Barbara McQueen remembers the sweet life

Barbara McQueen will appear at 6 p.m. Feb. 23 at Melvyn's Restaurant in Palm Springs to discuss her life with the 'King of Cool.' For more information, visit www.inglesideinn.com.

Throughout the month of February, Barbara McQueen has been quietly reflecting on her blissful years with the "King of Cool," one Steve McQueen. The determined actor lost his valiant war with mesothelioma exactly thirty years ago in Juarez, Mexico.

Why does McQueen still resonate today? Well, besides being the epitome of the perfect American male, he brought a sense of realism to each character he inhabited. McQueen was a man of few words, and he let his actions speak for themselves.

He had a soft spot for the underdog and never forgot his hard-scrabble upbringing. He could be a friend in good and bad times, but if you took advantage of him, watch out. He was not interested in Hollywood glamour; instead, he preferred sitting around with gearheads or antique collectors.

Without question, these qualities are reasons why Barbara fell in love with McQueen. Kindred souls, the couple created their own perfect paradise in the quaint town of Santa Paula, California. Although their time together was tragically cut short, the memories remain.

Below, my interview with Barbara resumes, and it illuminates the wonderful aspects of their relationship. These anecdotes include McQueen's sense of peace brought on by his genuine faith, meeting Barbara's parents, popping the question, their rustic, down-home wedding, and married life.

If you missed any previous entries of this all-encompassing interview, you can easily find them here. In fact, the last segment spotlighted Barbara's memories concerning the making of The Hunter, her husband's final film. If not, then keep reading...



The Barbara McQueen Interview

What role did faith play in Steve’s life during your years with him?

Steve was always spiritual, but he matured in his faith in Santa Paula. He was heavily influenced by his flight instructor, Sammy Mason, who was a very strong Christian, and who accompanied us to church.

I put those into two different categories because I think you can be very spiritual without going to church. You can have all the beliefs as an every Sunday church-goer, and you can be just as spiritual as they are but in a different way.

Steve started going to church when we lived in Santa Paula. There was no bull**** about his faith, and he took it seriously. He had a meeting with evangelist Billy Graham near the end, who inscribed his personal Bible to Steve. In fact, the first person I called when Steve passed away was Billy Graham.

Steve wasn’t a horn blower, and he didn’t go around talking about it; it was his private thing. He was never in your face, but I caught him many times saying his prayers.

As for me, I don’t go to church...but I still say my prayers. I cuss like a sailor, but I tell God every night, “Hey, I’m sorry, but it just sounds better sometimes. It’s a better definition of what I’m mad about, so please forgive me.”



How did Steve ask your dad for his daughter’s hand in marriage?

That’s an interesting story when Steve met my parents for the first time. My mom knew who he was, but she wasn’t real star struck. My dad clearly didn’t give a s**t who he was.

We had a mini mountain out back that took about a minute to walk to the top; that’s where the talking place was if you were in trouble. So my dad took Steve on a little walking/talking trip up there, and they were there 45 minutes to maybe an hour.

I was my dad's little baby, and he was gonna make sure I was okay. He didn't want Steve, whom he considered much too old for me, to hurt me in any way. So they came down and Steve and Dad had a beer.

Steve whispered, “I told your dad that you'll be well taken care of.” I then asked my dad what he told Steve. He said, “I told the sonofabitch I'd kill him if he ever hurt you.” True story!



What do you remember about your wedding day? Was it fancy?

We were going to have a church wedding, then we found out the minister we had been so enthralled with wouldn’t marry us because Steve had been divorced. That threw me for a loop because I was younger, and I had never been married.

Steve wasn’t fond of the response, so we got somebody else at the church to do it, Rev. Leslie Miller. By that time, the press were in town and following me. I had no experience with the paparazzi, and it was all very new at the time.

I used to drive around Santa Paula in a funky old pickup truck, and they’d follow me. They scared me, and so I’d go to the police station, and they’d take me home. They were hovering like a bunch of bees when we got married in the living room.

The paparazzi are nothing like they are to these poor people today. I truly feel sorry for current young movie actors and actresses. It's horrible what the press does to them, but back then it was just a little here, a little there.

We had our friend Norman stand outside the gate of our home with our ranch foreman Grady Ragsdale ready in the backyard. They were both armed with shotguns and not afraid to use them. They wouldn’t kill anybody, but a good shot over the head pretty much scares anybody.

So we got married in the living room, and I paid the reverend off. He wouldn’t take money, so I went outside and got a dozen eggs out of the chicken coop and paid him in eggs. You could say we had a farm wedding (laughing).

