eMoviePoster.com

What are the objects in the corners of some images? Learn More

Steve McQueen was born Terence Steven McQueen in Beech Grove, Indiana in 1930. He would grow up to become "The King of Cool", but no one could have predicted that from his childhood or even his first 18 years! His father left his mother when he was a baby, and he spent his childhood shuffling between his mother and a succession of boyfriends and husbands, and with his grandparents and great uncle. He was constantly in trouble, and when he was 14 he was remanded to the California Junior Boys Republic for problem kids. At first he rebelled, but eventually did quite well there, and remained associated with that institution the rest of his life. But his troubles were far from over. He left the institution when he was 16 and joined the Merchant Marine, and then quit it after a short time, becoming a drifter taking a succession of odd jobs. At 17, he joined the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and initially did well, but he failed to return after a weekend pass, and was arrested and spent 41 days in the brig. This seemed to be a life changing experience for Steve, for he changed his ways after getting out of the brig, and served well in the Marines until 1950 when he was discharged. In 1952, he studied acting with Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse, and competed in motorcycle races. He got some theater, TV, and film roles, but nothing major until 1958, when he got the lead part in a new TV series, Wanted: Dead or Alive. In 1959, he had a major role in Frank Sinatra's Never So Few (replacing Sammy Davis, Jr) and in 1960, he was one of the seven in John Sturgis' The Magnificent Seven. In 1963, he re-teamed with director Sturgis for The Great Escape, and McQueen was now a major star. Steve followed with a series of more great movies: Soldier in the Rain, Love with the Proper Stranger, The Cincinnati Kid, Nevada Smith, The Sand Pebbles, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, Papillon, and The Towering Inferno, among others! But after The Towering Inferno, McQueen essentially retired from acting for 8 years. Some say it was because he demanded three million dollars plus 10% of the gross and others say he was just tired of acting. During this period he turned down the lead in just about every great action or adventure movie, including just about every part that went to Robert Redford. In 1980, Steve finally returned to his traditional roles with Tom Horn and The Hunter, but he was diagnosed with mesothelioma and passed away shortly after in 1980, at the age of 50. But he left behind a great body of work, and there has never been another star the likes of Steve McQueen, and I don't know there ever will!

Important Added Info: Note that this is a "studio-issued" negative. What is it? It was produced by the studio but is not the camera original. It is very high quality and was created in quantity by the studios and sent to media outlets or other places that had need of the very highest quality image for reproduction purposes (in newspapers, magazines, or elsewhere). We have put a scan of the negative that shows the "positive image" (in addition to an image of the negative image). REMEMBER THAT WHAT YOU RECEIVE WILL BE A PHOTOGRAPHIC NEGATIVE, NOT A POSITIVE IMAGE LIKE YOU ARE SEEING (however, the archive that owned this made an 8x10 positive print from it that will be included with the negative). However, we will provide the winning bidder of this auction that positive image scan that is both high quality and not watermarked (on request to the winning bidder, and only the winning bidder). The negative is in a plastic sleeve (but we removed it and scanned it, so that bidders could see just how high quality it is). It will be sent to the winner of the auction in its sleeve.

Note that this negative (and 96 others we are currently auctioning, in 97 separate auctions) has a wonderful provenance! From 1938 through the 1960s, movie fans would purchase photos of their favorite movie stars from a company in Brooklyn, New York, called "Movie Star News". This company, owned by Irving Klaw, sold a massive number of repro photos, because it became widely known to have some of the highest quality movie star images there were, as good or better than what the studios themselves produced. It turns out that Klaw had obtained the negatives that he made his photos from directly from the major studios, who apparently did not want to store negatives due to the fear of them being a fire hazard. He amassed an unmatched collection of over 20,000 negatives of all the top Hollywood stars, and over half of them were "camera originals", meaning they were the ones in the camera when the photographer took the image, and were hand retouched by the photographer (if retouching was necessary).

Irving Klaw died in 1966, and his nephew continued his business for many years, but he closed the business in 2012, and the archive of negatives passed through several hands before being acquired by a company that hired a professional archivist to spend over a year cataloging the negatives. The 97 negatives we are currently auctioning are from this amazing archive, and approximately half of them are camera originals, and half are "studio negatives" (created by the studio directly from the camera original). See above for which type of negative the one in this auction is. These include wonderful images of top Hollywood stars! This is an amazing opportunity to not only purchase ultra rare negatives, but also to obtain ones from one of the most legendary archives ever assembled!

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775