MARSHALL TERRILL, STEVE McQUEEN BIOGRAPHER (CONCLUSION)!

September, 1964 premier of "Love with the Proper Stranger"

L-R: Co-Star Natalie Wood, Steve McQueen and wife Neile
(Photo: Donna Reddon)
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Manning: Just when it seems when your work couldn't be more exhaustive you've recently pulled out all the stops with your latest book, Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon. What's different about this book than your previous efforts and what motivated you to write this?

Terrill: What motivated me to write it was I knew the 30th anniversary of his death was approaching (November 7, 2010) and I felt it would be nice to commemorate this event. And to be honest, I had always wanted to rectify Portrait because a.) it was written by a rookie writer b.) I had very little to write about regarding his background and c.) a lot of new and more accurate information had come out on McQueen since 1993 when Portrait was released and I wanted to include it in a new and better biography. I had always been bothered by the fact that I could never find out who his father was. No one could. After I had 10 years experience as a journalist and had actually tracked people, I was looking up McQueen's family tree online one day and lo and behold, it had his father's name, date of birth and date of death. That lit a spark in me and I knew with that little amount of information, I could now find him and with a little help, I finally did. It was like cracking a major code for me. That was the real impetus for the book. Lastly, I wanted to leave behind a good legacy for McQueen. McQueen would have been 81 this March and many people who knew him are either dead or getting on in years and I wanted to interview as many people as possible and give as much new information as possible.

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Manning: I couldn't help but notice that you've changed positions on Dr. William Kelley and McQueen seeking treatment in Mexico at the Plaza Santa.

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Terrill: I absolutely did and let me tell you why – I was 24 when I started Portrait and not a journalist. The people I spoke to who worked at the Plaza Santa Maria were very nice and sincere people who did not duck me. They spent a lot of time with me trying to get me to understand Kelley's program. One of those people was Teena Valentino, who was Steve's “metabolic technician” or nurse. She turned over to me an 800-page diary of Steve's entire stay, detailing almost every moment of the last four months of his life. When I read it as a non-journalist, admittedly I did not have a very discerning eye. After my tenure as a journalist, I re-read the diary and there were so many red flags that I could simply not ignore what I felt were some flagrant violations – not by the staff – they were good people. Many of the staffers had family who were cancer patients at the Plaza and felt a debt of gratitude to the doctors. I didn't have problems with them, my major problem was with some of the administration. You have Dr. Kelley, who was hounding Steve to approve of a press release announcing his treatment and to promote his clinic. You just don't do that as a doctor. You expect a doctor to treat you humanly and privately, not pressure you to agree to a press release. Then there was Bill Evans, the hospital director who openly smoked in McQueen's presence. I know times were different back then, but if you're running a cancer clinic and collecting patients' money, you really shouldn't be smoking in front of them. Then there was Rudolpho Rodriguez, the proprietor of the Plaza Santa Maria, who gave McQueen his private cabana and then emotionally blackmailed him into making a public announcement that Mexico was saving his life. And lastly, you'll read about “Lydia”, a blonde evangelist who went through a dog and pony show with McQueen and rubbed oil on his stomach and then proclaimed him healed. McQueen had even planned to show up at her church in Chicago when he got better and tell the world that Lydia healed him, but then we know what the eventual outcome was. It was a last chance cancer clinic but I saw the place as a rip-off. But I believe this with all my heart – Kelley put his heart and soul into his work. I feel his work and theory was off target – that you can prevent cancer and cure cancer with a healthy diet. I just don't believe that to be true, although I think Kelley felt he was doing groundbreaking work. I recently spoke to a few of the people who worked there, and when I brought up Dr. Kelley again, their body language told me they really didn't want to broach the subject again. I think after it was revealed that Dr. Kelley was anti-Semitic and wrote hate literature, they wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from him and their work at the Plaza Santa Maria.

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Manning: It certainly was a different time in terms of how people viewed alternative medicine.

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Terrill: It was. It was a time when alternative medicine was at its peak and many cancer clinics and dissenters promoted this paranoia that the American Medical Association was ripping off the public and controlling medicine. I'm sure some people still feel that way. In Mexico, they were basically saying, “We have the cure.” Now that I have some age on me, I know many people who have been successfully treated for cancer through orthodox treatment and are thriving today. Now that I work for a university, I also see all the young students who want to become doctors and nurses, and their motives are to help people. When they become professionals, that doesn't change. Those clinics still exist and I still hear about people with terminal cancer going to Mexico or other countries for treatment, but there isn't the fervor that there was 30 years ago. I believe those clinics have now been properly exposed and we're better educated as a society. And a recent report from the Centers of Disease Control just came out, which was very positive. It states that nearly 12 million Americans are cancer survivors. That's nearly quadrupled from 1971. More cancers are being diagnosed earlier and there's also more effective care and treatment. Cancer used to be a death sentence, but that's no longer the case in many instances. I think whatever an individual decides to do is their business because no one else is in their shoes. Alternative medicine is not the route I would go for treatment but to each his own.

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Manning: After reading the book – I'm struck by a few things, and the first is the radical departure it is from Portrait...

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Terrill: In what way?

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Manning: The focus is different; it's constructed differently. The writing and the reporting is so radically different and maybe it's because you had fresh material from the archive of new material you were able to draw upon. You had excavated so much more new material and the style of writing is so different...it's as if two different people wrote those two books.

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Terrill: Well, in essence, two people did write those two books. The first writer was a naïve 24-year-old recent college graduate who saw life through rose-colored glasses and the second book was written by a very seasoned and cynical 47-year-old reporter who had some life experiences under his belt and was trained how to disseminate information. So yes, I'll plead guilty to that charge!

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Manning: The second thing that struck me was that you enlisted the services of Peter O. Whitmer, a renowned psychologist who has chronicled some major pop culture figures (Elvis Presley and Hunter S. Thompson) in his literary career. How did you come to know Peter?

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Terrill: Well, as you know, I'm a big fan of non-fiction books and I pretty much read anything I can get my hands on. I usually read five books at a time. I have a book in almost every room of my house, in my gym bag, in my car, just everywhere. My fear is I'll be stuck someplace without a book and I'll have nothing to do but look at the walls. But if I have a book in my hands, I can go anywhere. Anyway, I read Peter's seminal book on Elvis Presley called The Inner Elvis. It was a psychological biography of Presley and it was fascinating how he was able to dissect Presley's behavior, because in many ways, Elvis was just as complex as McQueen. After I read it back in 1997 I thought, “If I ever did another book on McQueen, I'd love to enlist Peter's services.” Author Alana Nash is a friend and has written some of the best books ever on Presley and one day I emailed her, asking what she was up to. She told me about a new book she was working on called, Baby, Let's Play House. She wrote that she was working with Peter on her new book and doing for her what I had wanted him to do for me for years. So she gave me his email and we got in touch, and he's just about the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. And so insightful and right on regarding his analysis of McQueen. Now mind you, Peter had never read a word about McQueen in his life. But the amount of homework he did for my book was extraordinary. He read all of my books, Neile, Ali and Barbara's books, his military file, Teena Valentino's diary and other material he deemed important. I point that out because objectivity is what I wanted from him – an outsider's perspective of McQueen. For years I've often wondered why McQueen made certain choices; why he was so paranoid given he had everything a man could want; why he wasn't happy with his success and why he couldn't get over his past. In the first book, I was able to write about McQueen's exploits, but I wasn't able to explain his behavior. I'm sure many readers felt the same way. Peter put all of that into perspective for me. Hopefully, his work will resonate with people. And the funny thing is after he read all he could on McQueen he emailed me and said, “You're right...McQueen is fascinating!”

