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Steve McQueen: Mustangs, Magnums, and Manson's Hit List · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:18
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen are insane. He was a hustler on the
0:22
Speaker 1: streets of New York. He had a long standing bet
0:25
Speaker 1: with the US President over who could sleep with more women.
0:29
Speaker 1: He waved around his magnum forty four at the funeral
0:32
Speaker 1: of j Sebring, a victim of Charles Manson's murderous family.
0:37
Speaker 1: He was targeted by that same family who had him
0:40
Speaker 1: at the very top of their infamous hit list. But
0:44
Speaker 1: Charles Manson never got to carry out a hit on
0:46
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen survived the paranoia of late sixties Hollywood,
0:52
Speaker 1: and he made great films, unlike that clip I played
0:56
Speaker 1: for you at the top of the show that wasn't
0:59
Speaker 1: from a great film, that was a preset looke my
1:02
Speaker 1: mellotron called Bandits and Donuts MK. Two. I played you
1:08
Speaker 1: that clip because I can't afford the rights to a
1:11
Speaker 1: clip from in the year twenty five twenty five by
1:14
Speaker 1: Zager and Evans. And why would I play you that
1:18
Speaker 1: specific slice of one hit Wonder Cheese? Could I afford it?
1:22
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:26
Speaker 1: August ninth, nineteen sixty nine, and that was the day
1:30
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen narrowly escaped death at the hands of the
1:34
Speaker 1: Manson family for the first time. On this episode Hustling
1:39
Speaker 1: a magnum forty four presidential sex contests Charles Manson's hit
1:44
Speaker 1: list in Steve McQueen.
1:47
Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgrace slant.
2:16
Speaker 1: The stringy hippie chick like to run her mouth all
2:19
Speaker 1: about how she was picked up in a raid on
2:21
Speaker 1: Charles Manson's compound and death valley. Most of Crazy Charlie's
2:26
Speaker 1: family were arrested for auto theft, but she got charged
2:30
Speaker 1: with the torture and murder of one Gary Hinman from earlier.
2:33
Speaker 1: In that bloody summer of nineteen sixty nine, Susan Atkins
2:38
Speaker 1: wasn't going anywhere inside the joint. She settled in, made
2:43
Speaker 1: some friends with other inmates, got comfortable, then she got chatty.
2:48
Speaker 1: She let slip that Gary Hinman wasn't her only victim.
2:53
Speaker 1: She was behind one of California's most notorious unsolved massacres.
2:58
Speaker 1: Susan Atkins the knife to Sharon Tate. She detailed the
3:04
Speaker 1: grizzly murders of Sharon Jay Sebring Boychick Frakowski, Abigail Folger,
3:09
Speaker 1: and Stephen Parrin at the house on Cielo Drive, a
3:12
Speaker 1: love house turned into a house of horrors. Then she
3:16
Speaker 1: talked about Phase two, the plans Charlie had for other
3:20
Speaker 1: Hollywood fuckos. They were going to mutilate Liz Taylor, gouge
3:24
Speaker 1: at her eyes and carve helter skelter into her face,
3:28
Speaker 1: into her perfect skin, leaving her alive but hideous. They
3:32
Speaker 1: were going to skin Frank Sinatra slowly while playing one
3:35
Speaker 1: of Old Blue Eyes's old records, then make purses out
3:39
Speaker 1: of his skin and seldom to rich La Pigs and
3:42
Speaker 1: the boutiques on Rodeo Drive. Susan was personally going to
3:46
Speaker 1: rape singer Tom Jones at knife point, slitting his throat
3:50
Speaker 1: as he climaxed, but Charles Manson was saving the worst
3:55
Speaker 1: for Steve McQueen. Maybe you know about Charles Manson's failed
4:01
Speaker 1: musical career, how he befriended Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys,
4:05
Speaker 1: sent his demos to record producer Terry Melcher and never
4:08
Speaker 1: hurt back, how that rejection might have led to the
4:11
Speaker 1: murders in the house at one zero zero five zero
4:14
Speaker 1: Clo Drive, where Melcher lived for a time, which had
4:17
Speaker 1: since become the rented residence of Sharon Tate and her
4:20
Speaker 1: husband Roman Polanski. But months before Manson sent his music
4:25
Speaker 1: to Terry Melcher, he sent the screenplay to Steve McQueen's
4:29
Speaker 1: production company. No one read the thing. It rotted in
4:32
Speaker 1: the slush pile at the offices of Solar Productions. Manson
4:36
Speaker 1: got tired of waiting for a response. He made the
4:39
Speaker 1: nearly hour long drive from Spawn Ranch to Steve's offices
4:43
Speaker 1: in West Hollywood. Steve just so happened to be getting
4:46
Speaker 1: out of his car. He didn't look twice at the
4:49
Speaker 1: squirrely guy with the beard trying to get his attention
4:52
Speaker 1: frush dry past him. Everything Steve McQueen did was fast,
4:57
Speaker 1: including getting out of one of his nine cars, maybe
5:00
Speaker 1: the D type Jaguar or was it the portion didn't matter,
5:05
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just that. To Steve McQueen, aka the
5:08
Speaker 1: King of Cool aka Lieutenant Frank Bullet, Charles Manson looked
5:13
Speaker 1: just like another piece of hippie trash. But Charles Manson
5:18
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be ignored. He shoved Steph McQueen up
5:21
Speaker 1: against his fancy car, and Steve pulled back, square it
5:24
Speaker 1: up and popped Manson right in the face. Blood gushed
5:28
Speaker 1: from Manson's nose. Steve McQueen simply walked away. Back at
5:33
Speaker 1: the Manson compound. That night, Charlie put The King of
5:36
Speaker 1: Cool at the top of his growing hit list. The
5:40
Speaker 1: murder of Steve McQueen would be a family affair, an
5:43
Speaker 1: unholy communion. The family would strip him down, tie him up,
5:48
Speaker 1: and they'd carved bits of flesh off of him and
5:50
Speaker 1: eat them while Steve watched. The goal would be to
5:53
Speaker 1: keep him alive for as much of the feast as possible.
