Paul Newman vs. Steve McQueen

From the time I was born right up to the present day I have always been told that I am very similar to my sister. We have similar personalities, a similar sense of humour and we tend to like the same films, directors and actors. However when I was in my teens we realised that there was a pair of Hollywood rivals whom we couldn’t agree upon. My sister was Paul Newman’s biggest fan whilst I loved Steve McQueen. Each of us liked both actors but when it came to who was the bigger star or the better actor we stuck firmly in our chosen camp. When Paul Newman sadly passed away last week it made me think again of those conversations we shared and drove me to reconsider if I had been right all along.

Any discussion on the relative merits of McQueen and Newman will hang on the period between the two films that they appeared in together. The eighteen years between ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ and ‘The Towering Inferno’ cover the peak years of Newman’s career and pretty much the whole of McQueen’s. As a picture of how their standing in Hollywood changed, the movies couldn’t be more different.

‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ (1956) was significant for both men. After the death of James Dean in 1955 the roles he would have played initially went to Newman and Marlon Brando. Newman had made one or two films by this stage but this was the film that launched him as a star. Among the bit part players was a Steve McQueen making his film debut before embarking on the successful television series ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’. Given that two years later McQueen was till a TV star and was making ‘The Blob’ whilst Newman was picking up an Oscar nomination it was clear that the younger man had some serious catching up to do. He finally made his breakthrough in ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960) but by that time Newman had a string of hits and was about to make the movie that many consider to be the best of his career. For my money ‘The Hustler’ (1961) is up there with ‘E.T.’ as one of the most over-rated movies ever made but I cannot deny that the one reason I sat through it was because of Paul Newman’s performance.

McQueen did little to follow-up on ‘The Magnificent Seven’s success, making a couple of average war movies and one of his ill-fated ventures into the world of comedy. Newman said that once he saw himself in ‘The Secret War of Harry Frigg’ (1968) he knew he was finished with trying his hand at comedy but McQueen took longer to learn the lesson. ‘The Honeymooners’ (1961), ‘Soldier in the Rain’ (1963) and ‘The Reivers’ (1969) are three very painful watching experiences. After finally making another good film, ‘The Great Escape’ (1963), McQueen mostly stuck to what he did best. His films contained a number of tough, distant, almost unlovable characters that suited McQueen who in reality seemed fairly tough, distant and unlovable. One role in particular drew parallels with Newman. In 1965 McQueen played ‘The Cincinnati Kid’ which tried to do for poker what ‘The Hustler’ had done for pool. The reaction has generally been unfavourable to ‘The Cincinnati Kid’ when the movies are compared but I think it is the superior film. It is one of Steve McQueen’s best performances and he is helped enormously by a terrific supporting cast (much better than ‘The Hustler’), tight direction and the toning down of the obligatory romantic sub-plot. (The film would probably be one of my all time favourites if Spencer Tracy had been well enough to accept the part of Lancey Howard. In the end another great actor, Edward G. Robinson, took the role but despite the esteem I hold him in I can’t help wondering what the movie would have been like with Tracy and McQueen facing off.)

McQueen was by this point becoming obsessed with the idea of becoming a bigger star than Paul Newman. They played similar parts in similar movies and, whilst he was a big box-office draw, McQueen was desperate to be seen as Newman’s superior in terms of star quality and acting ability. Newman had built on his personal success in ‘The Hustler’ by taking on a number of memorable or, at least, interesting roles. Chance Wayne in ‘Sweet Bird of Youth’ (1962), ‘Hud’ (1963) and ‘Cool Hand Luke’ (1967) are the former whilst Ram Bowen in ‘Paris Blues’ (1961), Andrew Craig in the criminally under-rated ‘The Prize’ (1963) and Juan Carrasco in ‘The Outrage’ (1964) fall into the latter category. ‘The Prize’ is an example of the kind of film Newman made that McQueen could never have been successful in. What McQueen lacked was a sort of ‘lightness’ that allowed Newman not to take himself too seriously. McQueen also showed poor judgement in his choice of roles. Newman rarely made truly awful during the 1960’s but McQueen never seemed able to make more that two or three good films in succession. This is best illustrated by considering that in 1968 he made ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ and ‘Bullitt’ which, for the first time, put him on top of the box-office money list. His next film was ‘The Reivers’. Newman saw out the 1960’s with ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969) a film that should have starred McQueen as well but his other obsession – having top billing – prevented the pairing. The film is better than any western McQueen made before or subsequently. McQueen had a knack of turning down good parts in order to make dud films. ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1961), ‘Two for the Road’ (1967), Jaws (1975) and ‘Apocalypse Now’ (1979) are four notable examples.

The 1970’s didn’t start auspiciously for either actor. McQueen’s long planned ‘Le Mans’ (1971) was not only a woefully boring film but was also the first box-office flop of his career. Newman appeared to have gone off the boil as well with films like ‘WUSA’ (1970) and ‘Pocket Money’ (1972), which were solid but unmemorable efforts. Then something significant happened. Steve McQueen met Sam Peckinpah and made two films that went someway to realising his twin ambitions. ‘The Getaway’ (1972) made him the highest paid actor in the world and ‘Junior Bonner’ (1972) shows McQueen acting ability like no other film he made. It is McQueen’s only real character driven piece of work and gives a glimpse of what might have been had he lived long enough to be offered the sort of roles Newman played from the 1980’s onwards. Of course Newman had been a character actor from the very beginning but he had the looks and charisma to make him a star as well. His transition from handsome movie star to distinguished supporting actor was a natural one. It is doubtful whether McQueen’s ego would have ever allowed him to make the same move but ‘Junior Bonner’ and the later ‘Tom Horn’ (1980) gave an indication that it would have been possible in purely acting terms.

If it weren’t so against what we know of Paul Newman’s personality it could be mischievously suggested that the decision to make ‘The Sting’ (1973) was solely influenced by his being knocked of his perch as Hollywood’s most expensive and bankable actor. Teaming up again with Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill after the phenomenal success of ‘Butch Cassidy…’ was as close to ensuring success as is possible. The movie didn’t disappoint. Not only was the film the number one box-office success of 1973 (bettering McQueen’s ‘Papillon') it is very possibly the best and most enjoyable movie made by either man. Robert Redford’s star was at it’s brightest at the time but he still played second fiddle to Newman’s Henry Gondorff. This was the perfect Paul Newman role – belligerent, ruthless, streetwise but likable - the anti-hero with a heart as well as a brain.

On the back of both men’s sustained success they were finally paired opposite one another in ‘The Towering Inferno’ (1974). The stories of McQueen counting lines in the script and going ballistic when he found out Newman had more, the staggered billing and his agonising over which of the main characters was cast in the best light by the film go to the very route of how seriously Steve McQueen felt about ‘beating’ Newman now that they were going head-to-head on screen. He was determined that it should be as equals so that any perceived victory would be incontestable. Newman probably didn’t care and that is probably why McQueen walks away with the film. Even in their few shared scenes it is McQueen who hold the attention. Many reasons have been given for this but I feel that McQueen was always the better action hero and this is what the film called for. McQueen may have won the battle but being declared the best actor in a disaster movie is a rather hollow victory. Nevertheless ‘The Towering Inferno’ was far and away the biggest moneymaker of 1974 and having, by general consensus, dominated the movie McQueen could by rights declare himself to be the biggest star in the world. The fact he had achieved this status by acting opposite Newman and giving a better performance should have made it all the sweeter. McQueen could, in terms of the movies, do anything he wanted and that is what he did. Remarkably, after finally getting where he wanted to be, he snubbed Hollywood. He went bike racing, dune buggy racing and car racing and didn’t make another film for three years. He only made three more films before he died in 1980. Newman, after some disastrous failures in the late 70’s, regained his standing after McQueen’s death with a number of excellent performances throughout the 1980’s and one or two choice roles in the ‘90’s and beyond.

Traditionally it has always been accepted that Paul Newman was the better actor and that he made better movies then Steve McQueen but it was whilst reading Newman’s obituary last week that I realised just how many misguided, imperfect and downright awful movies he had made. The number of genuine classics that McQueen made can be counted on one hand but you wouldn’t need to take your socks off to count the number of Newman films that have sit in that category. What we must realise is that for both actors on so many occasions it is their performances we remember, not the films that contained them. The characters created by Newman as the superior actor rise above some of the films he found himself acting in whilst McQueen is the more iconic. It is the Cooler King and Frank Bullitt who adorn bedroom walls to this day and given that Hollywood has a tradition of remembering its icons rather better then it remembers some of it’s finest acting talent McQueen may very well outlast Newman and their contemporaries in the same way that Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe are remembered better than William Powell and Lee Remick. If we accept that Newman was the enduring actor and McQueen the enduring star then each can claim to be remembered how they wanted.

Paul Newman: Must See
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
The Sting (1973)
The Verdict (1982)

Steve McQueen: Must See
The Great Escape (1963)
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
The Getaway (1972)