Dear Morris, 

                                    SOME OF MY MEMORIES OF STEVE

While reading your articles and looking at your pictures on Steve McQueen my husband and I were surprised to see the photo of Steve in his silver Stearman biplane. I took that photo.  

Joe, my husband, and I have many great memories of Steve.   The day that picture was taken we had flown into the Santa Paula Airport from Oxnard.   We saw Steve and Barbara in front of his hanger and walked toward them.   Steve quickly yelled out, "Velda, do you have your camera?"  I nodded that I did.  "Get it! My new Stearman will be here any minute and I want some pictures."  

The "any minute" turned into being about three hours.  While waiting we talked about flying, especially the old airplanes like the biplanes, we laughed and generally had a good time. I remember thinking after several minutes into the conversation that this man, Steve McQueen, was just another guy.  He had a passion for flying like Joe and I, and many times he would refer to himself as an "airport bum."  Steve seemed easy to talk to, you  wouldn't have thought he was one of the most popular movie stars in the world.  He and Barbara both seemed so ordinary in so many ways. Although when we visited Steve and Barbara at his house we quickly saw something that wasn't so ordinary.  Steve had a motorcycle in his living room, alongside an old glass top style gas pump.  And, Barbara's stove was an old white and blue porcelain gas, with the oven alongside the burners.  To step into Steve's house was like stepping back into the 1930's. 

I can not remember what day it was, but we had flown into Santa Paula again and Steve was practicing "touch and goes" in one of his biplanes. There was some guy standing around in an orange shirt.  He was taking pictures of everything; I'm sure  trying to get something of Steve he could sell.  Steve was taxiing on the runway, heading toward his hangar when he saw the man.  He leaned down in his cockpit as he taxied by this guy, giving the illusion as if there was no one controlling the airplane. The look on this idiot's face was priceless.  "There's no pilot," we saw him mouth.  I wish I would have had my camera at that moment--we all cracked up laughing.  When Steve taxied safely past the guy he then sat up in the cockpit and looked over at us, with his thumb up and giving us a big smile--a huge Steve McQueen smile with those bright blue eyes.  I remember he truly could light up the surrounding area with that smile of his.  I have always wished I would have taken a picture at that moment. 

Steve always felt comfortable around my camera.  He knew I wasn't there to take pictures of him and sell them.  There were times when he would ask me to take some pictures of his many toys he had bought.  I'd say, "Steve, will you please move, I don't want you in my picture."  He would grin, apologize and move back out of the way.

Another fond memory I have of Steve is when I gave him a coffee mug that I had painted for him.  I had painted a picture of his yellow Stearman and his white Indian motorcycle on it.  When I gave it to him, he got big tears in his eyes.  He said, "I love it and as long as I live, this is what I'll drink my coffee out of."  Grady, his hired hand, friend, and confidant, told me he took that cup to Mexico with him when he began his Cancer treatments.  To this day I still do not know if I accept his cause of death.  I do know that I feel good about having given him information on Dr. Kelley

One Sunday around noon my husband and I flew over to Santa Paula Airport to have lunch.  When we landed we saw that Steve's huge hangar door was open and we saw Barbara and him.  There were also a couple of other guys talking to Steve.  We said hello and were going to be on our way, but Steve stopped us.  He told us that the two men were doing a magazine article on him.  He asked us where we were going.  We told him to the restaurant to eat.  He said they were too.  Before long Barbara had the golf cart, which only seated four, but that didn't bother Steve.  He grabbed a hold of me and placed me on his lap and everyone else found a spot to sit and we were off to the restaurant. 

Since he and Barbara were being interviewed we thought we would sit at a separate table and give them privacy.  Well, it didn't take long and Steve was at our table.  "What's the matter with you guys, are you anti-social?" Steve jokingly asked. I suggested that because he was doing an interview he and Barbara might want to be alone. "Soooo.  It's just an interview. Get on over here with us." We picked up our silverware and joined Steve and Barbara. 

We had lunch with him another time when he cracked me up. He was eating a tuna sandwich.  He made a comment about having the "drizzlin' shits."  That was November or December of 1979.  It was just before his cancer hit the news and we realized just how sick he really was. 

Another time I vividly remember . . . and again it was a Sunday.  This time we had my mother with us when we flew into Santa Paula for our Sunday lunch.  Steve came out of his hangar's side door when my mother saw him.  Without hesitation she approached him and grabbed his beard and shook his head and said. "Why don't you shave that thing off--y'don't even look like mah boy."  I was so embarrassed I could have crawled into a hole.  Steve just smiled, that huge smile of his and said. "Now Grandma, if I shaved that off, my face would freeze when I fly."  I will never forget that.  He was so kind to my mother, and in my conversations with him I found that he loved older people. 

You hear a lot of stories about movie stars and how temperamental they are, but in regards to Steve I never experienced him wanting to be treated as a special person.  And he could get down and get his hands as dirty as the next guy.  There was the time when he helped my husband rebuild a 1946 Harley Davidson Knucklehead . . . and even had his friend, Bud Ekins, who was an expert, help them so it was done to perfection. 

The day Steve died I got many calls from people wanting to know if I knew about it.  There was one guy that called several times wanting to buy some of my photos of Steve, he was with one of the "Rag Magazines."  I told him, "You get permission from Barbara, Terry and Chad and I'll let you have them, but no other way."  To this day, they have never left my possession.  I even took movies of the funeral flight over his Santa Paula ranch house.  That film is still in the camera.  People tell me I should get it developed, but I just can't seem to bring myself to do it.  However, I do have one prize possession I continue over the years to look at.  It is a picture of me, taken by Steve McQueen--he used my camera.  And, wouldn't you know, it is out of focus, but what a wonderful memory it brings back to me. 

Well, Morris, I just wanted to share these memories with you.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed living them, and continue to enjoy remembering them.  

Best of Luck,

Velda & Joe

                                                                (c) 2006 by Velda & Joe Crotty 

 

I

Steve McQueen took this picture of me.