“I hate to sound nonchalant about it,” said his widow, with more than a hint of McQueen’s famed cool, “but to me he was a normal guy -- a guy with a fun job.”
She said she never asked him why he poured himself into flying. After he died, some said that his father, who abandoned the family when McQueen was a baby, had been a barnstormer with an aerial circus. As with other McQueen myths, there is no evidence to support it, said biographer Terrill.
Around the airport, the highest-paid actor of his day was known as an ordinary Joe. People took pleasure in shielding him from the paparazzi that trooped to the small citrus town.
“The main thing he enjoyed is that he wasn’t idolized here,” said Pete Mason, a pilot who, with his wife, runs a business repairing airplane fabric.
Mason’s father, Sammy Mason, was a renowned test pilot who was approached by McQueen for lessons. Pete had to tell his dad that the Steve who called him really was the actor he claimed to be. “Dad!” he recalled saying in exasperation. “‘The Great Escape’? The guy on the motorcycle?”
An expert at car and motorcycle racing, McQueen proved to be an adept pilot. With only a ninth-grade education, he struggled to pass the written test and succeeded on his third try.
Mike Dewey, a retired movie stunt flier who also helped instruct McQueen, was impressed with his “incredible discipline” as he practiced grueling aerobatic moves.
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