If you’re looking for someone to idolize, you could do a whole lot worse than Steve McQueen. The man was far from perfect, but his was a life lived to the fullest. This actor and daredevil didn’t suffer fools lightly, and when he wanted to do something, he usually just did it (before the Nike slogan). In doing so the man defined the “cool” of an entire generation. The Origins of a Screen Idol McQueen’s youth was less-than-ideal. His stunt pilot father abandoned his family before Steve was born, and even worse, his mother was prostitute and an abusive alcoholic. Terence Steven McQueen, born in Indiana, lived with his grandparents, ran around with gangs, worked in a brothel, got involved in crime, took hard beatings from his stepfather and ended up in a boarding school before dropping out to wander the country. He took odd jobs here and there, and lived a wild life from a very early age. McQueen and the Military Steve joined the Marines one day when he was bored, and then promptly fought tooth and nail against the military hierarchy. He spent lots of time in the brig for insubordination, and was continually being demoted back down to private. Eventually the rigid military structure knocked some sense into his nonconformist brain, and he understood that he was there to do a…  read on >