There are only three actors I think of as cool, and McQueen was top of the heap. The silent cool, where Newman was a charmer and Grant did it with wit. McQueen's acting was more about drawing attention to what was already there than adding to the script -- a twirl of a gun, a whistle, an eyebrow, a smirk and head nod before looking away...
And there was a boyish arrogance to McQueen - the sports cars and motorcycles, the women, the flippant regard for authority - but he earned the points because that was just him. The racer. The biker. The brawler and playboy. What Thompson did for journalism, McQueen did on screen.
Born March 24, 1930 in Indiana, McQueen was a young roustabout. "Incorrigible" according to the judge that sent him to Chino. Spent some early years in a boys reformatory home up there before heading off for the Marines.
Honorably discharged in 1950 and a Broadway actor by 1955, McQueen had a "take what I can" attitude stealing his first wife from a friend, and he even told the guy he was going to do it. By the early Sixties, he had starred in
The Magnificent Seven and
The Great Escape, and by the end of the decade had finished both
Bullitt and
The Thomas Crowne Affair, making him a full-fledged star and trendsetter.
His personal life was a mythos of strange cultural footholds all its own -- a pallbearer at Bruce Lee's funeral and a potential target of Charlie Manson's (he carried a revolver in public) among other things. McQueen died in 1980 from cancer, the highest paid actor in the world, but his impact on pictures, as well as style and grace remain undeniable. Happy Birthday Papillon. Rest in peace.
Nicholas of Myra. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The son of wealthy parents, legend has it that Nicholas went to study in Alexandria and while returning on one of his sea voyages to Myra, saved the life of a sailor who tumbled from the ship's rigging in a storm. Upon returning to Myra, Nicholas brought the young sailor to church bestowing on him the virtues of God. At the same time, the Bishop of Myra died and the church elders were instructed in a dream to replace him with a "man who conquers" (greek: Nikei). While discussing the implications of the dream, the church elders heard the sailor telling anyone who would listen of his saviour, the brave Nikei-Laos. 
Upon hearing this, the elders appointed Nicholas the successor. He was born in 270 and died in 330. Sainted for miracles attributed to his intercession, Nicholas of Myra is the patron saint for sailors, fishermen, repentant thieves, prostitutes, children and the falsely accused. His relics, translated in 1087, lie in Bari, Italy.
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