A few years before he was an actor, McQueen was a juvenile delinquent. A few years before he was a movie star, McQueen was a towel boy in a brothel. A few years before he commanded $3 million fees and gross points, McQueen raced motorcycles on weekends because he needed the prize money. McQueen's life was full of emotional contradictions: he was fanatically loyal but unrelentingly paranoid; devoted but faithless; a bastard seeking legitimacy; an early environmentalist and perennial chauvinist; famous worldwide and desperate for anonymity and solitude. An actor schooled in method but grounded outside of any process, he pared away all pretension, imbuing his characters with a vitality that was never just about what he said or how he looked but the way he did it. His performances were effortless yet powerful, raw yet complex. At a level beyond easy analysis, McQueen connected with the people who saw him on television, in movie houses, anywhere on earth. Even at the peak of his...