It was small and sweet, nothing big, and it was my first marriage. I would have probably liked to have done something different, but hey, when you’re in love, you take what you can get.



How did Grady Ragsdale fit into the scheme of things?

Grady Ragsdale was a sweetheart, and he was always there. If it was 2:00 AM, and there was a fly on the wall Steve didn’t like, Grady would come over and fix the problem. That’s how wonderful Grady was.

I never would have made it through Steve’s cancer battle without Grady. He wrote a beautiful little book in 1983 called Steve McQueen: The Final Chapter, which is now out of print.

I read it, and every word in there is true. He had a heart attack and passed away in 1986. But his widow, Judy, and kids are still around.



So, what was it like being married to Steve McQueen?

I loved it, since that was one of the best times of my entire life. It was a very sweet time. I loved the ranch and the farmhouse we shared. He gave me full reign of redoing our little house. It was the most beautiful 1920s Victorian farmhouse. Everything came from second-hand stores except for the TVs and beds.

It was every little girl’s dream. Steve was so sweet to me because he didn’t like me working. I worked a little bit here and there until I finally said, “Hey, I’ve got to make a living. I’ve got bills to pay.”

From that day forward I never had another bill to pay. Steve, however, did have a grocery list on the counter, expecting me to cook. I don't cook, and he wisely hired a little old lady to cook for us.

Every time we got into a fight, he would bring a kitten home. When he passed away, I had thirteen cats that I drug up to Idaho with me. Altogether, we had thirteen fights the whole time we were together. That's not bad considering we were together for three-and-a-half years.

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Steve McQueen's heart

Barbara Minty McQueen will appear at Melvyn's Restaurant in Palm Springs on Feb. 23, 2011 to sign copies of her book, Steve McQueen: The Last Mile. For more information, visit www.inglesideinn.com.

Steve McQueen's Heart
Barbara Minty McQueen was there. Indeed, she met her future husband, the ‘King of Cool,” in July 1977 after she received a phone call from Nina Blanchard, her modeling agent in Los Angeles.

Blanchard told Minty that Steve McQueen had spotted her in a Club Med advertisement while he was on an airplane. McQueen wanted her to audition for the role of an Indian princess in his next project, Tom Horn. Apparently, this was a ruse, as the final cut of the film contains no Indian princess.

That initial meeting led to a whirlwind relationship and her ultimate marriage to McQueen in 1980. Barbara maintained an active role in her husband’s life, whether flying airplanes, going to swap meets, taking long driving adventures, being on film locations, or providing care during McQueen’s mesothelioma battle.

For posterity, Barbara had the wits to document their life together and capture many rare behind-the-scenes images of Tom Horn and The Hunter. Barbara’s tribute to her husband, entitled Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, is a brilliant, engrossing coffee-table pictorial book containing hundreds of full-page color and black and white images.

McQueen and author Marshall Terrill, who cowrote Last Mile, will join forces on Wednesday, February 23rd, at Melvyn's Restaurant at the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs, California.

The authors will appear at 6 p.m. to discuss the icon's life, answer questions from the audience, and sign their books, including Terrill's latest project, the critically-acclaimed Steve McQueen: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon.

Legend is a 600-page work that paints a complete, mesmerizing portrait of McQueen’s career, on and off the silver screen. Terrill has spent his life investigating McQueen, and his efforts show on every single page of this definitive biography.

He has also written or collaborated on projects ranging from Elvis Presley to sports figures including basketball legend ‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich.

To RSVP and find out more information on the event, please call (760) 325-0046 or visit www.inglesideinn.com. For folks who are unable to attend, a treat is in store below.

Barbara graciously agreed to reflect on her years with the iconic actor, and if you missed it, yesterday’s conversation revolved around the making of Tom Horn. Today, the talk jumps forward to The Hunter, McQueen’s final movie.

The Hunter was no blockbuster at the box office ($37 million) when released in late July 1980, although it performed considerably better than Tom Horn, eventually becoming a solid earner when released on video and television. McQueen was battling mesothelioma and was in no condition to attend the film’s premiere or conduct any publicity.

The film is no Bullitt, although it contains an exhilarating car/combine chase through a corn field. It is more modest in scope, but most importantly, McQueen wanted to do the film.

He had rejected film after film after the unbelievable success of the disaster epic The Towering Inferno in 1974, and those rejects include such classics as The Driver, Apocalypse Now, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, and The Bodyguard.

