Chris Mitchum’s fluke showdown with Steve McQueen

Chris Mitchum, the middle child of the disturbed “Night of the Hunter” preacher powerfully portrayed by Hollywood icon Robert Mitchum, reveals how he serendipitously met the King of Cool while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway shortly before his demise. Meanwhile, back at the ranch…in early May 1980 Steve McQueen and third wife-fashion model Barbara Minty finally celebrated their honeymoon after tying the knot four months earlier in a quaint domestic setting where the preacher had to be reimbursed with a dozen eggs from a convenient chicken coop. The King of Cool is seen aboard the 553-foot Pacific Princess, forever enshrined as television’s “The Love Boat,” on a week-long cruise to Acapulco, Mexico. McQueen was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma three days before Christmas 1979 and as stated by Minty in her 2006 memoir, “The eye of my camera caught all the character in his face — deep lines, age spots, mustache, and beard…Steve reminds me of an Ernest Hemingway literary character come to life in his sunglasses and windbreaker.” Six months after this candid McQueen succumbed to cardiac arrest from widespread metastasis mere hours after undergoing a controversial operation in a Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, clinic to remove a massive five-pound tumor from his abdomen. Photography by Barbara Minty McQueen / appears in “Steve McQueen: The Last Mile…Revisited”

Robert Mitchum may have been the inventor of big screen cool but that didn’t necessarily translate to a glowing appreciation for those that followed in his footsteps. While shooting David Lean’s overblown romantic war epic Ryan’s Daughter over a rain-delayed 10 months in 1969-era Dingle, Ireland, the laid-back tough hombre unpredictably disparaged Steve McQueen during a conversation with The Chicago Sun-Times’s new kid on the block critic Roger Ebert. “I never saw Robert Wise’s The Sand Pebbles,” admitted Mitchum. “Of course, that was a problem picture out in front with Steve McQueen in it. You’ve got to realize a Steve McQueen performance just naturally lends itself to monotony. Steve doesn’t bring too much to the party.” Mitchum didn’t give a damn that McQueen received his sole Academy Award nomination enlivening stubborn Navy machinist’s mate Jake Holman in the post-World War I Yangtze River saga.

Both Mitchum sons — Jim and Chris — were actors. Lookalike kid Jim’s seventh-billed part in the elder Mitchum’s cult classic moonshine drama Thunder Road [1958] seemed promising but meatier roles in slick studio productions largely eluded him. On the other hand, the blonde-haired, sensitive child in the middle dreamed of being a writer. Obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Literature degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Chris transferred to the University of…