At the Santa Paula Airport, Steve McQueen was a pilot, not a celebrity

LAT ^ | November 30, 2008 | Steve Chawkins

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'The Great Escape' superstar spent his last year there. Neighbors remember him as a generous man who enjoyed quiet respect and cheap beer.

One day in 1979 the King of Cool decided to fly.

Before anyone knew it, Steve McQueen was living with his girlfriend in a hangar at the Santa Paula Airport. During the day, he learned to pilot a World War II-era biplane. In the evening, the tough-guy superstar would crack open cold beers with grease monkeys, fledgling pilots and aging flyboys who still had a few loop-de-loops left in them.

He and his girlfriend, a stunning model who would become his third wife, slept on a four-poster brass bed amid his vintage motorcycles and airplane parts. His bright yellow Stearman biplane loomed over their cramped quarters, its wings close enough to create a head-whacking hazard for someone groping through the dark.

But life was good: On Saturday nights, the couple kicked back in their hangar -- really a big storage shed -- to watch "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" on a black-and-white TV. Dinner was often a feed at the local Chinese restaurant.

"It was a sweet time in a sweet place," said Barbara McQueen, the last woman in McQueen's life. "We just loved it."

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McQueen Jag.

So what happened to McQueen’s XKSS? In the early ‘70s, the actor was big into circuit racing, but felt his Jaguar too rare to risk. He sold it to casino owner Bill Harrah to join his 1,400-car collection in Reno, Nevada, but only on condition the car was never driven, or sold, and that McQueen could buy it back at the original price.

Following Harrah’s death, McQueen asked for the car back under the original agreement, but the new management refused to co-operate. Only after a lengthy legal battle did he reclaim the Jaguar, which kept until his death in 1980, willing it to his children, Chad and Terry. In November 1984, the car was auctioned off at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas for just $150,000, and bought by McQueen’s friend, Richard Freshman who had the car refurbished by Jaguar experts, Lynx Engineering in England.

“I know I was probably crazy to sell it,” Chad McQueen told us. “But when my dad died, he had 133 motor bikes and 35 cars. With the inheritance tax laws at the time, we knew we were going to have a big hit. So the XKSS had to go.”

These days, McQueen’s XKSS is owned by Margie and Robert Petersen, founders of the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.

As for the $150,000 price paid by Richard Freshman back in ‘84, it was a steal. Today, any one of the 16 original XKSS cars will fetch over $1 million. But for those lucky enough to own one of the 16 original XKSS’s the thrill of simply driving these machines is worth far more than $1 million. It’s priceless."

[Monterrosa-24]

Those are great pics. Thanks!