costner

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Richard Dreyfus

The Driver - Ryan O'Neal

Convoy - Kris Kristofferson

One thing that Steve Mcqueen was very lucky to have turned down,was an invitation by his friend Jay Sebring to come over Sharon Tates house for dinner on the very same night in august 1969 when everyone in that house was murdered by the Manson family gang...

Its a shame he was taken at such a young age & think he admitted before he passed that he regretted not taking conventional treatment for his cancer. He was running around Mexico looking for an alternative cure from what ive read.

Peace

reply to post by BABYBULL24
Steve McQueen was only 10 years older than Martin Sheen and although its almost impossible now to imagine anyone else but Martin sheen in the great lead role of the very great film Apocalypse Now.Steve Mcqueen was Francis Coppolas first choice and i,personally,would have liked him in the lead role of captain willard just as much and that movie would have been just as good...imo...Maybe even a little better?

The French Connection and Apocalypse Now are both in my top 10 greatest movies list...

An ardent amateur racer: Steve played a focused part in Bruce Browns' pivotal motorcycle epic "on any sunday"; Which he also helped produce (co- funded).. The movie first released in1971is responsible for getting millions started in riding motorcycles...
I saw it in the theater in '71 and again in my living room today.

I first saw McQueen in "The Blob" Steve played a teen heart throb who saves his town, and the world by conquering an amorphous mass of planet killing goo.
In 1958 I was 11 and I sat in the first row with my friends at our town movie house. Scared the living crap out of us.

At the end of the movie he discovers that the blob is only vulnerable to freezing cold and has the army come and fly the frozen mess where it is dropped onto the North Pole where it would remain frozen forever.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire
Yes! thats probably the first time i ever saw Steve McQueen,in the movie The Blob-1958.Imo a great Sci-fi/Horror film of the 1950's and it was filmed in "color".Although i saw it for the first time,around age 10 in the mid 1970's,over my great grandmothers house while watching Creature Double Feature here in the Boston area...

Another lesser known but great film that he was in was the anti-war movie Hell Is For Heroes-1962...

reply to post by blocula
Another great sci/fi flick from that time is "Earth Vrs the Flying Saucers"

it features the distruction of Washington DC by a fleet of alien craft.
What a hoot that one was.