Steve McQueen left us too soon, he was transitioning from movie star to serious actor, he may have had the sort of career that Clint Eastwood enjoyed.
The Oscars can get very weird, The Great Escape wasn't even nominated for Best Film for 1963 yet the white power propaganda film How the West was Won was?!?!
I actually read that he decided to retire in the mid-70s after the success of The Towering Inferno, when he was at his peak as a box office draw.
By the time he was ready for a comeback he got cancer. It was pretty sad; he apparently went to Mexico to try some alternative treatment but it was too late. Yes he left us too soon.
Director William Friedkin offered the role of Popeye Doyle (The French Connection) to Steve McQueen. He turned it down, to him it was too much like Bullitt.
James Garner was the same as Paul Newman, married to the same woman for 56 years. Women would line up to bang him, yet he was always faithful.
He probably could have banged his Rockford Files attorney Beth Davenport (Gretchen Corbett) any time he wanted. Instead she usually ended up in the passenger seat during his wild car stunts, pissing herself with fear.