Hollywood legend Steve McQueen is known for his iconic work in Hollywood and for being a handsome, complicated leading man with a storied past. But did you know he had a Filipino-American wife by the name of Neile Adams?
Born on July 10, 1932, with a very multilayered name, María Ruby Neilam Arrastia y Salvador, the Eurasian actress was born in the Philippines and lived through the country’s Japanese occupation in the early 1940s. She has spoken about her survival in Manila during the war before she emigrated to the United States with her mother in 1948.
Adams studied dance, singing, and acting, which landed her more than 20 film and TV roles in the 1950s, well into the 1990s – and that is a lot for an Asian American during that period of time. She appeared in The Rockford Files, The Bionic Woman, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Fantasy Island. Her first feature film, This Could Be The Night, showcased her as an emerging young starlet in Hollywood. She was also the sole American model for Pablo Picasso’s “Picasso Erotic,” which is currently hanging in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Spain.
In 1956, she met the handsome McQueen, and the two appeared together in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1960. The pair were together from 1956 through 1972, which was the longest of the actor’s marriages. Despite reports of a very tumultuous relationship, McQueen and Adams were the “it” power couple of the time and were often spotlighted in LIFE magazine. They had a daughter, Terry Leslie McQueen, and a son, Chadwick Steven McQueen. She was later remarried to Alvin Toffel, then president of the Norton Simon Museum, until he died in 2005.
Adams continued to perform in cabaret shows all around the globe throughout her career, including the Royal Gala at The London Palladium. The trailblazing legend is still alive today at a young 93 years old, and you can read all about her life in her memoir, “My Husband, My Friend”.
Steve McQueen and Neile Adams, in a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “Man From the South”.