5:57
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen was going to die slow, and Steve McQueen
6:01
Speaker 1: was going to die screaming, and he would have too
6:05
Speaker 1: if a last minute hookup call hadn't saved him from
6:08
Speaker 1: a grizzly death. Steve McQueen met Sharon Tate in nineteen
6:15
Speaker 1: sixty two when she was an extra on the set
6:18
Speaker 1: of The Honeymoon Machine, Steve's failed attempt to break into comedy.
6:24
Speaker 1: He was married with two kids, but that didn't stop
6:27
Speaker 1: him or even slow him down. He started an on again,
6:31
Speaker 1: off again thing with Sharon in the mid sixties. They
6:34
Speaker 1: were regularly seen at LA clubs with Jay Sebring, hairstylist
6:38
Speaker 1: to the stars but also an unrepentant starfucker. Jay didn't
6:43
Speaker 1: just have access to high quality salon products. He had
6:46
Speaker 1: access to high quality cocaine. On the afternoon of August ninth,
6:51
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, Steve and Jay went out to lunch together.
6:55
Speaker 1: Jay invited Steve to a party that night at Sharon's house.
6:59
Speaker 1: Polanski would be there. That diminutive Prick had just split
7:02
Speaker 1: for London to begin work on his next movie, and
7:04
Speaker 1: also to work on getting himself some strange far away
7:07
Speaker 1: from his pregnant wife's prying eyes. Jay told Steve it
7:12
Speaker 1: was a dinner party. The King of Cool hoped that
7:15
Speaker 1: dinner was actually code for cocaine in sex. Later that afternoon, however,
7:21
Speaker 1: Steve's phone rang. It was a young blonde, aspiring actress
7:25
Speaker 1: who wanted to spend some one on one time with him.
7:28
Speaker 1: He weighed his options. Tonight he felt more like some
7:31
Speaker 1: traditional adultry rather than a coke fueled orgy. He flaked
7:35
Speaker 1: on the Ciellow Drive shindig. There'd be other nights with
7:38
Speaker 1: Jay Sebring and Sharon Tate or so Steve McQueen thought,
7:43
Speaker 1: so everyone thought. The murders of Sharon Tate, j Sebring,
7:50
Speaker 1: and the others on that very night shocked Hollywood and
7:54
Speaker 1: went unsolved for months. Even when LAPD arrested Manson and
7:59
Speaker 1: his family, it wasn't in connection with those murders. The
8:03
Speaker 1: cops thought they were busting up a car theft for ing.
8:06
Speaker 1: That is until Susan Atkins confessed to her new family
8:10
Speaker 1: her jailhouse friends, who then promptly ratted her out for
8:14
Speaker 1: the twenty five thousand dollars reward. Roman Polanski was offering
8:17
Speaker 1: for information about his wife's murder, but as summer turned
8:21
Speaker 1: to fall, before Charlie and his crew were id'd as
8:24
Speaker 1: the purpse, Hollywood was mired in full blown paranoia. Every
8:29
Speaker 1: celebrity believed they were the next target. A few of
8:33
Speaker 1: them were actually right. Jerry Lewis didn't have shit to
8:38
Speaker 1: worry about, but he sunk a ton of money into
8:40
Speaker 1: an alarm system for his house. Frank Sinatra couldn't have known.
8:44
Speaker 1: Manson viewed him as a musical competition and was planning
8:47
Speaker 1: the Buffalo bills ass into botique purses, but he disappeared
8:50
Speaker 1: from public eye all the same Steve McQueen knew that
8:54
Speaker 1: if he'd chosen a different piece of ass on that
8:56
Speaker 1: hot August night, he'd have been butchered alongside Sharon and Jay.
9:01
Speaker 1: So he bought a forty four magnum, a hand cannon
9:04
Speaker 1: of a gun, carried it with him everywhere he went.
9:07
Speaker 1: He even brought it to j Severings's funeral, which he
9:09
Speaker 1: attended with his wife. Jay's celebrity clients were there, the
9:13
Speaker 1: ones who weren't too scared to attend, that is, Paul Newman,
9:17
Speaker 1: Warren Baby, Peter Fonda, and Steve McQueen coked up, stoned
9:23
Speaker 1: the wife he'd been unfaithful to on one hip, the
9:26
Speaker 1: magnum on the other, watching along with the rest of
9:29
Speaker 1: the mourners as one of Jay's former lovers threw himself
9:31
Speaker 1: on the casket and sobbing uncontrollably. Something came over Steve
9:36
Speaker 1: in that moment, not only the grip of drugs, but
9:39
Speaker 1: the grip of fear, the grip of sadness. He leaped
9:43
Speaker 1: from a seat, whipped out his magnum and pointed it
9:46
Speaker 1: directly at the guy's head. Steve was shouting, but he
9:49
Speaker 1: didn't know what he was saying. Just a jumble of
9:51
Speaker 1: words and tears and spit. Security cooled out the scene,
9:56
Speaker 1: wisely choosing to remove the hysterical mourner rather than try
9:59
Speaker 1: to remove Steve McQueen's gun. But Steve McQueen didn't cool out,
10:05
Speaker 1: not in the least. He was haunted by long spells
10:09
Speaker 1: of paranoia for the rest of his life. They took
10:12
Speaker 1: hold and then took him for a ride, not the
10:16
Speaker 1: kind of ride that got him off. Standing there, surrounded
10:20
Speaker 1: by shocked mourners close to Jay's corpse, he thought about
10:25
Speaker 1: the wind in his hair and the sun on his face.
10:28
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen wanted to be anywhere but here burying a
10:31
Speaker 1: friend after being nearly devoured by Charles Manson and his
10:34
Speaker 1: fucked up family. He wanted to be on a bike,
10:38
Speaker 1: in a car. He closed his eyes, he heard the
10:41
Speaker 1: rump of a three ninety gt Mustang, the throttle of
10:45
Speaker 1: a Harley, and then Steve McQueen was gone. Steve McQueen
11:15
Speaker 1: became an actor not because he had a special calling
11:18
Speaker 1: or some god given talent. Watch any Steve McQueen movie
11:21
Speaker 1: and it's obvious that his talent was more about vibe
11:24
Speaker 1: than it was. A last poor yurick bullshit. No, Steve
11:29
Speaker 1: McQueen became an actor so that he didn't have to
11:31
Speaker 1: bust his ass work in a real job. Real work
11:34
Speaker 1: was shitwork. Real work was his mother, turning tricks in
11:38
Speaker 1: the small apartments and flophouses where they lived, Struggling to
11:42
Speaker 1: raise Steve on her own, struggling with booze, Struggling with
11:46
Speaker 1: a rotating cast of boyfriends and temporary husbands who beat
11:49
Speaker 1: on the brat and kicked little Steve out into the streets.
11:53
Speaker 1: And out on those streets, he hustled, running scams, shoplifting,
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Speaker 1: petty theft, anything that put a few bucks in his pocket.
12:01
Speaker 1: It didn't require punching a clock. He got enough of that,
12:05
Speaker 1: regimented bullshit with the Marines three years for Uncle Sam
12:09
Speaker 1: before an honorable discharge put him back onto the streets
12:12
Speaker 1: of New York, once again, hustling and rolling bumbs for cash. Now,
12:18
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four, he was a student at Les
12:21
Speaker 1: Strasburg's legendary actor's studio, the place that launched Marilyn Monroe
12:26
Speaker 1: in Marlon Brando. But Steve was no Brando, not yet
12:31
Speaker 1: at least, and in order to pay for his non
12:33
Speaker 1: working actor lifestyle. He had to make some money on
12:36
Speaker 1: the side, so he worked a different kind of hustle,
12:39
Speaker 1: a fast hustle. Motorcycle races over in Long Island on
12:43
Speaker 1: the weekends yielded a couple hundred bucks if you were
12:45
Speaker 1: fast enough, and Steve was lightning Cars bikes didn't matter.
12:52
Speaker 1: He got a pair of hammerbars or a steering wheel
12:54
Speaker 1: in his hands and just cooked. Long stretches of open road,
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Speaker 1: blind curves didn't matter. He rode fast and hot on
13:02
Speaker 1: the road. There was no ego, not like there was
13:05
Speaker 1: in the movies. There was just you and the guy
13:07
Speaker 1: on the bike next to you. He didn't have to talk,
13:10
Speaker 1: didn't have to pretend to be someone who weren't. You
13:12
Speaker 1: just had to be fast. Unlike the escort service, Steve
13:17
Speaker 1: also occasionally worked for where you didn't have to be fast.