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Manning: You managed to strike a balance between Steve's conflicted life in great detail and parallel that with his remarkable career. How did you do that?

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Terrill: Thank you...that's a very nice compliment. That's simply a style I developed as a reporter. Go out, find the story and present it in an even and balanced manner. Let everybody have a say and let the reader come to his or her own conclusion about McQueen. Objectivity is what I truly aim for when I write about a subject. If anything, I think it's obvious I'm a McQueen fan, but I'm always aware that in order to be taken seriously, I have to remain objective. Did he make bad movies? Sure he did. I think his first few movies were awful and when he later became famous, he made a few duds – Soldier in the Rain, Baby, the Rain Must Fall, Nevada Smith dragged on a bit too long, Le Mans was simply boring The Towering Inferno was cheesy and The Hunter was a sad ending to a brilliant career. And I'll be even more objective – Bullitt was an exciting movie in 1968 but I don't think it's aged well. The pacing is too slow when you compare it to today's standards. Sure, the car chase was awesome and McQueen's acting was superb, but the rest of the movie is slow and sometimes incomprehensible. I think he was also very cutthroat when he was in New York when he first started acting and climbed over many people. I also think he was very chauvinistic towards Neile and Ali and felt it was unfair he pushed them to quit their careers. But everybody has their flaws and given the sort of background he endured and overcame, he shouldn't be judged too harshly. You have to give both the good and the bad and let the reader decide how they feel about McQueen.

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Manning: Was this painful for you to research or read about Steve?

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Terrill: Not really. I never met the man, so it's tough for me to say it was painful. I do, however, have to be sympathetic and yet stay objective at the same time. Sometimes being objective means looking at something through a very cold prism. And sometimes being objective means that I'm not always right and if someone comes up with another way of thinking or another theory, then I have to be open and adaptable to that as well. Sure, it was tough reading about McQueen's treatment at the Plaza Santa Maria – there were many things I left out because I didn't want it to cause his family members any more pain that what they had to read, so it's a balancing act.

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Manning: It's quite a journey – a young boy who never knew his father and ends up in reform school and eventually becoming the world's highest paid actor in the late sixties and seventies. After 20 years of research, what surprises you the most about his life?

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Terrill: Given his background, it was amazing he didn't end up in prison and yet he goes on to become a movie star, a business mogul, a man who gave back to the Boys Republic and someone who ultimately found God. He was the first movie star of his era to come from the wrong side of the tracks and to be able to use those street smarts on Hollywood executives and beat them at their own game is something I never tire of hearing. That's been the continual fascination with me – how did this kid with a ninth grade education come to Hollywood and turn everything upside down and make it work for him. He mastered it, manipulated it, and stayed on top. To me, that's always been the surprise. And he was able to do that in a time when our country didn't have much economic diversity. He was somehow able to put aside his demons and focus on acting and become one of the greats. I say this all the time but McQueen created a genre within Method and perfected reacting on the screen; just took it to a whole new level and no one today has even come close to what he was able to convey on the screen. Here we are 30 years later and he's still the master of the screen reactors. Brando and Dean get most of the credit for popularizing the Method but, this is strictly my opinion, McQueen was a far better film actor, certainly more talented, than those two men. Brando betrayed his talent whereas Steve never did and Dean's film legacy is simply too limited to judge him objectively. McQueen never betrayed his talent and always took on every role with all the gusto he had. You can't say that about Brando, who was good when he wanted to be but you can't say that he put his heart and soul into every role. McQueen did and it shows. Simple as that. It helped that McQueen could personally identify with each character he portrayed and brought such an authenticity to every role. He was able to express and emote some very deep emotions in a very simple way so the audience knew exactly what he was feeling at the time. I feel he did that better than any other film actor I've ever seen.

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Manning: Are there areas or parts of McQueen's life that people are more drawn to than others?

Steve in Santa Paula, California

(Photo: Marshall Terrill)

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Terrill: I think the general public wants to know about the movies, the bad-boy behavior, how many women he bedded and the gear heads want to know about the cars and motorcycles. McQueen's life was so epic, much like Elvis, that there's something there for everyone and it all just depends what area you're drawn to. There's his background, the New York era, the movie years, racing and cars, the go-go Sixties, the laid back Seventies, the aviation and those last years in Santa Paula. He lived many lifetimes.

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Manning: What are some of the new insights we can expect with Legend?

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Terrill: I suppose the big thing is the new information on his background; finding out who his father really was and the discovery that he had a half-sister, Terri McQueen, who is alive and living in the Midwest. I've also devoted entire chapters to the Boys Republic, his stint in the Marines and almost four entire chapters on his early acting career in New York. And then there's the insight from clinical psychologist Peter O. Whitmer, who was able to give me a good read into McQueen's psyche and decision making process throughout his life.

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Manning: I'd like to switch the subject to McQueen and his relationship with the Boys Republic. For Legend, you made a few visits to the place. Tell me what it was like.

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Terrill: It was a great experience and enlightening for me. As you know, the place has been portrayed in a few of the books as a prison, and it's not the case at all. One writer went as so far as to say Steve was thrown into an isolation cell. I certainly didn't see that...all I saw were dormitories, bunk beds, cottages and recreational facilities. And back when McQueen was there, it was out in the middle of a pasture. It was nothing but farm land back then and there was nowhere to run to or away from.

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Manning: And tell us what is the mission of the Boys Republic?

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Terrill: To take wayward youth and make them productive members of society. In the case of McQueen, he was 14 when he entered and had been running wild in the streets for some time. He was a handful and his mother, Julian, really didn't know what to do with him, so she sent him to the Boys Republic. He later said that was the best thing she ever did for him because it put him back on the right path. The place, when it was first set up, was a mirror reflection of society – they had a bank, a postal office, a council, bakery – everything these youths would experience growing up and were able to integrate back into society. Their motto is, “Nothing without labor,” which means hard work equals success. Even though it took some time for McQueen to adjust to Boys Republic, he finally did and turned his life around. He gave back to the place throughout his life – he set up an annual scholarship in his life, purchased Christmas wreaths every holiday season and went back for visits with the kids to encourage them. Today his son Chad has picked up the mantle and they have an annual car show in Steve's name to raise money for scholarships, so he still gives back so much even though he has been gone for 30 years. The best part for me is that I was able to sign books and a couple of the kids came to the table. I engaged them in conversation and found out they were seniors. I asked them what their plans were when they graduated from Boys Republic and they said they had plans to go to college. Well, that put a big smile on my face because I work in higher education. That alone made my trip to California so worth it. They're not only helping these kids integrate back into society but they're planting that seed to go to college. That's just heartwarming.

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Manning: What would you like people to take away from one of your books about Steve and then what do you want them to take away from his life?

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Terrill: First and foremost, I want readers to have an emotional experience. I want to make the book so damn readable they never want to put it down. I want the reader to not only feel but learn something. I want to feel as if they got their money's worth. That's what I want personally for me...

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The second question: what do I want them to get from McQueen's life? Maybe it's that old cliché about how the grass is not always greener on the other side. Everybody wants to be a celebrity these days, but there's something to be said about leading a quiet and relatively normal life. No matter what you think about fame, there is a price to be paid. Nobody leads a charmed life and in the case of almost every celebrity, there's heartache. Fame can cure a lot of problems, but it also opens the door to a lot of them as well. Fame is wonderful when you're young and beautiful, but then as you get older, the public expects you not to age, gain weight and remain eternally youthful. Ask any celebrity if fame makes them happy or solves all of their problems, and they'll tell you no. McQueen's life was filled with triumph and tragedy and some of that was caused by his past and some of that was caused by his fame. Fame is truly a double-edged sword. It can go sideways on you real quick.

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Manning: Any other McQueen books in the works?

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Terrill: I've now had a nice six-month rest since I put Legend to rest and have been enjoying my free time. I've taken up photography, am going back to school to get my masters degree and will be editing a few books on the side. I have stated in a few interviews that Legend would my last McQueen book, but I was really burned out when I said that. I had been working simultaneously on King of Cool and Legend for a couple of years and I was very, very tired. I've now had a few months to rest, relax and reconsider. It's time to go away for a while but trust me, I'll be back.

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The author thanks Marshall Terrill for making this interview possible.
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MARSHALL TERRILL, STEVE McQUEEN BIOGRAPHER (PART 2)

Manning: Tell us how you met Barbara McQueen, whom you co-wrote Steve McQueen: The Last Mile with in 2005?

Terrill: I met Barbara McQueen through Mimi Freeman, who was the director of The Essence of Cool, a documentary that came out in 2005. Mimi had originally contacted me to help find a few people to interview and interview me and fill in the gaps where other's couldn't. She flew me out to California, interviewed me for three hours, and I even gave them the title of the documentary when I said, “McQueen was the essence of cool.” We spent quite a lot of time on the phone together and then I get a call from out of the blue from Mimi telling me that she wasn't going to use any of my interview because they wanted only to interview people who actually knew McQueen. I told her I understood and she said she had some good news – she had interviewed Barbara McQueen for the documentary and said Barbara had about 400 photos she had taken of Steve and wanted to put them together for a photo book. Would be I interested? Barbara was one of the few people I didn't interview for Portrait, though we had a very brief conversation over the phone in 1989 when I started the book. She basically told me that she wasn't emotionally ready to talk about Steve. I respected that and went on and wrote the book without the cooperation of Steve's three wives. Neile and Ali had both written books, and Barbara didn't and never gave interviews. In the years since Steve's death, she remained so silent, almost reclusive, so naturally I was intrigued. She offered a glimpse into Steve that no one else could. Everybody seems to think she only knew Steve in the last year of his life. The truth is their relationship lasted about three-and-a-half years.

Manning: What is she like?

The Lovely and Talented Barbara McQueen

Terrill: I thought she was going to be quiet, shy and serious, and boy was I ever wrong...she's totally fun and outrageous and anything goes around her. I like to shock people just to get a reaction and there's no shocking Barbara...she just rolls with the punches. I could see why Steve went for her because she's beautiful but she's tough and tender. She's also very smart, bright, well-traveled and has seen and done a lot in her lifetime. One of the most interesting people I've ever met and so down-to-earth. She's like a sister to me and we protect each other.

Manning: I remember seeing her on David Letterman to promote the book. How did that appearance come about?

Terrill: That came about as a result of the Bonhams auction at the Petersen Museum in November 2006. The auction received worldwide attention and we used that as a launching pad for the book. The interesting thing is that Letterman's people called us; we didn't call them. That's amazing when you think about it because you don't get booked on Letterman or Leno unless you're an A-list celebrity promoting a movie or TV series. The booker for the show emailed the publisher and Barbara had me call them. They said they were interested in having her on the show. You could have knocked me over with a feather...though it was never stated, I got the feeling that Letterman was a big McQueen fan. He is from Indiana where McQueen was born. I remember he once had Kim Basinger on his show in 1992 when she was promoting the remake of The Getaway. The funny thing is Letterman was doing his McQueen imitation for Basinger: “Punch it, baby, punch it!” If he remembered that line, you know he was a fan. He was a class act and he treated Barbara very well. Barbara was so nervous backstage, pacing back and forth in the Green Room like a tiger. It was nerve wracking because I thought she was going to walk out of the building. When she did walk out of the Green Room to the stage, she looked like Bugs Bunny getting marched out onto the wooden plank by Yosemite Sam. Letterman was really cool and got up out of his chair to greet her. You can see it on the tape where she says under her breath, “I'm really nervous.” Letterman replied, “Oh you'll be just fine.” It's very easy to see in that interview that he had a very healthy respect for Steve.

Manning: I want to talk about Steve McQueen: A Tribute to the King of Cool, which Barbara wrote the foreword. It also took you three years to compile and I wonder why it took so long? From someone on the outside looking in, it would appear to be a simple project.

Terrill: Well, I thought so too (laughs), but things are never easy for me. Or I should say, books are never easy. Each project presents its own sets of problems and I always try and anticipate what those problems might be. In the case of this book, I thought I'd approach people who knew McQueen, met him, admired him or had some sort of association with him to write a 500 to 1,000 word passage about him and all I would have to do is edit the piece, assemble it and boom, I'd be done. What I didn't anticipate was that 80 percent of the people who I approached wanted me to write the passage for them. That meant not only did I have to set up a time and a date to interview them, I'd have to transcribe it and then formulate a concept for a passage. And on top of that, try and find a photo that matched the story. Not an easy thing to do. It was perhaps the hardest McQueen book to put together because there were so many working parts – interviews, the writing and chronology of the passages, photos, captions and the editing, which was crazy. Each passage had its own tone and personality and the edit had to be careful to preserve that voice. I don't know how many times I went over that PDF to edit, but it was painstaking. Then what happened was I had all of the photos picked out and discovered a lot of them were copyrighted, so then I went back to the drawing board and found a new set. All books are a pain in the ass and I'm not going to paint a rosy picture that it's a wonderful and easy process. It's just not. It's very hard work and being chained to a computer is not a lot of fun. I love the end result but to get there is like being put through a meat grinder.

Manning: How did you conceive of the idea?

Terrill: It started with The Last Mile. I told Barbara I thought it might be cool to get a few people who knew Steve during the time frame they were together to write a guest passage. Lee Majors was the first person we approached, and he actually wrote his. Then we approached a few more and we had about ten altogether when we planned the book. But when I laid it all out, it ruined the flow of Barbara's text, so I decided to take them out and put them aside and I'd figure out to do with them later. As it turned out, when Barbara and I would do a book signing or exhibition, a few people would come up to us and say, “I knew Steve when...” Some would even offer photographic proof. So then a light bulb went off in my head: what if I chronicled Steve's life through the eyes of other people and made it a photo book with passages? It was a great idea and everyone loved the format. But as I mentioned before, the book had its own set of problems.

Manning: There were a lot of major celebrities who contributed to the book. Can you give us a sampling of who wrote a passage?

Terrill: Lee Majors, Suzanne Pleshette, Robert Loggia, Don Gordon, Norman Jewison, Peter Yates, Robert Vaughn, Martin Landau, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen...but to me, the more interesting passages are the ones written by the people who knew him but weren't famous. Personally, my favorite passage of the book was written by a Japanese fan named Ryuken Tokuda. I had met him in Slater, Missouri, in 2007. He came all the way from Japan to attend the first Steve McQueen Days. I had always wondered why McQueen was so popular in Japan, but I wanted someone from Japan to explain it to me. Ryuken delivered this beautiful passage about McQueen's acting and how it spoke to the Japanese. When I read this piece, it was like reading poetry. Barbara and I were in Japan this past November and Ryuken served as our host, and I told him that his passage was my absolute favorite. He told me that he had never really written anything before and that was his first attempt in English. I told him he didn't hit just a home run but a grand slam. He was very proud. I then solicited people from Germany, France, England and other countries where he was famous. McQueen was truly one of the first global superstars of cinema.

Manning: Is it true that McQueen is actually bigger in England and Japan than he is in the United States?

(Photo: Donna Reddon)

Terrill: I certainly think so, but that's my opinion. In Legend, I write an entire chapter on the McQueen phenomenon in England when he made The War Lover. Liz Charles (Elisabeth Osborn is what she goes by now), was McQueen's secretary in England and what she told me is that most Englishmen are very reserved and well-behaved and McQueen was the antithesis of that – he was brash, cocky, daring and wasn't afraid to tell you what was on his mind. Liz thinks that most Englishmen admired the fact that McQueen was so open and honest and did things that the secretly wished they could do. My editor on Legend, Andrew Antoniades, also added that the British always root for the underdog and they recognized in McQueen a fighter; a guy who had struggled to get to the top. Then there are the cars and the motorbikes, and Great Britain is very big on motoring, such much more than in the States. McQueen is also a fashion icon and if you ever go to London, fashion is as big a deal, if not bigger than New York. Then look at McQueen's body of work – even though he is very much an American, a lot of his movies have international themes. There's The Great Escape, The War Lover, The Sand Pebbles, Le Mans, and Papillon. Had he made Yucatan and The Sorcerer, those two films would have also been supported by an international cast. How many movies today are made with an international cast? It seems like they just don't do those sorts of movies anymore...

Manning: Tell us about the CD that comes with the limited edition version of Steve McQueen: A Tribute to the King of Cool. I have listened to that tape over and over again and find it so fascinating.

Terrill: That's a tape I've had in my possession for years and the publisher asked me what we could do to make the limited edition very special. Well, I knew that tape would fit the bill. It was taped at a lecture McQueen gave in 1978 at Loyola Marymount College on “The Genius of Ibsen.” The film school had screened An Enemy of the People for the class and then McQueen showed up to discuss the film and his career. It was odd in that McQueen rarely gave interviews much less appeared in public to discuss one of his films, so this was a rare treat. I wanted to share that experience with McQueen fans because you are enlightened to the fact that this was a brilliant man, not just a guy who rode motorcycles and acted cool on the screen. Everyone had assumed he was just a gear head. You can hear on this tape that he knew the technical aspects of filmmaking. I don't care who you are – when you reach the top of any profession, you are a genius in some capacity. You have to have some sort of intelligence. McQueen was a guy who kept hidden his love for his craft, but you can hear it on this tape. He can't hold it back. You can also hear on the tape that McQueen liked these college kids because they were youthful and enthusiastic and not cynical. They were thrilled he was there and very open to what he had to say. If I'm not mistaken, he cracked open a bottle of beer while talking to them and just had a ball. I work for a university, and trust me, you wouldn't see that happen on a college campus today (laughs).

Manning: I was struck by the comment he made, “I come from the gutter” and then a very short time later he spoke in technical terms of lighting and camera angles, different size lenses and how the lighting has to be just so for a 400-seat house. He also spoke of film distribution. He may have been from the wrong side of the tracks but he knew the film industry and learned from the bottom up.

Terrill: And that's a trait that all the film greats have – they are innately curious and want to learn every aspect of film making. McQueen was no different. The interesting thing is that I just read an excellent biography on Warren Beatty by Peter Biskind, and Beatty's always been given credit for being smart, but McQueen never was...certainly not in his lifetime. Beatty is known for the details but McQueen was no different. In fact, Getaway screenwriter Walter Hill told me McQueen said to him often, “God is in the details.” Still photographer Dave Friedman told me about a scene in Tom Horn where McQueen saw a horse off in the distance that didn't have a period saddle and stopped filming to ensure the horse had the proper saddle. If that isn't attention to the details, I don't know what is. Beatty obviously worked hard at cultivating this image as a great lover while McQueen cultivated his image as a cool loner. What's shaded in all of that is their intelligence and their smarts. You don't get to the top and stay there for years unless you know what works. In reading about Beatty, I saw a lot of similarities in McQueen. While their approaches were different, there was a lot of vanity, power plays and most of all, control. According to this book, Beatty was just as power hungry and controlling as McQueen. It obviously must be a common thread among superstars and I'm sure that is how the industry changes you. McQueen had spoken of that and once gave a great quote about compromising. He said, “If there's any ounce of compromise, it shows on the screen.” I thought that was brilliantly explained. He did everything he could to maintain quality control and if he had to be brash about it and act like the 800-pound gorilla, then I can understand his thinking. It's his name and reputation on screen and he's going to do nothing to tarnish that. Hey, I admire that stance.

Manning: He was a producer wasn't he?

Terrill: Yes, and that goes hand in hand with quality control. When he set up Solar Productions, he was no longer just a movie star; he was a producer. He had a lot more at stake and was involved more on the creative and financial end. I imagine that was a great burden that the public could never understand. That was a time when movie stars, other than McQueen and John Wayne, really didn't have production companies. McQueen, in a lot of ways, was the prototype for the movie stars today who become successful and set up production companies. Maybe I'm giving him way too much credit, but I can't think of too many others before him who blazed that path.

