For an assigment I am going to write and possibly direct a screenplay based on a short play by David Mamet. I'll let you see the writings of David Mamet which this specific one is simply called 'Steve McQueen':
...well, I'm from Hawaii - I met him when he was at the Kalona Mar, he was there two months.
He wasn't well. You Know. We'd talk... we got to talking motorcycles. He asked if he could borrow my bike, I said of course. He got to taking it out every day. He was registered there as "McGuire". He was keeping a low profile, you know? But after a week or two, you know, I think that he was lonely. I'd see him aound the pool. He must have seen me one morning coming to work on my bike, becasue he asked me about it: How was it riding, something; and we started talking about bikes. He had at that time over one hundred bikes in his collection... I don't know where they were.. in the states.
You know, The Great Escape...? He did those stunts himself. You know where he jumps the barb wire? He did that himself - though it wasn't barb wire.
He found out that I was into martial arts and we took to sparring. He was in great shape - even though his disease - he was strong as a horse at the time. A fifty-sixty-minute workout was nothing to him. I'll tell you something else is he would drink a case of beer a day. Twenty-four beers a day. Lowenbrau. I know becasue I used to bring them to him. And smoke like a chimney. I guess he was just one of those men who are blessed with a completely perfect constitution. Though he was in great pain. I know that he was.
Indians...Harleys...Nortons... he had all of them. Did you know on the old Indian the oil used to go through the frame? It flowed through the frame. You know the stunt on The Great Escape where they get the bike? The German motorcycle rider's coming down the road, they stretch a wire...? They had the greatest motorcycle rider in the world... Rusty, something... Rusty... they told him "Just drive down the road". They told him, "Be ready for anything." That's why it's so authentic. He runs into that wire...? He didn't know it was there. They did it in one take. (Pause)
I met his son. (Pause) At that time he was training as a flight instructor. I stayed at his house in Malibu. Three Days.
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
Charlie Chaplin
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