--- title: Steve McQueen: Photos of the King of Cool, 1963 description: Photos of the legendary Steve McQueen riding motorcycles, camping, working out and shooting guns in the desert with his wife in 1963. canonical: https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-05T16:44:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-07-23T16:23:16.913Z og:title: Steve McQueen: Photos of the King of Cool, 1963 og:description: Photos of the legendary Steve McQueen riding motorcycles, camping, working out and shooting guns in the desert with his wife in 1963. og:url: https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta07a1691fdecd371/69875fe45f570f0783b12a18/13mcqueen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: 13mcqueen og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Steve McQueen: Photos of the King of Cool, 1963 twitter:description: Photos of the legendary Steve McQueen riding motorcycles, camping, working out and shooting guns in the desert with his wife in 1963. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta07a1691fdecd371/69875fe45f570f0783b12a18/13mcqueen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # LIFE With Steve McQueen: Photos of the King of Cool in 1963 > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Neile Adams: My Life With Steve McQueen [Watch (HLS stream): Neile Adams: My Life With Steve McQueen](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/e6mXl6rx.m3u8) (4:27)  _Published 2014-02-10. Steve McQueen's ex-wife recalls the ups and downs of the tumultuous life she shared with the movie star and intensely private Hollywood rebel._ by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Nov 5, 2014 4:44 PM UTC  Steve McQueen takes a lunch break during a motorcycle race with Bud Ekins, his friend and stuntman for The Great Escape, 1963. Steve McQueen takes a lunch break during a motorcycle race with Bud Ekins, his friend and stuntman for The Great Escape, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Nov 5, 2014 4:44 PM UTC In the spring of 1963, already popular from his big-screen breakout as one of _The Magnificent Seven_ and just a couple months away from entering the Badass Hall of Fame with the release of _The Great Escape_, Steve McQueen was on the brink of superstardom. Intrigued by his dramatic backstory and his off-screen exploits — McQueen was a reformed delinquent who got his thrills racing cars and motorcycles — LIFE sent photographer John Dominis to California to hang out with the 33-year-old actor and, in effect, see what he could get. \[Below: In a video exclusive, McQueen’s ex-wife, Neile Adams, shares her memories of the ups and downs of their intense 16-year marriage.\] Three weeks and more than 40 rolls of film later, Dominis had captured some astonishing images — photos impossible to imagine in today’s utterly restricted-access celebrity universe. Here, LIFE.com presents a series of pictures — most of which never ran in LIFE — from what Dominis would look back on as one of his favorite assignments, along with insights about the time he spent with the man who would soon don the mantle, “the King of Cool.” Trailing Steve McQueen was Dominis’ first Hollywood gig. “I liked the movies, but I didn’t know who the stars were; I was not a movie buff,” Dominis told LIFE.com. But he got the assignment because he and McQueen shared one vital passion: car racing. “When I was living in Hong Kong I had a sports car and I raced it,” Dominis says. “And I knew that Steve McQueen had a racing car. I rented one, anticipating that we might do something with them. He was in a motorcycle race out in the desert, so I went out there in my car and met him, and I ask him, ‘You wanna try my car?'” Later the two of them would zip around Los Angeles together. “We went pretty fast — as fast as you can safely go without getting arrested — and we’d ride and then stop and trade cars. He liked that, and I knew he liked it. I guess that was the first thing that softened him.” From early morning until late at night, Dominis followed McQueen through his action-packed days: camping with his buddies, racing his various vehicles, playing with his family, tooling around Hollywood. Even back then, Dominis says, he had to be mindful that his constant presence did not become irritating. “Movie stars, they weren’t used to giving up a lot of time,” he says. “But I sort of relaxed in the beginning and didn’t bother them every time they turned around, and they began to get used to me being there. In 1963 McQueen had been married to Neile Adams for seven years (they had two young children) but the spark between them was still very much alive. “They were always necking!” says Dominis, who also remarked upon their childlike way with each other in notes he filed for LIFE’s editors back in ’63: “They chase each other around,” he wrote, “as though it were going out of style.” “With strangers, I can’t breathe,” McQueen told LIFE. “But I dig my old lady.” “I was very surprised” when Steve and Neile divorced in 1972, Dominis says. “But I lived in New York, and I never saw them \[after the shoot was over\]. We weren’t real friends, but we were friendly. They liked me, and they had a silver mug made: ‘To John Dominis, for work beyond the call of duty.’ I’ve still got it today.” At the beginning of the LIFE shoot, McQueen participated in a 500-mile, two-day dirt bike race across the Mojave Desert. “These people are not the wild motorcycle bums who go roaring through town a la Brando \[in _The Wild One_\],” wrote Dominis in his notes. “Rather they comprise doctors, lawyers, businessmen, mechanics, and others who enjoy the competition and the open country.” Not only was he one of the few competitors to complete the race, LIFE reported, but he also led his amateur class for most of the way, until his bike broke down three miles from the finish. “He liked camping, he liked rugged things, he liked firing a gun,” says Dominis. (“I’d rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth,” he told LIFE.) He also very much liked his cigarettes: Like many Hollywood stars of the time, McQueen was an unapologetically heavy smoker, and did not break the habit until he became sick in the late ’70s. Seventeen years after Dominis made these photos, the actor was dead at just 50 years old, suffering a heart attack following a risky operation to remove the cancerous tumors laying waste to his body. Though Dominis never saw or spoke with McQueen after 1963, he continued to follow his movies, and cherished those three weeks they got to know each other. “He was very open and playful,” says Dominis, “and just doing the things that he loved to do.” Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at [@LizabethRonk](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk).  At his bungalow in Palm Springs, Steve McQueen practices his aim before heading out for a shooting session in the desert, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen driving on Sunset Strip, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen and Neile Adams, his first wife, target-practice with their pistols in the California desert, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen and Neile Adams, his first wife, in the California desert, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  McQueen works out at the gym at Paramount Pictures while making the movie Love With the Proper Stranger opposite Natalie Wood, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen lifts weights, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  McQueen takes a call in the living room of his eclectic home in Hollywood, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen and his wife Neile Adams lounge on the patio by the pool at their Palm Springs bungalow, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen, Palm Springs, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  At his Palm Springs bungalow, Steve McQueen puts on a record, with LPs by Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Frank Sinatra scattered at his feet, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen dances with his wife, Neile, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen with his wife, Neile, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen takes a lunch break during a motorcycle race with Bud Ekins, his friend and stuntman for The Great Escape, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen makes a stop at a grocery store in Pearblossom, Calif., to get some treatment for race-bloodied hands, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  McQueen takes a deep swig of a tall, cool drink, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen on a camping trip, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen in his sleeping bag on a camping trip, 1963\. "This is it, man," he told LIFE. "I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth." John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Steve McQueen, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  With his dog, a Malamute named Mike, by his side, Steve McQueen takes in the scenery, California, 1963. John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images ## Transcript [00:00] My name is Neile Adams. I was married to Steve [00:02] McQueen for almost 16 years actually. We [00:09] were married 4 months after we met. I was such [00:14] an innocent child. The attraction [00:18] was instantaneous, and I think it was because we knew [00:21] each other almost immediately. I [00:26] was filming here in Los Angeles. He was in New York [00:30] and the family going crazy without me as his mother [00:32] said. So he said I'm coming out [00:36] there to make an honest woman out of you. I had no [00:39] idea what that meant. I remember asking Jimmy Wilson [00:42] and my manager, so what does that mean? My [00:46] manager said it means you're getting married [00:54] tomorrow. Nobody's ever been able to take pictures of [00:56] the two of us in both intimate moments like John [00:59] Dominis. He was part of us at [01:03] that moment in time. It's a very loving time, that whole [01:06] period that John was there. It was at the height of [01:11] the love that we had for [01:15] each other. It was really-- It was quite perfect [01:20] actually. I mean I didn't think about anything else [01:22] except my life with him and my [01:37] kids. This [01:44] house was in the-- was in Palm Springs, was the first [01:47] house we ever had in the desert. Steve loved the [01:51] desert. But it was on [01:55] the wrong side of the tracks, so all the wind and the [01:58] sand would blow. So [02:02] one day, Kirk Douglas came to visit and he looked [02:05] around and we talked for a while, and as he left, he [02:08] said, Steve, your fucking movie sucks, get another [02:14] house. Steve was very big into guns [02:18] and he loved guns, and he was teaching me how to [02:21] shoot this stuff. He said let me see it how you shoot the [02:24] guns because I hadn't shot at anything. He gave me a [02:27] gun, and there was a lizard sitting on top of a piece of [02:31] wood, and he said shoot that thing. So I did, [02:35] I shot at it, and I got it clean right underneath it, so it [02:39] looked like it was still sitting there. He says, well, I [02:41] guess you're okay. Steve used to [02:46] wake me up in the middle of the night. He would just [02:48] say let's put on some clothes and we'll go motorcycle [02:51] riding. He loved motorcycles. Those things [02:55] were his balls. The only time [02:59] he got into trouble with motorcycles was for doing [03:01] racing, but never on the streets. Break and arm, he'd [03:03] break a leg, but I think [03:07] he broke every part of his body somewhere along the [03:11] way. He had a perfect [03:15] body. He was the first man I ever saw worked up. One [03:20] of the things I did tell him was when you do a movie, [03:24] just take your shirt off to change into another shirt. It [03:28] was because I said you've got such a great body. It's [03:30] ridiculous not to show it. See [03:35] this medal, it said that to part is to die a little. It was a [03:39] St. Christopher medal. That medal I gave him when I [03:43] was with him in Las Vegas, he had that medal until [03:48] he and I parted at the end and he tore [03:52] off those and threw it someplace in France. We [03:58] remained such close friends even after we divorced. [04:01] We had a great relationship going. When [04:07] it was very good, it was really really good. When it was [04:10] very bad, it was very bad. We created a career [04:14] together. We had children together. But we also lost a [04:18] lot together. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/"},"headline":"LIFE With Steve McQueen: Photos of the King of Cool in 1963","datePublished":"2014-11-05T16:44:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-23T16:23:16.913Z","description":"Photos of the legendary Steve McQueen riding motorcycles, camping, working out and shooting guns in the desert with his wife in 1963.","url":"https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/","keywords":["Smoking","Hollywood","photography","Steve McQueen","Actor","1963","motorcycle","Icons","John Dominis"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta07a1691fdecd371/69875fe45f570f0783b12a18/13mcqueen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ben Cosgrove","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta07a1691fdecd371/69875fe45f570f0783b12a18/13mcqueen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"13mcqueen","caption":"Steve McQueen takes a lunch break during a motorcycle race with Bud Ekins, his friend and stuntman for The Great Escape, 1963.","creditText":"John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/","name":"LIFE With Steve McQueen: Photos of the King of Cool in 1963"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Neile Adams: My Life With Steve McQueen","description":"Steve McQueen's ex-wife recalls the ups and downs of the tumultuous life she shared with the movie star and intensely private Hollywood rebel.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/e6mXl6rx/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-02-10T18:10:07.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/e6mXl6rx.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/","duration":"PT4M27S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3490078/life-with-steve-mcqueen-photos-of-the-king-of-cool-in-1963/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```