Steve McQueen: Thirty years on, the film star who never stopped being cool

Others remember him from Bullit driving a Ford Mustang in arguably the greatest car chase in cinema history, or as the fire chief in Towering Inferno who keeps his head while everyone else is losing theirs.

It's perhaps no surprise then that McQueen is routinely described as the posthumous "king of cool." You would be hard-pushed to come up with a more corny epithet, but when it's pinned on McQueen it somehow seems apt. "He was a real movie star," says his biographer Marshall Terrill. "He came from an era where celebrity didn't trump achievement. There was an honesty about his acting, he was believable and that resonates with people and he had a look and style that still appeals to audiences today."

Terrill is in the UK with McQueen's widow, Barbara, to promote their new book Steve McQueen – A Tribute To The King Of Cool, which tells the Hollywood icon's story through the eyes of those who knew him best: his family, friends and co-stars.

It's 30 years since McQueen's untimely death from cancer at the age of just 50. But Terrill, who grew up watching films like The Magnificent Seven, Papillon and The Getaway with his father, believes he is more popular than ever before. "He's a bit like The Beatles in the sense that each generation discovers him and he's now one of the most emulated actors in Hollywood. No offence to Paul Newman, but everyone wants to be Steve McQueen, he was that rare individual who appeals to both men and women and kids."

For such a revered star, McQueen had a limited range but he turned the old adage "less is more" into an art form. His pared- down mix of quiet machismo and effortless charm became his signature acting style, making him a huge box office draw and one of Hollywood's biggest-paid stars in the 1960s and '70s.

His success came against all the odds. He had been abandoned as a boy by his stunt-pilot father and was a troubled adolescent who spent time in reform school before becoming an actor.

Terrill, who has written four books on McQueen, says he gained a reputation in Hollywood as a rebel who preferred racing cars and motorbikes to making films. "He was a complex character, he could be nice one minute and nasty the next. It's hard to pinpoint his personality, there are about 200 different passages in the book and you find about 200 different opinions."

His widow Barbara first met McQueen in 1974 while she was working as a model and they spent his final three years together. "I knew who he was, but I didn't watch his films and when I first met him he was scruffy and not at all the movie star persona you might expect.

"But it was funny, I knew straight away that we would end up together," she says. "He had a good heart and he was honest, but he always had a certain notoriety which, had he lived, I'm sure would have continued. He wasn't afraid to speak his mind and I think a lot of people wish they could be more like that."

As well as celebrating his life, the book also chronicles his final battle against mesothelioma. Terrill believes McQueen contracted the illness, which lay dormant for 30 years, during his career as a marine.

"In 1949, he spent 30 days in the brig and in a way it was a death sentence because the pipes in the ceiling were lined with asbestos which eventually killed him."

Barbara is working with the British Lung Foundation to highlight the dangers of a disease which claims a person's life every five hours in the UK. "I watched Steve die and it's not something I want to relive, but hopefully the book can help raise awareness about it because it is a dreadful disease."

Despite his premature death, McQueen left behind a legacy that few Hollywood stars could claim to match. "There was just something about him," explains Barbara.

"He was a man's man and he was definitely a ladies' man and he lived life on his own terms. He walked his own line."

Marshall Terrill and Barbara McQueen are attending a screening of Tom Horn as well as a Q&A and book signing at the National Media Museum, in Bradford, on Sunday, November 7. For more information visit www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk