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Before making his way back to the United States, McQueen worked in a brothel as a towel boy for a time. He returned home and began a series of odd jobs around the country, including working on oil rigs and in a carnival. In 1947, McQueen enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and became a tank driver. Showing his rebellious streak, he ended up in the brig for extending a weekend pass into a two-week holiday. McQueen was far from the model soldier. "I was busted back down to private about seven times. The only way I could have been...

StarTrek.com is saddened to report the passing of Lawrence Montaigne, the veteran actor who played the Romulan, Decius, in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Balance of Terror" in 1966 and returned a year later to portray Stonn, a Vulcan, in "Amok Time." The actor died on Friday, March 17, at the age of 86... He was featured in such films as The Great Escape (with Steve McQueen and James Garner), Tubruk (with Rock Hudson and George Peppard) and The Power (with George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette), and later in Captain Sinbad and Damon & Pythias (both starring Guy...

He was the mastermind of the mass prison break from a German camp which inspired the iconic film The Great Escape. But a new book has now suggested Spitfire pilot Roger Bushell could also have been linked to the assassination of notorious Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich, known as 'Hitler's Hangman' and the acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Simon Pearson's The Great Escaper places Bushell in Prague at the time Heydrich's car was bombed by Czechoslovakian Jan Kubiš, and Slovak Jozef Gabčík, which led to the Nazi officer's death a number of days later.

I always liked that guy's films, own a couple of 'em. What an interesting read. Go to Wiki sometime and put his name in, wow. That guy was cool. I guess I didn't realize he died so young (ha, 50, I'm older than that). I can identify with him so much, what a trip. I love that film "Le Mans" because I am a racing film. It is basically stupid, except for the tasty automobiles, but I watch it every few months and always get a tear. I'm weird like that about films.

Three Weeks in Steve McQueen's World In the spring of 1963, Steve McQueen was on the brink of superstardom, already popular from his big-screen breakout as one of The Magnificent Seven and just a couple months away from entering the Badass Hall of Fame with the release of The Great Escape. Intrigued by his dramatic backstory and his off-screen exploits — McQueen was a reformed delinquent who got his thrills racing cars and motorcycles — LIFE sent photographer John Dominis to California to hang out with the 33-year-old actor and see what he could get. Three weeks and more than...

Marching along the frozen roads of Poland and northern Germany this week, a hardy group of young RAF recruits - accompanied by relatives of the survivors of the famous Great Escape of 1944 - are commemorating a legendary moment in history. Sixty-five years on, they are recreating the deadly 1,000-mile march which the Nazis forced captured Allied airmen to undertake at the end of World War II. It is a fitting commemoration of the bravery and toughness of a remarkable group of British, American and Canadian airmen, dozens of whom were involved in the previous year's escape from the notorious...

The Great Escape tunnels greater than thought By Gary Cleland Last Updated: 1:54am BST 10/09/2007 The discovery of dozens of underground tunnels has uncovered the extraordinary risks that Allied prisoners took bidding for freedom from the Nazi prison camp that inspired The Great Escape. Far from just the three tunnels - Tom, Dick and Harry - made famous in the classic film, archeologists at Stalag Luft III in Zagan, Poland, have found more than 100 attempted escape routes. Tunnel plans - click to enlarge The discovery is powerful evidence that Allied prisoners, led on the big screen by Richard Attenborough...

The cartoon depicting the Great Escape was drawn ten days after the breakout from Stalag Luft III Prison camp art that escaped guardsBy Jack Malvern PoW's scrapbook of the Great Ecape is to be auctioned A CARTOON of the prison break depicted in the film The Great Escape has emerged in a prisoner’s war diary. The cartoon — drawn ten days after the event and accompanied by a poem lamenting the shooting of 50 of the escapees — appears in a scrapbook that belonged to Clive Nutting, a prisoner who was involved in the two most celebrated escapes of...

A Second World War hero who claimed to be the inspiration behind Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape has died aged 102. Squadron Leader Eric Foster, who escaped seven times from prisoner-of-war camps during the Second World War, died peacefully at home. As a Flight Lieutenant with 38 Bomber Squadron, Mr Foster was shot down in 1940. He made repeated escapes over the following four years and later wrote about his exploits in his autobiography, Life Hangs by a Silken Thread, published in 1992. Mr Foster claimed that some of his wartime activities were depicted on the big screen...