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(Part 3 to follow)

MARSHALL TERRILL, STEVE McQUEEN BIOGRAPHER (Part 1)

Thirty years ago this past November 7th, Steve McQueen died at the age of 50. It was a tragedy to have lost one of the world's greatest and beloved actors of a generation. Each March, for the past 6-years I have featured The Annual Steve McQueen Film Festival online. The Festival attracts thousands of viewers worldwide. This year, Steve McQueen biographer Marshall Terrill is my featured guest in what has resulted in the most extensive interview I have conducted with anyone in my media career. Marshall's newest book is "Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon". This book has been discussed frequently on this blog site as the most comprehensive and detailed examination of McQueen's life to date. This interview will run in multiple parts. Realizing the significance of the 30-year anniversary of Steve's passing, my objective was to be as thorough with Marshall Terrill as possible. This was a rare opportunity for me and together we will learn new information on the pages that follow about the iconic actor known to the world as "The King of Cool". I began by asking Terrill how his life as a biographer of McQueen began.

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Manning: What do you remember about the first time you heard of or saw Steve McQueen?

Terrill:  I'm not sure there was ever one defining moment for me when I saw him on the screen and went, “Wow, who's that guy?” McQueen was just always around, always in my consciousness growing because of my dad, who was the original McQueen fan in our household. I remember my dad specifically taking me to Junior Bonner, Papillon, Tom Horn and The Hunter. And when I came of age in the seventies, McQueen's movies were on television all the time. Did I ever tell you my Towering Inferno story?

Manning: No, but please go ahead.

Terrill: When The Towering Inferno came out in December 1974 it wasn't just a movie; it was an event, truly a real spectacle. I was 11 years old and me and a buddy waited in line for a 9 p.m. showing on a Saturday night out during winter break, and it was sold out. The theater was going to add a midnight showing and we were in the middle of the line and didn't even know if we'd get tickets for the midnight show. We arranged for one of our parents to pick us up when the movie got out. It was a three-hour flick, so this meant the movie was going to get out at 3 a.m. In order to see it, I walked right up to the front of the line and cut in front of this lady, who crossed her arms and gave me the evil eye for three hours. Just stared daggers in my back the whole time. But my determination to see that movie was greater than my pride! I mostly remember watching McQueen on Channel 20 in Washington D.C. I saw TV versions of The Cincinnati Kid, The Great Escape, The Sand Pebbles, Bullitt, and The Getaway with my father. These were great bonding moments with my dad on lazy Saturday afternoons because he had a very high pressure job in the Air Force. This was a way for him to unwind and spend time with me. By the way, my dad was equally enamored of Elvis Presley and so my introduction to those two figures came as a result of him. Interestingly, I've written four books on McQueen and three on Elvis. It just goes to show that parents do have a very large influence in our lives.

Manning: Do you remember the first actual movie you saw in the theater and what about your first McQueen film?

(Photo: Marshall Terrill)

Terrill: Interestingly enough, it was a double feature – Bonnie and Clyde and Bullitt. This was in Texarkana, Texas in 1969. What a great introduction to McQueen, right? I remember that experience so vividly because the audience reacted vocally to both pictures. You could hear a pin drop during the scene where Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were executed at the end of the movie. I remember the impact it had on me when their bodies shook so violently as a result of the machine gun fire. I just sat there with my mouth wide open. No one had ever seen violence like that on the screen before. And in Bullitt, the audience kept yelling, “Whoa!” during the hill jumping sequence. In one night, I got to see Faye Dunaway's breasts, Gene Hackman's face get blown off and the most exciting car chase in movie history. It was a fun, crazy, rollicking night. I was six years old and instantly hooked on cinema. It sure beat playing with my G.I. Joe's!

Manning: So you saw a lot of movies growing up?

Terrill: Almost every chance I had. I remember seeing so many movies as a kid and multiple times: Love Story (yes, I definitely had a thing for Ali MacGraw), The Wild Bunch, Dirty Harry, Let it Be, Ben, Patton, M*A*S*H, Willy Wonka, The French Connection, The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes, Play Misty For Me, Big Jake, The Last Picture Show, Jeremiah Johnson, Walking Tall, Billy Jack, A Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, American Graffiti, Summer of '42, The Cowboys, The Conversation, The World's Greatest Athlete, The Poseidon Adventure, The Getaway, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Sting, The Godfather, The Way We Were, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Little Big Man, Serpico, Chinatown, Paper Moon, Mean Streets, Enter the Dragon, Live and Let Die, Papillon, The Exorcist, Young Frankenstein and all of the Trinity movies. Remember those? They were Italian westerns dubbed in English starring Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. They were hilarious. And like every kid of that generation, I saw all of the James Bond and Planet of the Apes movies. As a result, I developed a great love for cinema. Now when we look back, that era of films from the late sixties to the mid-seventies is simply unparalleled. So many great movies, so many great directors, and so many great stars. Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson and Sean Connery. And for reasons unexplained, McQueen was my guy. At the time I knew nothing about his personal life, but as a kid I was mysteriously drawn to him. Forget that he was cool...there was something enigmatic about him and his acting. There was a mystery and quality to him and you wanted to know more about who this guy was.

Manning: What was it that led you to begin writing about Steve McQueen?

Terrill: It was a very unusual set of circumstances. It's been pretty well documented that I was working for financier Charles Keating in the mid-to-late eighties while attending college in Phoenix, Arizona. I was a corporate gopher, thinking when I graduated that I would have a job with his company. I was also a newlywed at the time. When Keating was indicted by the federal government, I was out of a job. My wife also left me right around the same time, so I was in pretty dire straights emotionally. I was building a future with Keating and what do I do now? But somewhere in the back of my mind, I had always wanted to write a book on Steve McQueen. I know these two events don't seem related to one another at all, but they really are. Haven't you ever thought, “If I wasn't working for a living, this is what I would do?” I was 24 at the time and so this was the time to do it if I were ever going to do it. In fact, that's what my dad told me on the phone when I presented the scenario of coming back to live with my parents in Washington D.C. After I went back and forth with my dad, he said, “Well, you're young enough to recover if you fail.” That bit of wisdom spoke to me and gave me the courage to do it. Trust me, writing a book takes courage because it's a lot of blood, sweat and tears. For some reason, it's never been an easy process for me because of all of the unexpected grief you encounter along the way. Sure, it's always worth the effort in the end, but it's never easy.

Manning: There weren't that many books written about McQueen when you decided to write Portrait?

