A Neighborly Nightmare:
Steve McQueen vs. Keith Moon
I live way out in the middle of no place. We get along great with our neighbors. However, most everybody hereabouts cherishes their space. I legitimately cannot imagine living in some big, congested city. The very thought makes me itch. It seems I’m not the only guy in the world to feel that way.
Second only to my Dad, Steve McQueen was
arguably the coolest guy who ever lived.
From Nothing to Everything
Steve McQueen was born in March 1930 to an alcoholic single mother. For the first 14 years of his life, McQueen bounced around, living with various family members. While some of the time spent living on a rural farm with his uncle was warm and loving, most everything else was not. Violent exchanges with serial stepfathers ultimately pushed the young man onto the streets. By age 14, he had been remanded to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino, a state facility for incorrigible young men.
At 17, McQueen enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He had to get his mother’s permission to do so. While on active duty, he was demoted seven times and spent 41 days in the brig. Following this experience, McQueen resolved to get his life in order and subsequently served as an exemplary Marine. He eventually saved the lives of five fellow Marines when their tank fell through the ice during an arctic exercise. He ended his time in uniform as part of the honor guard on board Harry Truman’s Presidential yacht.
McQueen left the Marines in 1952 and studied acting using the GI Bill. After the obligatory run of bit parts and minor stage appearances, he hit it big. Along the way, he raced cars, collected machineguns, dated starlets, and generally lived a life of manly action. By the 1970s, Steve McQueen was the most highly paid actor in Hollywood.
Keith Moon was a gifted drummer but a lousy human being.
Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll
Keith Moon was born in the summer of 1946. He grew up to become the drummer for the British rock band The Who. Moon is regarded as one of the greatest percussionists in the history of rock and roll. He was also more than a little bit crazy.
Moon had a violent streak. He frequently destroyed his drum sets while on stage. He also trashed hotel rooms with distressing regularity. One of his signature bad-boy moves was to wreck the hotel plumbing by flushing cherry bombs down the toilets.
Such stuff seems kind of comical at a distance. Up close, it was predictably horrible. Moon suffered from alcoholism, and his relationships consistently and predictably failed. He passed out on stage on several occasions and was hospitalized as a result of his epically lousy life choices. He earned the nickname “Moon the Loon” among his tour entourage.
The Failed Quest for Normalcy
By the ’70s, both McQueen and Moon found themselves with more money than they could ever spend. They were also both suffering mightily from the inevitable deleterious effects of fame. With the entire planet screaming for their attention, the two celebrities just wanted a little peace. This led them to purchase side-by-side mansions on the beach in Malibu, California.
In the beginning, Moon tried to be personable. McQueen was there first, living with his movie star wife, Ali McGraw. When Moon moved in, McQueen had him and his girlfriend over for drinks. When Moon subsequently organized a raucous rock star bash as a housewarming party, he invited McQueen to attend. Things kind of went downhill from there.
The details are sketchy. Moon got into a fight with McQueen’s 16-year-old son, Chad. Steve’s dog bit Moon and Moon bit it back. The cops got involved. Eventually, somebody suggested that all involved parties meet at the Malibu District Attorney’s office to try to iron out a compromise.
The night before the scheduled meeting, Moon dressed up in a Nazi uniform and hit the local bars. This was something he did with some frequency. Nobody really knows why. The following morning, now hungover but still dressed like Heinrich Himmler, Moon showed up at the DA’s office for the confab. His startled lawyer claimed he was shooting a TV commercial that morning to justify the Nazi mufti, but nobody believed him. They left the meeting having done little to cool the simmering acrimony between the two superstars.
Things Get Kinetic
Moon built a giant French window facing McQueen’s home, a mere 50 yards away. He spent an inordinate amount of time behind the glass with binoculars, hoping to get a glimpse of Ali McGraw naked. He also installed spotlights facing toward his neighbor’s palatial mansion in pursuit of this lecherous goal. There were lots of loud, crazy parties as well. Eventually, the King of Cool had simply had enough.
The bright lights shining directly into his home interfered with McQueen’s sleep, something he viewed as sacrosanct. Finally, at his wit’s end, McQueen simply stepped outside and blew the lights out with his favorite 12-bore shotgun, and then he went back to bed.
Moon rightfully felt that the local cops would not be terribly sympathetic given his eclectic fashion choices, so he opted not to report anything. McQueen actually shot his neighbor’s lights out once more before he got the memo. Eventually, Moon moved back to the UK, where he died of a drug overdose at age 32.
Steve McQueen’s denouement was comparably tragic. He developed pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive form of lung cancer brought upon by asbestos exposure and exacerbated by cigarettes. McQueen went to Mexico, where he was treated with a weird variety of alternative medical therapies, including coffee enemas, injections of live cells harvested from cattle and sheep, and a dangerous experimental drug called laetrile. Predictably, none of that worked. McQueen succumbed to the disease in 1980 at 50 years old. It was an ignoble end to a most acrimonious and unneighborly feud.