As The Hunter, it is revealing to view the late actor in a role that acknowledges his actual age. The character of bounty hunter Ralph “Papa” Thorson does things his way, even though he realizes that he is becoming a relic of a bygone era.

It is also an ironic, simple twist of fate that McQueen’s final role was a bounty hunter. At the very beginning of his career, McQueen played Josh Randall, a deadly, often hot-headed bounty hunter who carried a sawed-off Mare’s Leg rifle on Wanted: Dead or Alive, the classic western series (1958–1961) that made him a star.

Without any further ado, here is my conversation with Barbara McQueen, as she discusses life on the set of McQueen’s final film, The Hunter.



The Barbara McQueen Interview

What are your memories of being on the set of The Hunter, Steve’s final film?

The Hunter was not as much fun; it was more of a “city” movie. I don't know where or why the thought came over me, but I had the distinct feeling that this was going to be Steve's last picture.

On the other hand, it was really fun learning about explosives and stunts. As for the cast, I did get to know LeVar Burton pretty well, and Eli Wallach was a good guy, too.

It was clear that LeVar was in awe of Steve and did nothing to hide his admiration. Privately, Steve deeply cared for LeVar and took on a fatherly role at times. Steve loved him in Roots and lobbied to get him the part in the movie.

Steve was determined to play the real life modern-day bounty hunter who apprehended more than 5,000 criminals and bail jumpers. To soften the bounty hunter’s rough edges, Steve incorporated several cool habits and attributes that mirrored his own personality.

For example, he collected antique toys, drove an old Chevy convertible (rather badly I might add), and was even involved with a beautiful brunette almost half his age – wonder where that idea came from?



Were you guys really in the Chicago ghetto?

Absolutely, and I’d never been exposed to the real slums before that experience. It was interesting. I knew Steve always had my back, so I didn’t have to worry about anything bad. They had us downtown in a nice little hotel, and this is where the goodness of Steve’s heart came out.

Steve realized the crew was staying in a stinky, old, horrible Holiday Inn. So, of course we had to move there and endure those conditions.

I completely understood where he was coming from, though. Steve always viewed the crew as part of his family. He worked when they worked, ate when they ate, and slept when they slept.



The production later traveled to the agricultural heartland…

After The Hunter finished shooting sequences in Chicago, we headed southwest to the Kankakee River Valley where the movie was slated for more production. Our hotel was located next door to a meat packing factory. Frankly, it stunk.

However, Steve did befriend a wonderful couple, who lent the studio their farm for a scene. This couple took a real liking to Steve, and the nice lady would make little treats for him.

In return, Steve liked spending time with the family, which was a recurring theme in his life. Right before we left she gave us a book called The Farm Journal, which was a guide on how to survive on a farm. They must have thought we needed it.



What’s the story behind Karen Wilson, the teenager you both adopted?

Chicago’s a great town, and that’s where we found Karen Wilson, our little “insta-kid.” One scene required lots of extras, but for some reason, this feisty young girl caught Steve’s eye. He questioned her, asking “Why aren’t you in school?”

Her reply floored him. “Because I need to make extra money,” she said. She had been watching over a seven-year-old neighbor named “Bobo.” It turned out that Karen’s birthday was the same as mine, which Steve took as some sort of sign.

We visited Karen’s mother in the ghetto, where we found her and her entire family living in squalor. Steve wasted no time telling Karen's mother, “We’d like to take Karen back with us to California and put her in a good school, so that she has a chance to get out of here.”

After several weeks of going back and forth, her mother came to the decision that it was best for Karen to leave with us. Once The Hunter wrapped, we enrolled her in a private boarding school near our Santa Paula home.

On weekends we would bring Karen home so she could have some sense of normalcy. Almost a year after we became her legal guardians, Karen’s mother passed away.

When Steve died, I personally saw to it that she graduated high school. To make a long story short, Karen is now a happily married mother of four kids and works for an L.A.-based escrow company.



During the making of The Hunter, Steve’s generosity rose to the forefront. Can you recall some specific examples?

One time Steve saw some local kids throwing a football stuffed with rags. He dispatched [stuntman] Loren Janes to a sporting goods store. Before you could blink, hundreds of baseballs, footballs, mitts, and bats were left in a large recreational field.

Although he had practically stopped giving autographs a decade before, Steve freely handed out several thousand signed 8 x 10 glossies. When Steve discovered that a local Catholic church was in need, he wrote a check covering all expenses.