13:20
Speaker 1: You just had to do what you were told if
13:22
Speaker 1: you wanted to get paid. Tonight, Steve was told to
13:26
Speaker 1: be a distraction arm candy from Marlena Dietrich, the icy
13:31
Speaker 1: German sex queen. Once paramounts answered to Greta Garbo, now
13:35
Speaker 1: a high paid cabaret act. Steve accompanied Marlena inside the
13:40
Speaker 1: ballroom at the Plaza Hotel, some snooty charity event or whatnot.
13:45
Speaker 1: At the bar, Marlena introduced Steve to her friends, a
13:49
Speaker 1: former US ambassador and his wife, Joseph and Rose Kennedy,
13:53
Speaker 1: along with the couple's oldest son and his new bride.
13:57
Speaker 1: Their son, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy,
14:02
Speaker 1: and his wife Jacqueline. Jfk was older than Steve by
14:07
Speaker 1: thirteen years, already on his path to the presidency. Steve
14:12
Speaker 1: was white trash who'd never met his own father, a
14:15
Speaker 1: small time actor who raced motorcycles and worked expensive hustles
14:18
Speaker 1: to make ends me but the two get along fine.
14:22
Speaker 1: Kennedy insisted Steve call him Jack, and as the evening
14:26
Speaker 1: wore on, Marlena Dietrich gave Steve the signal. She excused
14:30
Speaker 1: herself to go to the ladies room. A few minutes later,
14:34
Speaker 1: Joseph Kennedy pushed back his chair and announced he was
14:37
Speaker 1: going to hit the head. Steve McQueen started on the
14:40
Speaker 1: job he'd been hired for, distracting Rose Kennedy, while her husband,
14:44
Speaker 1: the US Ambassador Joe Kennedy, rushed upstairs to fuck Marlena Dietrich.
14:50
Speaker 1: But as the minutes went by, Steve began to doubt
14:53
Speaker 1: that anyone was pulling a fast one on Rose Kennedy.
14:57
Speaker 1: She knew exactly where her husband was and what he
14:59
Speaker 1: was too Irish Joe Kennedy didn't take long when he returned.
15:05
Speaker 1: Steve excused himself to take a leak, and Jack Kennedy followed.
15:10
Speaker 1: They stood next to each other at the urinals in
15:12
Speaker 1: the plaza men's room. JFK's eyes wandered. The junior senator
15:17
Speaker 1: from Massachusetts was a little jealous of what Steve was
15:20
Speaker 1: packing and his gig as an escort, but despite that,
15:24
Speaker 1: he bet Steve that in the long run he Jack
15:27
Speaker 1: Kennedy would get more ass than Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen
15:33
Speaker 1: looked over at JFK, the puffy face, quaffed hair, the
15:37
Speaker 1: picket fence of teeth. Then he glanced down at the
15:40
Speaker 1: rich Bostonians less than remarkable endowment, and Steve took that bet.
15:45
Speaker 1: Kennedy shook the piss off of him and then shook
15:48
Speaker 1: Steve's hand, promising they'd meet up in a couple of
15:50
Speaker 1: years and compare their scores. And by the time they
16:01
Speaker 1: reconvened to talk, bedpost notches. Steve McQueen was no longer
16:05
Speaker 1: a small time actor relying on side hustles to survive
16:09
Speaker 1: his breakout role on the CBS western Wanted Dead or Alive,
16:13
Speaker 1: got under the big time and to the big screen.
16:16
Speaker 1: And though his luck had changed, his speed had not.
16:20
Speaker 1: He still did everything fast. His gun was out of
16:23
Speaker 1: his holster faster than James Colborn or Charles Bronson could blink.
16:27
Speaker 1: He fired off three shots before eule Brenner even had
16:30
Speaker 1: a chance to raise his revolver in the air. Yuell
16:33
Speaker 1: didn't know what the fuck he was doing with that thing.
16:35
Speaker 1: Steve showed him nineteen sixty Mexico principal photography for The
16:41
Speaker 1: Magnificent Seven. The only thing more magnificent than the film
16:45
Speaker 1: set were the local brothels. But Steve never carried cash,
16:51
Speaker 1: so when the bill came due seven hundred dollars for
16:54
Speaker 1: a tequila soiak romp with seven women in a cozy
16:56
Speaker 1: room upstairs, Steve and one of his co stars came
17:00
Speaker 1: up a few hundred short. The way that Madam saw it,
17:03
Speaker 1: the co star was the one with the money, so
17:06
Speaker 1: he was free to go. Steve, on the other hand,
17:10
Speaker 1: was not. He knew they were going to extract payment
17:13
Speaker 1: from him by any means necessary, and he wasn't about
17:16
Speaker 1: to wait around to find out how big the dues
17:18
Speaker 1: were who would be doing the extracting. Steve closed his eyes.
17:22
Speaker 1: Who was in a car on a bike? The road
17:25
Speaker 1: went on for miles ahead. He opened his eyes, and
17:29
Speaker 1: then he bolted out of the room, down the stairs,
17:34
Speaker 1: out the front door, into a garden outside, where massive
17:37
Speaker 1: enforcers were waiting for him. A big capable men. They
17:41
Speaker 1: grabbed him and dragged his deadbeat ass back inside and
17:43
Speaker 1: back upstairs to an empty room. They slammed the door
17:46
Speaker 1: behind them. Then they rolled up their sleeves and went
17:49
Speaker 1: to work on Steve McQueen with their huge fists. He
17:52
Speaker 1: begged him to k not fuck up his face. Beaten
17:55
Speaker 1: and bloodied, Steve was allowed to make one phone call.
17:58
Speaker 1: He rang up John stir the Magnificent Sevens director. He
18:03
Speaker 1: needed money now, but not the three hundred dollars that
18:07
Speaker 1: was owed on the tap triple that plus some on top.
18:12
Speaker 1: John Sturgis sent over one thousand dollars in cash and
18:15
Speaker 1: save Stephen Queen's life. The Mexican brothel incident never made
18:23
Speaker 1: it to the tabloids, but it didn't have to in
18:25
Speaker 1: order to attract the attention of the FBI. Jay Edgar
18:29
Speaker 1: Hoover saw plenty in Life magazine's profile of Steve that
18:32
Speaker 1: ran a few years later in nineteen sixty three, around
18:36
Speaker 1: the time he was starring in another John Sturgis epic,
18:39
Speaker 1: The Great Escape, now pulling down three hundred grand a picture.
18:44
Speaker 1: In that article, Steve's tawdry passed life as a hustler
18:48
Speaker 1: was laid bare for all to see. Man if I
18:51
Speaker 1: hadn't made my own scene, he was quoted, I could
18:54
Speaker 1: have wound up a hood instead of an actor. Hoover
18:57
Speaker 1: had to admit he was titillated, but he also wondered
19:00
Speaker 1: what kinds of illegal thing Steve McQueen had done and
19:03
Speaker 1: was perhaps still doing. The people that ran in his circle.
19:07
Speaker 1: It's a fast circle, a circle that was becoming increasingly
19:11
Speaker 1: crowded with Jaguars, Triumphs, Mini Cooper's Lincoln's Portis. Steve McQueen
19:17
Speaker 1: had the federal government's attention, if they can keep up,
19:20
Speaker 1: but the chase didn't last. Just three months later, shots
19:24
Speaker 1: rang out in Dallas. Hoover and the Bureau had their
19:28
Speaker 1: plates full with the assassination of Steve's one time sex
19:32
Speaker 1: race buddy. Steve never found out if his bedroom appetite
19:36
Speaker 1: was bigger than Jack Kennedy's, and that race was over,
19:40
Speaker 1: but another was just beginning. We'll be right back after this.
19:49
Speaker 2: We're, We're, We're.
19:55
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen, the King of Cool, got an unexpected phone
19:59
Speaker 1: call from another king. Anytime Elvis Presley called anybody who
20:05
Speaker 1: was unexpected. Elvis wanted Steve to come hang at his place,
20:11
Speaker 1: not Graceland, his pad in la This was nineteen sixty six,
20:17
Speaker 1: a time when Elvis was trying to establish himself as
20:19
Speaker 1: a serious actor, and he viewed Steve then on his
20:23
Speaker 1: way to becoming one of the biggest actors in the world.
20:26
Speaker 1: As a combination of inspiration and competition, Elvis did his research,
20:32
Speaker 1: and not just on Steve's movies. He stalked his place
20:35
Speaker 1: with a shit ton of old Milwaukee, Steve's favorite. Steve
20:39
Speaker 1: was impressed, even more so that his famously teetotaling host
20:43
Speaker 1: was substituting his usual bottle of pepsicola for a frosty brew.
20:48
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen and Elvis sat around cracking cold ones, each
20:52
Speaker 1: one tasting good, each one tasting like another one, until
20:56
Speaker 1: one of Elvis's guys brought a couple of pills in.
20:59
Speaker 1: Steve didn't ask what they were. He knocked them back
21:02
Speaker 1: with the rest of his can of beer. Soon his
21:05
Speaker 1: head got loopy, the room began to spin. Conversation took
21:09
Speaker 1: a strange turn to what the fuck were they talking about?
