Paul Newman and Steve McQueen’s fiery feud on The Towering Inferno set | Films | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Back in 1974, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen starred reverse one another within the basic catastrophe film The Towering Inferno.

Among the remainder of the spectacular solid have been William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire and extra.

Due to such star energy, each McQueen and Dunaway made it very clear that they have been to not be approached by set guests, whereas Newman merely requested that he not be stunned.

Amazingly, there was an precise real-life hearth that broke out on The Towering Inferno set which noticed The Great Escape star having to assist firemen out.

When one of many firemen recognised the actor, he stated, “My wife is not going to believe this!”, to which McQueen replied, “Neither is mine.”

The King of Cool even insisted that he do his personal stunt of leaping off a helicopter onto the highest of the fictional burning constructing, regardless of producer Irwin Allen’s robust objections. And at one level, McQueen was left fuming when he found that Newman had 12 extra strains than he did. According to the latter’s lifelong pal A E Hotchner, upon listening to this he referred to his co-star as “a chicken s***”.

On high of this, the 2 Towering Inferno leads have been demanding high billing on the poster and credit, alongside Holden – however he didn’t stand an opportunity having not had a field workplace hit in a number of years. In the tip, the primary duo had twin high billing with The Great Escape star’s identify coming first however his co-lead’s being larger up.

This, subsequently, seemed that each have been the primary star relying on for those who have been studying the poster left-to-right or top-to-bottom. The staggered or diagonal billing was the primary of its variety, though it had been thought of for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid earlier than McQueen left the undertaking and was changed by the much less well-known Robert Redford. Meanwhile, the King of Cool’s identify got here first in The Towering Inferno trailer, however Newman’s appeared first in the long run credit despite the fact that the names have been organized diagonally once more.

Additionally, each Hollywood stars have been paid an equal charge of $1 million for his or her roles as Doug Roberts, the Glass Tower architect (Newman) and Michael O’Halloran, SFFD fifth Battalion Chief (McQueen). Filming occurred over 14 weeks and in response to director John Guillermin, each have been superb to work alongside and added a lot to their components.

The Towering Inferno was the highest-grossing film of 1974 and obtained eight Oscar nominations together with Best Picture. The film went on to win three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Original Song in We May Never Love Like This Again by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn.