Nicknamed "The King of Cool", he was considered one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s due to what many film goers consider a captivating on-screen persona. McQueen was considered combative and the archetypal "difficult movie star" who disliked working with directors or producers. To compensate, he would work only if paid an extremely large salary for his films; he was one of the highest paid actors of the 1960s and 1970s.Steve McQueen defined cool on the silver screen like no actor has before or since. McQueen in many ways personified the great American myth; strong, self-reliant and adventuresome; yet at the same time he had a cynical and brooding edge that set him apart. While his persona is what made him a legend, his body of work has remarkable depth and quality. The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Bullitt, The Thomas Crown Affair and The Getaway are unquestionable classics, and films like The Sand Pebbles, The Reivers, Junior Bonner and Papillon gave McQueen an opportunity to tackle more character-driven fare with great success. McQueen died in November of 1980, in Juárez, Mexico from a heart attack. McQueen had traveled to the Santa Rosa Clinic there for alternative treatments for mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure. It is unclear whether the asbestos exposure came from his racing career or from an experience in the United States Marine Corps. In 1999, McQueen was posthumously inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. If McQueen had attended the house of actress Sharon Tate as planned on August 9, 1969, instead of going on a date, he could have been murdered along with five others by the followers of Charles Manson. After that close call and hearing that he was on Manson's death list, he began carrying a gun.