21:14
Speaker 1: Planning the assassination of Colonel Parker. No, Steve must have
21:19
Speaker 1: heard that wrong. There was no way Elvis or anyone
21:23
Speaker 1: else could take down the colonel. The colonel was actually
21:26
Speaker 1: the badass in this scenario, the real king, so to speak.
21:30
Speaker 1: And there were those rumors, rumors that Colonel Tom Parker,
21:35
Speaker 1: if that really was even his name, had killed someone
21:38
Speaker 1: back in his native Holland. Steve shook his head. Another
21:43
Speaker 1: round of beers, another handful of pills, more spinning, more
21:48
Speaker 1: Colonel Tom shit talking, and then Steve McQueen blacked out.
21:57
Speaker 1: He woke up at two in the afternoon, bed next
22:00
Speaker 1: to Elvis Presley, snoring, buck ass naked. Steve was naked too,
22:05
Speaker 1: but had no recollection of how he got that way.
22:08
Speaker 1: He got dressed and quickly got the fuck out of
22:11
Speaker 1: their hold up. That story is so bizarre that I'm
22:15
Speaker 1: not even sure if I buy it, but it comes
22:17
Speaker 1: directly from one of Elvis's bodyguards, and it sets up
22:21
Speaker 1: what happened next. Two years later, in nineteen sixty eight,
22:26
Speaker 1: Steve got another call from Elvis, not an old Milwaukee
22:30
Speaker 1: blackout drunk call, but one about a mutual friend. Back
22:34
Speaker 1: in the fifties, Nick Adams was a promising young actor,
22:38
Speaker 1: befriending sal Mineo and James Dean on the set of
22:41
Speaker 1: Revel Without a Cause and even dubbing some of Dean's
22:44
Speaker 1: lines and Giant. After the actor's death, he became friends
22:48
Speaker 1: with Elvis and later with Stephen Queen. By nineteen sixty eight, however,
22:53
Speaker 1: Nick Adams was struggling to find work. Now, Nick Adams
22:58
Speaker 1: was writing a tell all book, and he told Elvis
23:01
Speaker 1: that if he wanted to avoid being named in it,
23:03
Speaker 1: he'd have to cough up one hundred grand. This is
23:07
Speaker 1: what Elvis was calling Steve about. Steve was another of
23:10
Speaker 1: the high caliber names Nick Adams was threatening to expose.
23:14
Speaker 1: Elvis thought Steve should pay Nick a visit convince him otherwise,
23:19
Speaker 1: so Steve did. Nick didn't seem to care. In fact,
23:23
Speaker 1: he was pretty confident about his little Black man's scheme.
23:26
Speaker 1: You don't have to be included in the book, he
23:28
Speaker 1: told Steve. But it would hurt sales if you weren't.
23:31
Speaker 1: Maybe you could make up the difference, say one hundred
23:33
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Hell no, Steve McQueen wasn't giving Nick Adams
23:38
Speaker 1: that kind of money. In fact, he wasn't giving him
23:41
Speaker 1: one cent, he reminded Nick. The people who crossed Colonel
23:45
Speaker 1: Tom Parker wound up getting hurt. It was the last
23:48
Speaker 1: time Steve McQueen saw Nick Adams alive. A month later,
23:55
Speaker 1: Nick Adams's body was found in his Hollywood apartment, dead
23:59
Speaker 1: of an apparent an overdose prescription tranquilizers and sedatives, or
24:03
Speaker 1: so they said. His family and friends insisted it was
24:06
Speaker 1: foul play, but the coroner ruled it an accident. Whatever
24:11
Speaker 1: story Nick Adams is going to tell about, Elvis and
24:13
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen died with Nick Adams five hours north of
24:18
Speaker 1: Hollywood in San Francisco. More stories were dying as more
24:22
Speaker 1: people were being murdered. Not the Zodiac killer. That wouldn't
24:27
Speaker 1: be a thing until the end of the year. Right now.
24:30
Speaker 1: One case in particular, had detective stumped a woman assaulted
24:35
Speaker 1: and viciously murdered in cold blood while on her way
24:38
Speaker 1: to a wedding. The killer vanished. The cops had little
24:42
Speaker 1: to go on, but they went on good old fashioned
24:45
Speaker 1: police work, real work. They chased down leads, they got
24:49
Speaker 1: people to talk, mountains of paperwork. Months went by, and
24:55
Speaker 1: finally it paid off. It didn't always, but when it did,
24:59
Speaker 1: it felt it's amazing. The departed's credit card was used
25:04
Speaker 1: up north, all the way in Seattle. The trail suddenly
25:07
Speaker 1: got hot, and the detectives got excited. They could feel it.
25:12
Speaker 1: They were one step closer to nabbing this degenerate. They
25:16
Speaker 1: followed the money, the receipts. Soon they had the purp
25:19
Speaker 1: and cuffs back in a jail cell by the bay.
25:23
Speaker 1: The detectives wanted the ultimate punishment, two thousand volts of
25:27
Speaker 1: pure justice. As he sat strapped to the chair. They
25:30
Speaker 1: would have gotten it too easy if the bastard didn't
25:33
Speaker 1: hang himself from his belt the first night he was
25:35
Speaker 1: behind bars. The case may have been closed, but the
25:39
Speaker 1: cops didn't feel a sense of closure, and never would
25:43
Speaker 1: they and the victim's family had been robbed of that.
25:45
Speaker 1: It left them feeling helpless, pissed off, and it sent
25:49
Speaker 1: them to the bottom of another bottle in the start
25:51
Speaker 1: of another case. More than the ride alongs, more than
25:55
Speaker 1: the drug bus, more than every other opportunity, Steve McQueen
25:59
Speaker 1: had to shadow this San Francisco Police Department. This moment
26:03
Speaker 1: stuck with him the longest. He could feel what they
26:06
Speaker 1: were feeling, even if he couldn't explain it. Didn't have
26:10
Speaker 1: to explain it. He just had to translate that feeling
26:13
Speaker 1: for the movies and portray it for all to see.
26:18
Speaker 1: After all, this movie, the first made by his production company,
26:23
Speaker 1: was going to be nothing if not authentic. Lieutenant Frank
26:27
Speaker 1: Bullet was the real McCoy, right down to the fast
26:30
Speaker 1: draw double shoulder holsters. He wore the same ones worn
26:34
Speaker 1: by one of the San Francisco cops Steve McQueen got
26:36
Speaker 1: to know working this murder case. But Steve wanted more
26:40
Speaker 1: than just the outfits to look real. He wanted every
26:43
Speaker 1: part of the film to be real, especially the car chase.
26:48
Speaker 1: This wasn't the Great Escape, This wasn't Steve hauling ass
26:52
Speaker 1: while the German stunt riders closed in, only to quit
26:55
Speaker 1: before it got really dangerous, so that his stuntman was
26:58
Speaker 1: the one to clear, breathtaking John over a six foot
27:01
Speaker 1: high barbed water fence. This was a green Mustang tearing
27:05
Speaker 1: through the very real hills of San Francisco at very
27:08
Speaker 1: real speeds of one hundred miles an hour. Shot so
27:12
Speaker 1: tight and so close he could feel the tension radiating
27:15
Speaker 1: from Steve McQueen's face. It was absolutely riveting stuff, the
27:20
Speaker 1: right stuff, the stuff that got Steve McQueen an invitation
27:24
Speaker 1: to become a member of the British Motor Corporation in
27:26
Speaker 1: race pro in Europe. He turned that down, but he
27:30
Speaker 1: did race motorcycle trials with the American team in East Germany.
27:34
Speaker 1: He would have done just fine too, if his bike
27:37
Speaker 1: hadn't swiped someone else's. It all happened so fast. Steve
27:44
Speaker 1: was going for the land speed record. A needle buried
27:47
Speaker 1: on the right side of the odometer. He didn't even see.
27:49
Speaker 1: The other guy came out of nowhere. Steve clipped him.
27:53
Speaker 1: Poor bastard drove straight into a tree, bam, lights out.
27:57
Speaker 1: Steve meanwhile was airborne, the sound of his tires tearing
28:02
Speaker 1: up the road replaced with the aching, white noise of
28:04
Speaker 1: wind in his ears. He came down hard. His face
28:07
Speaker 1: went directly into a rock. The skin torn from both
28:10
Speaker 1: his kneecaps, but he walked away. What are you gonna do?
28:14
Speaker 1: It was what it was, occupational hazard, And now on
28:20
Speaker 1: the set of Bullet he couldn't help but think of
28:23
Speaker 1: that bike crash. Not that that would stop him from
28:26
Speaker 1: doing what he enjoyed, driving the shit out of an
28:28
Speaker 1: awesome automobile. The director called for another run through the
28:33
Speaker 1: soon to be iconic chase scene. Steve took the wheel.
28:37
Speaker 1: He slammed the gearshift into first, hit the gas. He
28:41
Speaker 1: took corners and turns the way he always did fast.
28:46
Speaker 1: He overshot each one. He rammed the Mustang into a
28:49
Speaker 1: parked car. All good. He tried it again and again.
28:52
Speaker 1: He botched the turn East Germany. All over again. Get
28:55
Speaker 1: him out of the fucking car. Someone shouted, He's gonna
28:58
Speaker 1: kill somebody, bottom body, Steve, I wasn't listening. He went
29:01
Speaker 1: from the top of the hill. The Mustang caught air.
29:04
Speaker 1: He felt a rush of adrenaline as the machine in
29:07
Speaker 1: the ground, and he put his foot on the brake.
29:09
Speaker 1: Nothing happened. He was shitting. Probably wore those fuckers out.
29:13
Speaker 1: He downshifted little by little, and then turned the car
29:17
Speaker 1: onto a street with an incline, and that did the trick.
29:23
Speaker 1: It also scared the hell out of the studio, not
29:26
Speaker 1: to mention Steve's wife at the time. The next morning,
29:30
Speaker 1: six am, the crew shot the rest of the car chase,
29:33
Speaker 1: the most dangerous part, without Steve. Steve was still asleep
29:38
Speaker 1: thanks to a late wake up call that the director
29:40
Speaker 1: arranged on purpose. When Steve did arrive on set, he
29:45
Speaker 1: watched as his stunt double finished his job for him.
29:48
Speaker 1: Not that anyone was the wiser. When Bullet hit theaters
29:52
Speaker 1: in October of nineteen sixty eight, all audiences saw was
29:56
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen making that three ninety gt Mustang go. And
30:01
Speaker 1: not even one year later, the man who made cinemas
30:04
Speaker 1: come alive was being marked for death by a disgruntled
30:08
Speaker 1: screenwriter and musician with pinballs for eyes and murder on
30:12
Speaker 1: his brain. Steve McQueen posted bail and hit the road.
30:38
Speaker 1: His Mercedes Benz three hundred sel roared to life. He
30:42
Speaker 1: punched the clutch and threw it in first. The engine
30:45
Speaker 1: opened up the road ahead too. Nineteen seventy two, Alaska
30:53
Speaker 1: busted for drunk driving, busted in the nose, but he
30:56
Speaker 1: couldn't remember how He wasn't blaming the cops. They were
30:59
Speaker 1: just doing their job, and he did his. Not give
31:03
Speaker 1: a damn and just wait for release, and the release
31:06
Speaker 1: said only a car or a bike could give him.
31:09
Speaker 1: First came release from police custody. He flashed a smile
31:12
Speaker 1: as well as a peace sign for the camera and
31:14
Speaker 1: turned to the left when told to do so. He
31:17
Speaker 1: got his one phone call, he got the necessary dough
31:20
Speaker 1: to bust the hell out, and then he was gone.
31:23
Speaker 1: He tore down a back road and Anchorage some fishing
31:26
Speaker 1: trip this had turned out to be. Wasn't sure if
31:29
Speaker 1: he was up or down at this point, but it
31:31
Speaker 1: didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the road ahead.
31:36
Speaker 1: Putting all that bad shit behind him. He hit second
31:39
Speaker 1: gear in the Anchorage police station faded away, He gunned
31:44
Speaker 1: it into third, and the rumble of the leather seat
31:46
Speaker 1: drove all that Manson shit from his mind, like shaking
31:49
Speaker 1: dirt from a welcome Matt, Charlie, Jay Sharon, the paranoia,
31:54
Speaker 1: and the motherfucker of a hand cannon. As nice as
31:57
Speaker 1: it felt in his hand, none of it would welcome.
32:01
Speaker 1: Driving was welcome. Driving, Racing was the great equalizer. No
32:08
Speaker 1: one gave a damn who you were, not even the
32:10
Speaker 1: cops back at the station. You were just another dirtback,
32:14
Speaker 1: another swinging dick in the hot seat. He accelerated, He
32:18
Speaker 1: rolled down the window, too fast for mosquitos to worm
32:22
Speaker 1: their way inside, bound for anywhere, but here where. None
32:27
Speaker 1: of this actually mattered. He drove not unlike he drove
32:30
Speaker 1: him bullet or in the Getaway, gritty crime film he
32:34
Speaker 1: just made with Sam peckhampahd Ali McGrath, the Smoke Show
32:37
Speaker 1: you had just stolen from studio exec Robert Evans. But
32:41
Speaker 1: unlike the Getaway, he wasn't racing against the clock. Batshit
32:45
Speaker 1: crazy Al Latiri on his ass, hustling to the Mexican
32:49
Speaker 1: border with a shit ton of stolen money in a
32:51
Speaker 1: satchel out on bell, still haunted by the helter skelter
32:57
Speaker 1: of hot La Knights, thinking about Ali mcgo long, black hair, alive,
33:03
Speaker 1: kicking fast. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland
33:24
Speaker 1: was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership
33:26
Speaker 1: with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found
33:29
Speaker 1: on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If
33:33
Speaker 1: you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member. Thank you
33:36
Speaker 1: for supporting the show, we really appreciate it, and if not,
33:39
Speaker 1: you can become a member right now by going to
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Speaker 1: disgracelampod dot com slash Membership. Members can listen to every
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Speaker 1: episode of Disgraceland ad free, Plus you'll get one brand
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Speaker 1: new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special
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Speaker 1: disgracelpod dot com slash Membership for details, rate and review
34:03
Speaker 1: the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and
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Speaker 1: Facebook at disgracelamdpod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com
34:10
Speaker 1: slash at disgracelampod, Rock and Roller. He's a bed don man.