Before he handed over the check, he stopped by to see the film’s producer, Mort Engleberg, and said, “Mort, this is what I’m giving to the church. I’d like you to match it.”

No one knew he performed all of these great deeds, but he did. By the way, Mort immediately said yes and wrote a check on the spot. How could he say no to Steve McQueen?



**More of my interview with Barbara McQueen will appear by the end of this week...

Please visit Twitter @jeremylr to learn when future pop culture articles shall appear.

© Jeremy L. Roberts / All rights reserved

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Mel Haber by the numbers

Palm Springs a la Carte paints Mel Haber by the numbers

Mel Haber (born October 24, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York) is the owner and proprietor of the Ingleside Inn and Melvyn's Restaurant in Palm Springs since 1975. He has served on the board of the Angel View Crippled Children's Foundation for more than twenty-five years and has been its president for the past fifteen.

Early years

Haber is the youngest of four children and the only boy of Louis and Mary Haber. The son of a garment district salesman, Haber grew up in an apartment overlooking Ocean Parkway in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. He attended Erasmus High School, which boasted a healthy roster of famous and important people throughout the years. Some of its alumni included actors Jeff Chandler, Moe Howard, Bernie Kopell, Barbara Stanwyck; singer Barbra Streisand, author Micky Spillane; chess player Bobby Fischer and Sid Luckman, the former quarterback of the Chicago Bears.

When Louis Haber died at fifty-two of a heart attack, Mel became the family's breadwinner. To make ends meet, the twelve-year-old started delivering groceries, sold peanuts and beer at Ebbets Field and spent his summers in the Catskills as a busboy. He says it was there were he learned “motion efficiency," which is commonly known as “working smart,” a trait he used when he eventually operated six different restaurants. Once Haber graduated high school, he enrolled in the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) on the west side of Manhattan in the fall of 1954.

Successes and failures

Two months after Haber enrolled in F.I.T., he quit after he received a phone call from businessman Artie Schifrin, who offered him a job at $85 a week working for Wallfrin Industries. In December 1954, ABC aired a three-part series called “Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter.” The coonskin hat worn by actor Fess Parker set off a craze with the nation's youth, and several manufacturing companies, including Wallfrin Industries, jumped on the multi-million dollar business bandwagon and began producing coonskin items. The craze lasted longer than anyone expected and finally ended when raccoon tails surged from twenty-five cents each to $5 a pound by May 1955.

Out of work for the first time in his life, Haber regrouped at age nineteen. He first sold shoes and then stocks before he received a life-changing phone call from Schifrin, who switched Wallfrin Industries from a bicycle accessories business to an automotive novelty business and desperately wanted him back.

Wallfrin Industries

Following World War II, the greatest and longest economic boom in world history was launched, and by the late fifties, approximately ten million cars were sold on an annual basis. It was an era in which American teenagers (the Baby Boom Generation) did everything in their cars. Between 1961 and 1968, Wallfrin Industries produced 750 different items such as hula dolls that gyrated in rear windows, religious statues for the dashboard, fuzzy dice for the rear view mirror, self-adhesive pin striping and tiger tails to hang on the gas tank. Their most successful product was Amber Lens Dye, which sold more than one million units.

Automatic Radio purchased Wallfrin Industries in 1968 for $3 million, of which Haber collected 10 percent. Haber used the money to start several new businesses on the side. He launched a boiler-cleaning business, a front-end wheel-alignment franchise, a company factoring medical centers, an import business, a vacuum forming business, and an automotive-chemical manufacturing business. None of them were money makers and Haber shut them down and regrouped. Facing a textbook mid-life crisis, Haber traded in his large house in Long Island and Rolls Royce for a used Fiat and a furnished apartment in Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles.

Palm Springs

Invited by a friend to visit Palm Springs, Haber stumbled upon the Ingleside Inn in 1975. The property, located at 200 Ramon Road, was in a state of disrepair thanks to an absentee owner. Haber learned the original owner was the widow of Humphrey Birge, manufacturer of the Pierce Arrow motorcar. She built the private estate at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains in 1925 and sold it a decade later to Palm Springs Councilwoman Ruth Hardy, who transformed the place into a 20-room hotel. She successfully ran the Inn for the next thirty years as an exclusive private club whose guests came by invitation only. Hardy's clientèle included Howard Hughes, John Wayne, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Greer Garson, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Salvador Dali, Norman Vincent Peale and J.C. Penney.

After Hardy's death in 1965, the stardust from the old days had largely faded away over the next decade. Haber, who knew nothing about operating a resort, made a spontaneous handshake deal to buy the property for $300,000. On April 15, 1975, Haber was officially the proud new owner of the Ingleside Inn.

Ingleside Inn and Melvyn's

Haber shut down the Inn that summer and spent another $250,000 in restoration costs, including Melvyn's restaurant. The Inn opened its doors on September 15, 1975 and was an immediate success.

Over the years, the Inn has become a magnet for Hollywood's elite, U.S. Presidents, royalty, aristocrats, captains of industry and celebrities visiting Palm Springs. They include Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Marlon Brando, Arnold Schwarzenneger and Maria Shriver, Sylvester Stallone, Liza Minelli, Liberace, Jerry Lewis, Barry Manilow, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Rita Hayworth, Pat Boone, Debbie Reynolds, Larry King, John Travolta, Sidney Sheldon, David Hasselhoff, President Gerald Ford, George Hamilton, and celebrity travel columnists Donald Pile and Ray Williams,.

The status of the hotel took a quantum leap upward when Frank Sinatra and Barbara Marx held their pre-wedding party at Melvyn's in July 1976, and another when the restaurant and Inn were later named one of the world's premier hotel and dining venues by Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Cecils and other restaurant ventures

Tapping into the popularity of disco, Haber opened Cecils, a 9,000-square-foot Chinese restaurant/discotheque on October 1, 1979. The $1.2 million disco rivaled Studio 54 in popularity and attracted celebrities like Kirk Douglas, Sonny Bono, Evel Knievel, Reggie Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Joan Collins, Jack Paar, Mary Martin, Carol Conners, Lola Falana, Lyle Waggoner, Ed Marinaro, Deney Terrio and John Travolta.

Haber followed Cecils with a pair of dining ventures in the early 1980s: Saturdays and Doubles. Saturdays was a knock off of the T.G.I.Friday's franchise while Doubles was a large restaurant inside the famed Tennis Club. Haber unexpectedly found himself the second largest employer in Palm Springs with approximately 200 people on his payroll (the local hospital was the largest).

Angel View

Pop culture historians had proclaimed disco dead by 1980, but it was alive and well in Palm Springs. Haber sold Cecil's to a pair of local businessmen in 1985. That same year he also unloaded Doubles and Saturdays. With more time on his hands, Haber devoted himself to the Angel View Crippled Children's Foundation, which was based in nearby Desert Hot Springs.

The foundation was originally created by a small group of people from the Coachella Valley who felt the area's natural hot springs would be useful in the rehabilitation of children with polio. Angel View's mission broadened to include those children afflicted with a wide-range of physical challenges. Haber served as a board member in 1983 and became Angel View’s president in 1993. The foundation opened its seventeenth home and named it the Mel Haber House on November 14, 2002.

Touche

Palm Springs had been awaiting Mel Haber's return to the club scene and in January 1994, he obliged them with the opening of Touche, a $1.3 million Moroccan-themed bar, nightclub and restaurant. More than 500 people showed up on opening night, including Andy Williams, George Hamilton, Connie Stevens, Jack Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Marc Lawrence and Jackie Mason. Despite an international plug from Runaway with the Rich and Famous featuring Robin Leach, a curious pattern started to emerge at Touche: Haber was turning people away on weekends but had no mid-week business. He eventually discovered that people's work and play habits had changed, and that there was also more enlightenment about alcohol and substance abuse through the media. Haber sold Touche in 1996 for $250,000, and had come full circle: he had returned his attentions back to The Ingleside Inn and Melvyn's, which were still thriving.

Author and Palm Springs Walk of Fame

With the sale of Touche safely in the rear view mirror, Haber wrote an anecdotal book called Bedtime Stores of the Legendary Ingleside Inn in 1996. The book mainly focused on funny stories and misadventures involving the Ingleside Inn and Melvyn's. With a dedication by Arnold Schwarzenneger, the book sold approximately 10,000 copies. That same year Haber received a star on the Palm Springs Walk of Fame on October 24, 1996, which was his sixtieth birthday. The city of Palm Springs also decided to make the Ingleside Inn an official historic site in 1996, which commemorated Haber's second decade in the desert.

By the new millennium, Palm Springs was infused with new life when the younger generation went through a retro movement and yearned for Hollywood's authentic glamor days. As a result, the Ingleside Inn and Melvyn's has become the center of the nostalgia movement.

In January 2009, Haber will see the publication of his second book, Palm Springs a la Carte: The Colorful World of the Caviar Crowd at The Favorite Desert Hideaway, co-authored with biographer Marshall Terrill.