Back when, a few friends and I had a serious dispute: they thought Paul Newman infinitely more handsome and interesting than Steve McQueen. I suppose it came down to class and politics. Newman was a smug self-important lefty. McQueen was a rather nondescript, close-mouthed loner. In any event, the only time Newman ever came close to being cool was in a movie named Cool Hand Luke, in which he failed to communicate. McQueen, by most accounts, epitomized cool. As with jazz, if you had to ask what the quality amounted to, you'd never know. McQueen simply had it: looks, distance,...