by Greg Laurie
“He said, ‘Leonard, now that I know Christ, I really want to live. I believe God could use me, but if He doesn’t hear me it’s okay, because I know where I’m going.’”
“Many of us prayed for the Lord to heal Steve,” says Leonard, his voice cracking, “but it was not God’s plan.”
McQueen had finally placed his faith in the Lord but, as sick as he was, he still wasn’t done looking for answers and covering all bets—including some off-the-wall ones.
A TEST OF FAITH
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Being a Christian isn’t for the faint or weak of heart. Many people are under the impression that all of life’s ills or problems go away once we commit our lives to Jesus Christ. I’ve been around long enough to know it’s the exact opposite in many cases. Jesus knew all about this when He said, “In this world, you will have tribulation.”
For centuries, Christians have had it rough. We’ve been mocked, spit upon, stoned, and crucified for our beliefs, and we’re reaching that tipping point yet again in today’s increasingly secular society. “In God We Trust,” one of the founding principles of this country, is deemed offensive, even incompatible with our ideals. We adhere to a strident and false political correctness that seeks to bar religion and faith from our public discourse.
When Steve McQueen learned he had cancer, I’m sure he was perplexed and had questions for the Lord. Why now? Why, when he was finally at the happiest point ever? Why, when he had just made the most important and best decision of his entire life? Steve was quite new in the Christian faith. He was just getting his bearings and now came the worst news imaginable.
McQueen’s prognosis was grim, but he did as he always did when his back was against the wall. He fought back, living life to the fullest. On January 16, 1980, just one month after his cancer diagnosis, Steve and Barbara Minty were wed in the living room of their ranch home in Santa Paula.
Sammy and Wanda Mason were the witnesses at this ten-minute ceremony, after which McQueen called a friend on the phone and said, “This is the greatest thing to happen to me.”
A month later, Steve went back to Cedars-Sinai Hospital for additional tests. They disclosed that his cancer was out of control. It had spread to the lining of his stomach, and tumors as big as golf balls were growing at the base of his neck and on his chest and abdomen. Surgery and chemotherapy would be futile, the doctors said. He had a mere 5-percent chance of living through the end of the year.
Steve was quite new in the Christian faith. He was just getting his bearings and now came the worst news imaginable.
He was, in other words, the definition of a dead man walking.
Faithful to his character and the attitude that had made him what he was, McQueen stubbornly refused to give in. “I can’t believe it’s over. I won’t believe it,” he said. “There is so much I want to do . . . so much I have to do!”
He made a mental list of friends, associates, and people he cared about and contacted every name on it. Some he told about his condition; others he just said he was calling to offer his best wishes. The ones he had wronged, he apologized to—including his first wife, Neile, for the many indiscretions he committed during their marriage. It was an incredibly brave act.
It was also the right thing to do.
The Bible talks about restitution. It states that as much as possible we should seek to right the wrongs we’ve done to others in life.
The Gospels tell the story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector abhorred by his fellow Hebrews because he not only collected exorbitantly high taxes for the occupying force of Rome but also sliced off a little extra for himself.
One day Jesus came to town and invited himself to Zacchaeus’s house for lunch. This created quite a stir among the townspeople because Zacchaeus was such a notorious sinner.
But Jesus specializes in turning notorious sinners into notorious Christians, and that’s what happened with Zacchaeus, who following their lunch said, “Master, I give away half my income to the poor—and if I’m caught cheating, I pay four times the damages” (Luke 19:8 MSG).
Zacchaeus had spent a lifetime taking advantage of others; now, his heart touched by God, he would make restitution.
He made a mental list of friends, associates, and people he cared about and contacted every name on it. Some he told about his condition; others he just said he was calling to offer his best wishes. The ones he had wronged, he apologized to—including his first wife, Neile, for the many indiscretions he committed during their marriage. It was an incredibly brave act. It was also the right thing to do.
