Steve McQueen fact file

1953 - Steve makes two appearances as an extra in the film 'Girl on the Run'.

1955 - He auditions along with 2000 others for a place in Lee Strasberg's New York Actors' Studio. Steve and Martin Landau were the only ones accepted.

1955 - McQueen makes his debut on Broadway when he replaces Ben Gazzara in the lead role in 'A Hatful of Rain'.

1956 - Has small role in the film 'Somebody Up There Likes Me', in which Paul Newman had the lead role.

1958 - After making two appearances as bounty hunter Josh Randall in television series 'Trackdown', the character got his own show 'Wanted: Dead or Alive'. The series ran until 1961.

1958 - Steve takes his first leading role in cult sci-fi movie 'The Blob'.

1959 - Replaces Sammy Davis Jr. to star alongside Frank Sinatra in 'Never So Few'.

1960 - Steve joins an all-star cast with the likes of Yul Brynner, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn and James Coburn to appear in 'The Magnificent Seven'.

1963 - McQueen plays a prisoner of war trying to escape a German POW camp in 'The Great Escape'. The actor performed a lot of the motorcycle riding seen in the movie, however, he didn't perform the famous jump over the barbed wire due to 'insurance reasons'.

1965 - The actor stars alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson in the 'The Cincinnati Kid'.

1966 - Steve and school friend Martin Landau star in the western 'Nevada Smith'.

1966 - McQueen impresses as US Navy sailor Jake Holman in 'The Sand Pebbles' for which he received an Oscar nomination.

1968 - Steve plays rich bank robber Thomas Crown in crime drama 'The Thomas Crown Affair'.

1968 - The actor stars as Lt. Frank Bullitt in cop thriller 'Bullitt', which is best known for its amazing car chase. The film also won an Oscar for Best Film Editing.

1969 - McQueen cast in road movie 'The Reivers', which was based on the final novel by William Faulkner.

1971 - Steve's character Michael Delaney battles it out with a German driver to win the 24 hour Grand Prix 'Le Mans'.

1972 - He appears as rodeo rider 'JR' in director Sam Peckinpah's 'Junior Bonner'.

1972 - In another Sam Peckinpah directod movie, McQueen stars with soon-to-be wife Ali MacGraw in 'The Getaway'.

1973 - Dustin Hoffman and Steve star in 'Papillon', a film based on the true story of Henri Charriere, a man innocent of murder, who is sent to jail on an island in French Guiana.

1974 - Steve shares top billing with Paul Newman in the disaster movie 'The Towering Inferno'. The movie also starred big names including Fred Astaire and Faye Dunaway, as well as Robert Vaughn, who had worked with Steve on 'Bullitt' and 'The Magnificent Seven'. The film made the cover of many magazines, including Mad magazine

1976 - Surprisingly, McQueen made a shock appearance as a dirt-bike rider in the film 'Dixie Dynamite'. He was a stuntman, not an actor.

1978 - Steve plays a docter battling against a town in 'An Enemy of the People', which was based on a play by Henrik Ibsen.

1980 - Steve makes his penultimate appearance in the western 'Tom Horn'.

1980 - He makes his final big screen appearance in the film 'The Hunter', one year before his death.