1968 marked a real turning point in the actors’ respective film and motor racing careers. That year, Paul Newman played driver Frank Capua in James Goldstone’s film Winning, set against the backdrop of the 1968 Indy 500.  Meanwhile, Steve McQueen set up his own production company, known as Solar, and scored an immediate hit with Bullitt. Directed by Great Britain’s Peter Yates, this urban crime thriller is famous for its car chase through the streets of San Francisco, pitting a Ford Mustang driven by McQueen himself against a Dodge Charger steered by Bill Hickman, the best American car stuntman of the time. The sequence was so memorable that the car chase would subsequently become a recurring feature of every crime film set in San Francisco for decades to come.

STEVE MCQUEEN, LE MANS… FROM REAL LIFE RACING TO SILVER SCREEN DRAMA

However, like Paul Newman, Steve McQueen had his sights set on the race track. In April 1969, the actor first revealed in TV series Wanted, Dead or Alive visited Le Mans where he met Gonzague Mordret, General Manager of the ACO at the time. He then did some location scouting during the 37th running of the French endurance classic.

Steve McQueen intended not only to produce and star in a film about the 24 Hours, but also to compete in the race in a Porsche 917 shared with none other than Jackie Stewart, reigning Formula One world champion. However, his insurers vetoed the idea. The actor still managed to take part in the 12 Hours of Sebring in March 1970. With teammate Peter Revson in a Porsche 908, McQueen came close to victory, but finally had to make do with second place. Their Porsche was used as a camera car when filming during the 24 Hours three months later.

The film, simply titled Le Mans, encountered a series of difficulties during production. It combined scenes filmed during the race itself with sequences re-enacted at the circuit from June to November 1970. However, the film’s director John Sturges, who had previously shot McQueen in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, was concerned about a lack of script and eventually quit the project, to be replaced by Lee H. Katzin. With McQueen, however, no expense was spared: Solar recruited around forty drivers, built a village especially for the production and commissioned the French composer Michel Legrand to write the music. It was a box-office flop that almost bankrupted the actor on its release in spring 1971. However, the film has gained cult status over the decades and is especially admired for the realism of the race sequences, shot at real speed.

When McQueen died on 7 November 1980, aged just 50, French TV changed its schedule to broadcast Le Mans as a tribute.

PAUL NEWMAN, FROM WINNING  ON SCREEN TO A PODIUM IN LA SARTHE

Steve McQueen and Paul Newman only came together once on a film set. That was when they starred opposite one another in disaster movie The Towering Inferno (1974), one of the biggest box-office hits of the 1970s.

At the same time, Newman was enjoying a motor racing career that he had embarked on rather late in life, after filming Winning. He competed in both the Trans Am (the American grand touring sports car championship) and in endurance racing, and finished fifth in the 1977 24 Hours of Daytona. He then set up a team to race in the CanAm Challenge, contested in Canada and the United States. His drivers included Keke Rosberg, the future Formula 1 world champion.

A decade after McQueen’s first visit to La Sarthe to scout for locations for Le Mans, Newman arrived to compete in the 24 Hours at the wheel of a Porsche 935. He teamed up with Dick Barbour, driver and team owner, and Rolf Stommelen, admired for his prowess at the wheel of the German manufacturer’s cars and polesitter in a Porsche 917 at the 1969 race.

The #70 935 moved up into the top ten in the second hour of the race and put in a steady performance, despite the rain, and broke into the top five in the tenth hour. Despite the tremendous pressure he was under from the public and the media, Newman drove an exemplary race and by the fifteenth hour, the actor and his teammates were in second place behind the other 935 driven by leaders Klaus Ludwig and Bill & Don Whittington. When the latter was struck by fuel injection issues shortly before the finish line, the #70 was thought to have won. However, it too was set back by a faulty head gasket and finished the race at snail’s pace. On this, his only Le Mans entry, Newman thus finished second overall and winner of his class, which the #70 Porsche had dominated almost from start to finish.

He later joined forces with Carl Haas (no relation to Gene Haas, owner of the eponymous F1 team), a Lola chassis importer in the United States, to create the Newman-Haas team in the American single-seater CART and Champ Car series. The team played a pivotal role in Sebastien Bourdais’ career: he won four consecutive seasons with them from 2004 to 2007, joining Mario Andretti and his son Michael, along with former Formula One world champion Nigel Mansell, on the team’s honours list. As a sign of their close friendship, Newman made one of his final trips to Europe in May 2006 for Bourdais’ wedding in Le Mans. Born on 28 February 1979, Bourdais was just three and half months old when the actor climbed on to the second step on the 24 Hours podium.

Meanwhile, Newman continued his glittering film career, which saw him win a Best Actor Oscar in 1987 for his role in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money. In that film, he co-starred with Tom Cruise, another fan of motorsport and high-speed action. Newman turned 70 in 1995, which didn’t stop him from coming third at the 24 Hours of Daytona that year. He lined up on the grid again ten years later (aged 80!), teamed with Bourdais and Brazilian Bruno Junqueira, his two Champ Car drivers at that time.

A few weeks before his death on 26 September 2008, Newman treated himself to one last automotive experience, bringing together family, friends and loved ones at Lime Rock Raceway, about 100 kilometres from his home in Westport, Connecticut.

PHOTOS: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), 24 HOURS OF LE MANS CIRCUIT – TOP TO BOTTOM (Copyright: ACO ARCHIVES): the Porsche driven by Paul Newman, Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen finished eight laps behind the winners; fitted with three cameras at the 1970 24 Hours to shoot footage for the film Le Mans, the Porsche 908 entered by Steve McQueen’s production company was driven by Herbert Linge and Jonathan Williams; McQueen at the 24 Hours circuit in 1970 to shoot Le Mans; Newman at the prize-giving ceremony in 1979, when he went into the race’s history books.