In his own way, Steve was doing the same. He was a very private person, but he recognized the impact he had on the lives of those around him. It was closure in a sense but also a poetic and valorous thing to do in the face of his prognosis. With so little time left, he was thinking about others, and one by one he said his farewells.
He knew he was going to die. He intended to fight with every ounce of his being, but he was a pragmatic man and knew the odds were against him. And now as a newly-minted Christian, McQueen knew he was set for the afterlife with a reservation guaranteed by Jesus Christ Himself. But he wanted to be ready, to be prepared.
He knew he was going to die. He intended to fight with every ounce of his being, but he was a pragmatic man and knew the odds were against him.
Because, after all, heaven is a prepared place for prepared people.
On March 11, 1980, McQueen’s condition became public knowledge when the National Enquirer ran a cover story with a screaming headline: “Steve McQueen’s Heroic Battle Against Cancer.” Some of the information in the story was wrong—it said McQueen had been diagnosed with lung cancer, for example, when it was actually mesothelioma—but it did correctly report there was little hope for the actor.
The Enquirer story was the first of a slew of tabloid eruptions that turned the time left to Steve into a horrible circus. At first he called what they reported “garbage” and tried to back it up by making some staged public appearances. But he lacked the stamina necessary to keep up the charade, and finally he sat down with Barbi to talk about what to do.
“When Steve was told his cancer was inoperable,” Barbi says. “He gave me a choice.”
They would continue their lives together as newlyweds, enjoying what little time life afforded him, or Steve could fight this cancer with everything he had.
“I was a young bride and wanted a life with my new husband, so for me there really was no choice. I said, ‘Let’s fight this thing.’ Looking back, it may not have been the best idea because his quality of life really suffered in the end and it was a painful ordeal, but I was so in love with this man, I wanted to do everything humanly possible to help him get well.”
Modern medical science had written Steve off—which left only alternative treatments, mostly propounded by shills and hucksters hoping to make a big financial score off the misery and desperation of others.
Modern medical science had written Steve off—which left only alternative treatments, mostly propounded by shills and hucksters hoping to make a big financial score off the misery and desperation of others.
The first alternative practitioner McQueen saw told him that several weeks of intravenous feedings, megadoses of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants, and a special cleansing diet would save his life. Hoping to avoid the paparazzi, Steve rented a fully equipped RV and parked it outside the doctor’s San Fernando Valley office. The painful treatments required McQueen to lie flat on his back six hours a day, five days a week, for seven weeks. I can only imagine what went through his mind during those long ordeals. Barbi herself gave him the injections ordered by the doctor, who said he was legally prevented from doing so himself.
“The whole thing was way illegal,” Barbi said, “but Steve was desperate to find a cure, and that led us down a desperate path.”
Tragically, the treatment did nothing to alleviate his condition. Then Steve heard about Dr. William D. Kelley, who claimed that most cancers could be eradicated through
strict dietary measures.
But as the saying goes, “Once burned, twice shy.” This time McQueen hired a detective to conduct a background check on Kelley before putting himself in his hands. It turned out that Kelly’s only medical degree was one from the Baylor College of Dentistry, and that he claimed to have gotten into the alternative medicine business at the direct behest of Jesus—who, Kelley said, had sat him on His knee and personally given him his marching orders when Kelley was three years old.
I have uncovered and written this story, I’ve wished I could step back in time and offer some sound biblical counsel to Steve, the new believer, to help him discern between legitimate and illegitimate people claiming to be believers.
Of course, this is completely absurd on its face. More than once as I have uncovered and written this story, I’ve wished I could step back in time and offer some sound biblical counsel to Steve, the new believer, to help him discern between legitimate and illegitimate people claiming to be believers.
In 1964, the thirty-seven-year-old Kelley said he was diagnosed with malignancies on his liver and pancreas and given only weeks to live but survived and thrived after his mother threw all the junk food out of their house and fed him only fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, grains, and seeds. This led to experimentations with such supposed detoxifying remedies as coffee enemas, and in 1967 he wrote a book called One Answer to Cancer.