Terrill: Actually, there had been quite a few. Malachy McCoy, Tim Satchell, Grady Ragsdale, William Nolan, Casey St. Charnez, Penina Speigel and Neile McQueen had all written about McQueen. However, I had always felt there was not one definitive account of his life. Being a voracious reader, I instinctively knew there was a market for what I wanted to do: all-encompassing book on his life. The other big thing was that I felt McQueen hadn't received his due as an actor and the other books focused more on the bad-boy behavior rather than his cannon of work. We've discussed this before, and most great actors leave behind maybe three to five classic films. I feel McQueen has left behind at least eight classics (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Cincinnati Kid, The Sand Pebbles, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway and Papillon) and that's impressive when you think about the fact he made 29 movies. Most critics during his lifetime said he was a screen presence, an actor who made populist films. Nobody ever said he was a great actor, even when he passed away. That's what I set out to do with Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel. With that said, he led an incredible and spectacular life and I wanted to document that as well.

Manning: What makes for a good biography?

Terrill:This is strictly my opinion, but it's how I was trained as a journalist. That is, don't offer up an opinion in the narrative – just guide the story along. But when it does come time for an opinion to be offered up, let the people who knew McQueen say it. That way you remain as objective as possible and remain the proverbial fly on the wall. Let the people who knew McQueen give the insight.

(Photo: Donna Reddon)

Manning: Your original book came out in December 1993 and a revision came out in 2005. What led to the revision?

Terrill: The book had been out of print for a few years and when Plexus, a publisher based out of England, approached me to reprint the book, I said yes. They asked me to give them something new to market the book, so I came up with the idea of a new foreword and a last chapter to update readers what had taken place since the book came out in 1993. Turned out it was a lot of new information given that McQueen's legacy had grown stronger with each year. Based on that 2005 revision, it had renewed a spark within me to do more on McQueen. The interesting thing is that after Portrait, I never thought I'd write another word about McQueen again because I felt that I wrote all there was that could be said about the man. But with new open records laws and access to better and more accurate information, there was a lot more to write about McQueen. The first five chapters of Portrait is very skimpy when it comes to McQueen's background but that's because of two reasons. Open records laws weren't the same in the late eighties when I started research on the book and McQueen was very good at hiding his past.

Manning: He was good at embellishing his past, wasn't he?

Terrill: He was excellent at embellishing because the truth was nowhere near as good as the version he gave. And here's where it gets tricky: in the midst of his embellishing you'd get little kernels of the truth or sometimes he'd be candid with one interviewer and then not forthcoming at all with another. But I do understand the reasons for embellishing his past because it was either painful or he didn't know, and was probably ashamed. And it was a different time. You didn't tell the world you came from a dysfunctional background. You focused on the positive and made your history “colorful.” In the new book, Steve McQueen: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon, I located his father's death certificate and it states he died of cirrhosis of the liver. He was a merchant marine and a really bad alcoholic. That certainly isn't as romantic as the version McQueen gave to reporters, which was that he was a barnstorming pilot who later became a Flying Tiger in World War II. He must have felt a deep sense of shame but I don't see it as that. He came from nothing and went all the way to the top. That is a staggering achievement.

Manning: His biological mother, Julian, was also an alcoholic, correct?

Terrill: Yes, she was. Both parents, unfortunately, were alcoholics and addiction was in Steve's DNA. Talk about several strikes against you at birth – two parents who are alcoholics; a father who walks away when Steve was six moths old and doesn't want to know him; an alcoholic mother who is not very maternal and hands him off to her parents and later his great uncle (Claude Thomson). On top of that he inherited an abusive stepfather in Hal Berri. Most kids who grow up in this manner often end up going to jail or prison, so it's nothing less than a miracle that Steve was able to overcome all of those obstacles. There was, however, serious emotional baggage he had to deal with his whole life. Superstardom didn't wash that away.

Manning: There have been numerous biographies on many sports and entertainment figures over the years. What I want to know is what is it like to chronicle someone over a 20-year period? What's it like to live within that microcosm of research, following someone for that long?

Terrill: It's interesting. You feel at times is if you really know this person; why he made this decision or that decision...and then there are times when something doesn't compute and you ask, “Why did he do this? What led to that circumstance?” or you might find a piece of new information that changes everything...like his father not being a barnstorming pilot or that his mother actually put him in Boys Republic and not his stepfather Hal Berri. Or that his mother Julian was not a teenaged runaway but lived with her parents when she gave birth to Steve and continued living with them three years after the fact. A biographer can never be 100 percent accurate; all you can do is try and document as much as possible and hope that it is close as to the truth as you can get. McQueen was never a boring subject and he continually fascinates me. I'm more fascinated by knowing the real truth rather than what he gave to the press or embellished. I'm a firm believer the truth is so much more interesting and stranger than fiction. With McQueen there's so much wading through what was the truth and not the truth. I try to employ logic, time lines, documents, eyewitnesses and journalistic techniques, but as I stated, nothing is 100 percent accurate. You must also take into account the journalism in McQueen's lifetime was so different than what it is today. Back then journalists had an understanding with movie stars that they didn't reveal their secrets. Remember they didn't show the fact that FDR was in a wheelchair or that John F. Kennedy had numerous affairs. A lot of journalism back then was based on the fact you took a person on their word. The National Enquirer really changed all of that and now we've swung to the other end of the pendulum where gossip, affairs, and personal lives are splashed all over the front page of legitimate newspapers. Why do I care if Lindsay Lohan wore a white skirt to court or if Charlie Sheen is smoking crack or hanging out with porn stars? Sure, it's fascinating and that's perfectly fine for the tabloids but is it appropriate for USA Today or the Los Angeles Times? It has spilled over into that arena and now the whole game has changed. We now live in a society where there are no secrets, and we now have to know every little thing about every celebrity. McQueen represents an era where men didn't complain or explain; he didn't have to unleash tidbits of gossip about his life to promote a movie. That to me is so much more interesting than what we see today with celebrities, who by the way, aren't immune. They participate in that vicious news cycle as well, so they don't get a pass from me. Many celebrities, like Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, all use the media to not only generate interest in them but actually use it to fuel lucrative careers. The Kardashian family made $65 million last year, and for what? What exactly do they do?

Manning: What happened to you personally in the years from 1993 when you published Rebel and in 2011 with the recent publication of Legend? What changed for you the most?

Terrill: The biggest change in me was the journalistic training I received after the first book came out. I did things backwards – usually you are a reporter first, then you become an author or write a book. I wrote a 564-page book first and then went on to become a reporter. And what that really means is that Rebel certainly would have been different had I been a reporter first. Let's face it, Rebel was a fan-friendly book that sort of turned the other way when there was something negative to report. With the new book, Legend, you're getting a very journalistic approach and there was no turning away from anything that was perceived to be negative. I tackled it head on and tried to present it in the most objective point of view possible. There's more facts, more research, more questioning of statements and time lines in Legend. I guess you could say I'm a lot more objective now about McQueen.

Manning: Portrait was optioned in 2009 by Black Swan producer Brian Oliver. Where do things currently stand with the movie?

