Terence Steve McQueen aka "The king of cool" was born in Beach Grove, a town located in the state of Indiana in the USA on March 24, 1930.
He had a very difficult and unhappy childhood, his father William McQueen, a disgraced stuntman, abandoned his son and mother Julia Ann Crawford when he was a few years old.
Little Steve was sent to live by his uncle in Slater, Missuri during this time, to give his mother the space and time necessary to solve his problems with alcohol.
At the age of 12 he returned to live with his mother who in the meantime had moved to California, more precisely to Los Angeles.
But from his early teens, the dark side of Steve's character emerged, and at the age of 14 he was sent to juvie after he was found stealing cars in the company of his gang.
After he left the institute he enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he served from 1947 to 1950. It was thanks to a collection of his comrades in arms that he enrolled at Lee Strasberg's Actor Studio in New York. Of the two thousand candidates who entered the auditions only he and Martin Landau managed to enter the school.
But in addition to his passion for acting, Steve found solace for his soul in speed. Both motorcycles and cars satisfied this need. So parallel to his Hollywood career he also continued an amateur career and not as a pilot.
Even according to his son Chad, Steve was "a really messed up inside". Only through speed, even if it may seem paradoxical, did he relax and detach himself from everyday life by entering his world.
"I think my father went running to empty his head" are the words of the son that give us a small but very strong emotion that the King of cool felt.
Steve had a rock and revolutionary soul, a pure and cursed look,
all men wanted to be like him and all women wanted to be with him, he was the "reference point" for most of the people who knew him.
It is in his person as a sporting soul, damned magnetic and rebellious that we at PETRI find ourselves.
We were both antagonists in sport (alpine skiing), adrenaline was our daily bread and through this sport we learned the competition, which was between us and speed.
Now we fight for our dream by drawing inspiration from great characters who have marked both the world of glamor and sports just like the great Steve McQueen.