To Barbi McQueen, Kelley was “kind of a weirdo, a little off.” Sure sounds like it.
“Naturopathic medicine wasn’t as mainstream as it is today,” she says, “and the whole thing had an underground feel to it. I didn’t particularly care for Kelley, but this was Steve’s choice, and I was there to support him. How I felt about the man didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I just wanted Steve to get well.”
“While he was under sedation,” Barbi says, “the doctors pretty much told me he was going to die. I could hardly breathe,” she added, misty-eyed.
Steve and Barbi flew to Kelly’s organic farm in Washington State in April 1980 and listened to his presentation but returned to Santa Paula without agreeing to anything. Within a few more months McQueen no longer saw anyone. In late June he called Sammy Mason and asked him to take him up in the plane one last time. They made a date, but when Sammy got to the hangar, Steve wasn’t there.
His condition was worsening. McQueen finally picked up the phone and dialed Dr. Kelley. “What can you do for me if I go all the way with your program?” he asked. Kelley made no promises but told McQueen every second was precious.
On July 30, two days after the premier of The Hunter, McQueen checked into Cedars-Sinai Hospital for another review of his case. “While he was under sedation,” Barbi says, “the doctors pretty much told me he was going to die. I could hardly breathe,” she added, misty-eyed.
“It was suggested I keep him sedated all the time, and when the pain got to be unbearable, bring him back and they’d make him comfortable until he died in his sleep. That’s something a young bride should never have to hear.”
When Barbi later told Steve what the doctor had said, he flared up. “I’m a fighter,” he declared. “I don’t believe that. I believe I can make it.”
Then he picked up the phone next to his hospital bed, called ranch foreman Grady Ragsdale, and told him to get his Ford pickup truck ready for a trip to Mexico.
KNOCKIN’ ON HEAVEN’S DOOR
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By mid-1980 Steve McQueen was teetering on the rim of the abyss. When he looked into the mirror, death looked back at him through his own anguished and tired eyes. Jesus had entered his life and filled his heart with joy, and there was great peace and comfort in that, of course. But even the most committed Christian doesn’t want to die. Plus, Steve had so much to say now and so much to offer to a watching world that held him in such high esteem.
The original bad boy, the King of Cool, was now doing the most rebellious thing he’d ever done in his life of nonstop rebellion. He was reading the Bible, going to church, fellowshipping with other believers, and following Jesus Christ.
He understood he had an unusual platform, and he wanted to use it—at the right time. He said he wanted “to tell people that I know the Lord, what I have to offer, what’s happened to me.“ For the first time in his life, this man of few words really had something to say.
But to do that, he had to beat cancer.
It’s one thing to calmly face and accept death when one is ninety years old and has lived a long, full life. It’s quite another to do so, as Steve did, at only fifty. So he grasped at any straw that offered even the slenderest hope of extending his life. It wasn’t weakness or necessarily even foolishness but just the life force we all have in us.
On July 31, 1980, Steve and Barbi secretly drove to Rosarito Beach, Mexico. The Plaza Santa Maria is located there, about twenty miles south of Tijuana. Originally opened as a tourist resort, now it was a clinic Dr. Kelley operated, where cancer patients written off as terminal by the medical establishment came for the “metabolic therapy program” that included strict diet, nutrients, tissue concentrates, enzymes, detoxification procedures, structural therapies, and psychological counseling.
The original bad boy, the King of Cool, was now doing the most rebellious thing he’d ever done in his life of nonstop rebellion. He was reading the Bible, going to church, fellowshipping with other believers, and following Jesus Christ.
It’s about a 120-mile drive south on Interstate 5 from Orange County to Rosarito Beach. Despite the name that sounds so tranquil, the Plaza Santa Maria has always summoned dark images to my mind. I understand what drove Steve to go there and submit to the last-ditch unorthodox treatments, but I can’t help but think how confusing and horrible it must have been for Barbi and Steve’s children to go through it—to watch his suffering go unabated while the tabloid press hovered like vultures for scraps of information to feed people’s insatiable appetite for the sensational.
I had a personal friend, Arie, who found out he had cancer—advanced stage melanoma—and his doctor advised him to have surgery immediately or he would die.
Arie was cut from a similar cloth as Steve McQueen. He was a self-made man, quite a successful dairy farmer. Instead of opting for surgery, he decided to go a clinic in Mexico to get what some would call unorthodox treatment and others pure quackery. I was in the latter camp and pleaded with him to get the surgery. But Arie wouldn’t hear of it, so I asked him at least to let me visit that clinic with him and see for myself what it offered.
We flew to the clinic in Tijuana. Everything I saw there made me wonder why in the world Arie would choose it for his treatment. The only answer was in the look of hope on his face.
Arie submitted to treatments that included drinking juices and eating natural foods. He also applied an ointment they prepared there directly to his cancer.
Despite the name that sounds so tranquil, the Plaza Santa Maria has always summoned dark images to my mind.
In time, the cancer disappeared. Arie made a full recovery.
Do I believe these treatments did it? I still have my doubts. But I know for a fact that many people prayed for Arie, and I know Arie had hope. Ultimately, it was God who touched him and extended his life fifteen more years.
It’s easy to sit in judgment of Steve for going to the Plaza Santa Maria, but he never colored inside the lines anyway, so it’s no surprise that he did it. He hoped it would work. One way or another, he knew it was ultimately in God’s hands.
Steve’s newfound faith kept him on an even keel through it all, and I’m going to Plaza Santa Maria myself to talk to someone who can personally attest to that. Teena Valentino was the “metabolic technician” who took care of Steve almost 24/7 for the last ninety-nine days of his life. She experienced his ups and downs and witnessed the transformation that Christ made in his life.
Steve’s newfound faith kept him on an even keel through it all.
When Steve and Barbi arrived at the Plaza in 1980, uniforme
d guards greeted them at the large iron gate in front. Teena, who appears to be in her late seventies, greets me at that same place. The onetime cruise ship entertainer checked Steve into the facility and probably saw him more than anyone else while he was there.
No longer was he just Steve McQueen, the Christian; he was Steve McQueen, the evangelist.
“You probably can’t even recognize me,” Steve said to Teena that first day. “I don’t look much like Steve McQueen.”
“You look fine, Steve,” she told him.
“He had a presence about him,” recalls Teena. “He radiated an unusual combination of qualities: confidence, consideration, independence, and gentleness. I sensed he was a most unusual man in spite of the fact he was a movie star.”
His very first night at the Plaza, he asked Teena if she was a Christian. When she responded affirmatively, he said, “I try to read the Bible every day. I’ve made my peace with the Lord. Someday when I’m feeling better, I’ll tell you how I found the Lord.”
“I’d like that, Steve,” she replied.
No longer was he just Steve McQueen, the Christian; he was Steve McQueen, the evangelist.
It didn’t take long for him to rebel against the rigid diet of bland metabolic food on tap at the Plaza. Soon he was having a friend surreptitiously ship packets of his favorite foods in to him. Teena tumbled to it right away but looked the other way when Steve said, “I have very few pleasures in life right now; food is one of the few I have left.”
“He would take one bite from each of the foods to get it out of his system,” Teena recalls. “Eventually the taste didn’t satisfy him any longer.”
“I love the Lord, and I just can’t figure out why He let me get cancer,” McQueen once said to Teena. “I took the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. That was before I got sick. I just don’t understand. But I tell Him I’m willing to do whatever He wants. My life is His. If He wants me to die, I’ll die. I won’t fight it.”
Barbi’s constant presence, companionship, and tender support for her husband impressed Teena. “I saw a marriage that was innocent and natural. They had a childlike trust of each other,” she says. “If Steve behaved disagreeably, he expected Barbara to understand and react impeccably. She did. To them, life and love were one inseparable act.”