Terrill: It takes time to get a movie off the ground because of several things: crafting a good script; attracting the talent and financing for the film's budget. I'm limited in what I can say because Brian Oliver has asked me to not say much, so I'm honor bound to him. The only thing I can say is that things have progressed quite a bit since 2009.

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(Part 2 to follow)

JIM TILMON! (Part 2 of 2)

Jim Tilmon hosting "Our People"

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Manning:  Okay. There have been two high profile crashes this past year. On February 12th a Colgan Air Dash-8 Q400, operating as Continental Connection Flight 3407 crashed while on approach to Buffalo, New York. Then four months-later we witnessed—with horror—the Air France Flight 447 crash (A330-203 F-6ZCP c/n 660) on June 1st in flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. What observations do you have of these incidents?

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Tilmon: Well, the NTSB (National Transportation Board) is the final authority on that stuff. I have some thoughts, but they're just my thoughts. They aren't anything official or anything you can document as a contributing factor to the accident. But my thought about the Buffalo accident was that we had a crew on board that airplane that let it get ahead of them---way ahead of them. And that's a no-no. You don't ever do that. You have to always be ahead of the airplane. You've got to be the one sole source of information and guidance that is never really behind the activities taking place in the air. I don't know when you start talking about human error, where you can place it? Do we say that because of what these two pilots did on their own on this particular night, it was entirely their fault? Or do we back up and look at the airline and their training and determine whether or not these pilots were well trained to deal with what they were confronted with? The fact is, they did a lot of wrong things. One: their whole attitude about the effectiveness of ice and of their de-icing equipment, their whole attitude about maintaining a steady watch on things like airspeed, particularly as it affected the stall speed of the airplane once they started getting a load of ice. So, you've got truth in the vernacular as they say, 'they got too low and too slow' and they allowed the airplane to stall. In stalling the airplane, from what I have been able to glean from some of the reports, there is a possibility that they could have maybe saved it. Because if they could have maintained the attitude that they had and increased power—that airplane has a lot of power (Dash-8 Q400), they may have very well been able to fly out of it. But they've got a stick shaker. A stick shaker doesn't mean you're in a stall, it means you're approaching a stall. It sounds like what they did was apply power but they also pulled the nose up which may have aggravated their situation (in transcripts, the pilot called for flaps at 15 degrees on final approach). When they pulled the nose up, the airplane did, in fact, stall and then they've got a stick push, which means they had a lot of hydraulic pressure which was involved in pushing the yoke forward—that's an emergency safety device that tries to trade altitude for airspeed. That close to the ground, recovery from that was virtually impossible if you ask me. So, they hit the ground and killed everybody aboard—incredible tragedy.

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Manning: The Air France tragedy is still an inconclusive investigation. What thoughts do you have on the structural differences between Boeing and Airbus? Some skeptics are speculating that there are signs of structural failure along certain materials of the Airbus A330? Are you biased by one manufacturer over another?

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Tilmon: Initially, I was very much against the Airbus. One, coming from the old school and being resistant to change. I wasn't ready for that airplane—fly-by-wire and composites. But gradually, I began to understand that it was a very well engineered airplane with a lot of sophisticated redundancy and very safe to fly, and I have every confidence in the world that it's a world-class airplane. What happened that night? I don't even want to begin to speculate with all this conversation about the airspeed indicator and whether or not the pitot tubes were frozen over. I think we may never know what happened. The evidence, if there's any trace of it intact-- is at the bottom of the ocean. They may never find anything that gives them enough of an indication of what went wrong. That's why when you have an accident over water like that, you're never really certain that you have the answer.

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Manning: You've witnessed from the cockpit the demise of Braniff, Eastern and Pan American World Airways along with airline consolidations—most recently with Northwest Airlines being merged into Delta. Our industry is in so much economic turmoil and the product airlines are offering has changed so drastically along with society. What are your thoughts on the current state of our airlines and what can be done to save them?

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Tilmon: (responds with astonishment) We could reverse the economic recession, I suppose. The thing is, our industry should have seen it coming. There was a time during the 'Golden Years' where you could do no wrong. You could throw money around and unions could demand more, and they got it, and one union would get a leg up on the industry and the next union would say, 'Hey, I want to get paid like those guys do'. Eventually, we entered a dead-man’s spiral in terms of controlling the costs of flying an airplane. We should have done what Southwest did and of course, I think their heyday may be over, although they still have hedge bets on fuel costs. They are able to survive. When 9/11 happened it was like the perfect storm with so many factors occurring in the industry simultaneously wreaking havoc. It puts us all now in a position where we need to charge more, but we can't. We need to become very innovative about where we get our money. Are we going to charge for people bringing luggage on the plane? Are we going to charge for food? When you get right down to it, it's going to take some skillful management to help fly us out of this. Some of the airlines are doing a decent job of that. No question that we ended up with more seats than we had bodies to put in them. There are very few things more expensive than an empty airline seat. That contributed to it also. So, we need to tighten up on all of these airlines. There are plenty of 'White Tails'---what we call brand new airplanes that have never been delivered that are stored right here in Arizona because airlines couldn't take delivery of them. It's unfortunate and tragic, but we've arrived at that point where, again, it's going to take some very skillful negotiation and management and very savvy people to work together to keep our airlines flying. Many are going to survive. Others? I don't know.

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Manning: What have you missed most about the industry and what have you missed least?

 

Tilmon: What I miss most is sitting in the seat and being in control of this magnificent beast that we call an airplane. And there's not one single part of this that I didn't enjoy. Not one single part. I mean, I never sat at the controls of a single aircraft without feeling blessed. No matter what else what going on around me, whether it was the airline's finances or union troubles or whatever. Once I sat down in that seat, I was in heaven. I never took it for granted. That was the ultimate pleasure and an honor to be given that trust to fly that airplane across the world. What do I miss the least? The bickering that goes on between the unions and the management, all that kind of garbage. I just never got myself into that very much. All I wanted to do was to fly my airplane. It's kind of like the lady who stuck her head into the cockpit when we were on the ground and she said. “Oh, my. It must be an awesome responsibility. You must be all stressed out every time you take off. All of these people sitting back here with their lives depending on you”. I was flying with an old salt who said, “Maam, not really. I just fly and land the cockpit and the rest of it normally follows. I'm always amazed when I open the cockpit door, those people are still there”. (mutual laughter). Pilots are just that. The kind of pilot I was, my world began and ended at the cockpit door. Now having said that, as a Captain I made it a habit to greet my passengers as they were coming through the aircraft door and to bid them a farewell as they were walking off. Now, I don't know if you can still do that with all of these kind of rules and everything else that they have. But I thought that was my responsibility as my guests were coming aboard trusting in me and my expertise, and trusting my crew, trusting my airplane, and the airplane manufacturer, and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and all the other people who were working diligently to make this a safe flight. I just always felt that I was a part of that team and I wanted to make people feel confident that they were in good hands. It was just a wonderful experience to have the opportunity to represent that much just by standing at that door. So, I never took that for granted either. It was just a pleasure of mine to help those people who came in through that door.

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Manning: Looking back, how did you manage to maintain a flight schedule with American Airlines as a Captain and then balance that with a career as a television meteorologist and reporter? I can't recall any pilot currently who has been able to accomplish this?

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Jim Tilmon interviewing Sammy Davis, Jr.

on "Tilmon's Tempo"

Tilmon: Well, I don't either. But multi-tasking is all part of living as far as I am concerned. Very early in my career I managed to master that wherever I am, I want to be there. In the cockpit, I was not a television broadcaster. On TV, I was not an airline pilot. I knew how to compartmentalize that. So, I would fly turnarounds in the morning. I would get up and fly a trip maybe from Chicago to New York, or Washington, D.C. or Boston or wherever—the East Coast generally. Because I could go there and fly a turnaround, get right back on a turnaround to O'Hare, get out, get back downtown to the station and do television for that evening. Now, I was considerably younger then than I am now. I don't think that I could pull that off right now, frankly. But I had the energy and the desire, I was having a lot of fun. You know, you can do a lot of things when you really are enjoying it and I enjoyed everything that I was doing.

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Manning: And you enjoyed broadcasting?

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Tilmon: I did. It never rose to the level of what I got out of flying. But it was great being able to communicate with people and hopefully make their lives a little bit better and safer. I had an experience in my first few weeks of doing television. I was walking across the street in downtown Chicago, and this huge truck pulled up right in front of me, and this guy looked down from the cab and said. “Hey buddy. I make my living by what you say at ten O'clock. Don't screw it up”. And I'll never forget that because it really layed out the responsibility that I had in some very clear terms to a lot of people that I would never meet. I took my broadcasting very, very seriously. I was never one of these guys who was a funny man doing the weather. I never cracked jokes or any of that silliness, particularly in Chicago weather—it's a serious thing winter and summer. You don't take that kind of responsibility lightly. I considered flying well over a hundred people across the country and talking to a million or two people on television about how they should prepare for their days weather. All of that was very serious stuff.

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Manning: What advice could you share with pilots who are both starting their careers in commercial aviation and those veteran pilots facing an uncertain future at carriers such as US Airways and others where there are tremendous challenges with low morale and the looming prospect of yet more consolidation?

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Tilmon: Well, as you talk about morale, I mean you're talking to the wrong person. I personally would give anything to have a chance at getting back into the cockpit at any pay level. Okay, maybe your pay isn't what you want it to be. Maybe your working conditions aren't what you want it to be. There may be a lot of things you didn't expect, but you signed on to fly airplanes. You are here to do that. That is a privilege. And I hope you recognize the significance'. Now, I know that some of the complaints are legitimate. Many have faced brutal layoffs. Others are living with incomes far below what at one time was considered an industry standard. So, the complaints are well founded. But I wanted to say that what has happened with the airline industry has occurred in industries across the board. The one saving grace is that if you are still fortunate enough to continue flying, that alone is enough to give you some measure of satisfaction. You're still getting to do something that is part and parcel of your dreams. What I say to the newbies, the new guys who are coming on board now? Well, first of all there's not a hell of a lot of them because I don't know many airlines hiring. But if a person is lucky enough to get hired by an airline today, I would say 'Look forward to a fascinating career that is so gratifying and so rewarding that I don't know a parallel for it. And if you don't feel that way, you shouldn't be flying. You should be a passenger. You should not be sitting in the cockpit. If you don't feel like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, you're in the wrong place. They've got a place where they call it passenger seats'. I look forward to the day when they start hiring again, and it's going to come because you've got a couple of bubbles in the population of pilots where they've had a hiring glitch, and they're all going to start retiring around the same time. The only thing that kind of dulled that bubble is that we've got some guys that are flying longer since the 60-year-old rule has been changed (to age 65).

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Manning: I'd like to ask you about life today. You've created and produced a symphony-infused CD called “Angel Whispers” and you are an in-demand guest speaker. How did all of this come about?

 

Tilmon: Well, I majored in music in college. Music was my second love. Flying being my first. Music has always been important to my life. It's therapeutic, it does a lot for me that you can't do any other way. I had a psychologist friend of mine who told me, 'You will never have to use drugs in order to take care of your stress and your tension because you have music. And the way you use music is therapeutic and worth more than all of the drugs in a drug store'. I had the pleasure of playing in an orchestra as First Chair Clarinet. You know it's funny. I could fly in my full schedule, and then get up in the wee hours of the morning and fly and come back. And by evening, I'd go to orchestra rehearsal. Just sitting and playing in that orchestra, I'd feel as if I slept ten hours. I felt that good. The benefit of being involved in music at that level was just amazing.

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Manning: You were First Chair Clarinetist with the Lake Forest Symphony?

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Tilmon: Yes I was. I played E-flat Clarinet for a while with the The Evanston Symphony Orchestra, which was a much larger and more prestigious symphony in Evanston, Illinois. That's the home of Northwestern University. It's a beautiful college town. It's a magnificent city with a lot of culture there right down there on Lake Michigan. My father got his Masters degree from Northwestern, and that's how I came to play. I was highly honored to play in that orchestra.

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Jim and Joan Tilmon

Manning: Lastly Jim, I know you recently celebrated your 75th birthday. What goals lie ahead for you and your wife, Joan?

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Tilmon: Well, we have a couple of things we are passionate about right now. One of those deals with our youth. I've seen tragedy after tragedy with our teenagers in this country and it's not their fault. The adults in this country are the ones who are responsible for allowing this condition to run rampant. These kids have fallen victim to all kinds of challenges. The system itself is flawed, I believe. Kids that grew up in the earlier years had after school programs designed to give them guidance. Now at about the age of thirteen, there are very few particularly effective programs for these teenagers. So, they get home from school and generally, there's nobody there. Both parents are working, so they're unsupervised. So more than eighty five-percent of them wind up on the Internet every single day and for that reason, a very good friend of mine and I are putting together a corporation that is going to deal with some of the challenges kids are faced with that are not getting good answers. If you think they're getting good answers from the Internet now, think again. We're putting together an interactive Internet training and guiding experience to provide answers and guidance. Challenges such as what they are facing with teen pregnancy and obesity, drugs and alcohol, abuse, parents who are incarcerated. What they face are parents who in some instances themselves are teenagers. What they face today is very critical that they find good, solid information and answers to their challenges and we're going to provide that to reach millions of people in this country. It's ambitious and we know it. But challenges are nothing knew to me. It's something I have to do because I know how. Presently, we are scouring the country for educators to reach the kids on these subjects. We want content that's really going to help kids to find their way. I can tell you at this moment that's where I'm spending my time and energy.

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Since this interview was conducted, Your Success Network has become operational and is featured (along with Rachel's Challenge) on my Blogroll. My thanks to Jim Tilmon for making this interview possible.

Michael