Steve McQueen American Icon DVD Includes Bonus Content By TogetherLA

The story of how the missing stunt car from the classic film “Bullitt” as captured by TogetherLA is part of the fantastic bonus content included in the Special Limited Edition DVD of “Steve McQueen: American Icon - The Untold True Story of the Spiritual Quest of a Hollywood Legend” available now.The bonus video produced by TogetherLA and One Ten Pictures includes an interview of car renovator Ralph Garcia, Jr., with Pastor Steve Wilburn discussing the car’s discovery and authentication process in Mexico. The interview was done in the production room of So Cal Harvest with Greg Laurie at Angel Stadium this summer."The story of the found Bullitt car is of immense interest to those in the classic car community,” said Gary Zelasko, Producer at Harvest Fellowship. “I personally find it amazing that 37 years after Steve McQueen's death, even his ordinary, worldly personal possessions routinely sell for large sums at auction. The fact that Ralph Garcia wants to use this car, lost for nearly fifty years to glorify the Lord and bring lost people to Him is truly Providential."

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In the bonus video, Pastor Steve Wilburn of Core Church LA, who was part of the team sent to Mexicali during the authentication trip, enthusiastically leads Garcia in the telling of the story.“When Pastor Steve told me the story the day before we filmed at Harvest, I knew he was the guy to drive the interview before the cameras,” TogetherLA Editor Alex Murashko said. “His enthusiasm and incredibly detailed story telling about the Bullitt car is fascinating.”For the film, Greg Laurie partnered with the Erwin Brothers (Woodlawn and Moms’ Night Out) to tell McQueen’s amazing faith journey. An avid fan of the actor (and the owner of a replica of Steve McQueen’s car in the classic film Bullitt), Laurie and his mint Mustang hit the road in search of the true, untold story of McQueen's redemption-filled final chapters.TogetherLA in association with One Ten Pictures helps facilitate the conversation about what’s good in L.A. Through articles on TogetherLA.net and videos produced by One Ten Pictures, the hope is that a behind-the-scenes force focused on following God’s work, not leading it, could further catalyze the impact of ministry workers and church leaders all over the city.Steve McQueen: American Icon can be purchased on the Harvest website and other locations.

Steve McQueen's Missing Bullitt Car: The Big Reveal [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]

In the process of working on a biography and documentary about Steve McQueen (with Marshall Terrill), Harvest pastor Greg Laurie took a special interest in the discovery of the long-lost car used in the film Bullitt.So much so, that Laurie sent car fanatic and pastor Steve Wilburn of Core Church LA to Mexicali, Mexico to witness the official validation of the iconic 1968 Ford Mustang GT.Wilburn, a former pastor at Harvest, took the recent opportunity to help promote the upcoming documentary (Steve McQueen: American Icon) at SoCal Harvest by bringing a member of his church, who is rebuilding the car, to the press room. The documentary helps to reveal McQueen’s journey to a faith in Jesus, not common knowledge about the actor described as Hollywood’s “King of Cool.”“When I called Ralph Garcia (Jr) about this car I’m thinking there’s no way this guy has the missing Bullitt. This car has been missing for 49 years,” Wilburn said. He told TogetherLA.net [WATCH EXCLUSIVE VIDEO BELOW] that Garcia was able to relay facts about the car, including photos, to him that began to convince him that the vehicle was authentic.Wilburn said that from the moment the conversation about the car began, Garcia conveyed that he simply wanted the car to help glorify God.Garcia had heard about Laurie’s effort to tell the story of McQueen at last year’s Harvest event. Five months later, Garcia found the Bullitt car and contacted Laurie and was then referred to Wilburn. He went to Core Church LA to meet with Wilburn and “fell in love” with the church and became a “Core Church family member.”Laurie wrote about the discovery of the car:This wasn’t discovering the Ark of the Covenant or the Ten Commandments, but the discovery stopped me dead in my tracks for two reasons.First, I own a 1968 Bullitt myself. Not the original, of course, but a very close replica. You can call it my “midlife crisis!” People either “get it” or they don’t. On more than one occasion, when I have parked it in the lot, I will return with two or more admirers (always guys) standing by it with lots of questions.Secondly, this story was of special interest to me because I’ve just spent a year of my life working on a new biography and documentary of Steve McQueen (with Marshall Terrill).McQueen was Hollywood’s “King of Cool” for a reason. His legacy lives on in a new generation as his image is ubiquitous in culture (especially hipster culture). He also still appears in modern films like the recent remake of The Magnificent Seven. Yet, for most boomers like me, we can’t forget when we saw the original version of The Great Escape as McQueen played Virgil Hilts in a role that propelled him to super-stardom. Then there’s his role as the detective Frank Bullitt.He literally flies his car through the streets of San Francisco in what is regarded by many as the greatest car chase scene in cinematic history. Steve McQueen was not cool because he drove the Bullitt car. The Bullitt car was cool because Steve McQueen drove it.At the time, Steve McQueen was the number-one movie star in the world, and he is still used as a point of reference for masculinity and “coolness” to this day. He was (and is) the definition of an American icon.Only in America – with America’s dream – could McQueen transform his hardscrabble beginnings into epic stardom. Yet, until late in his life he struggled to find meaning in life, and he suffered because of it.It might have been because he was born into a home of an alcoholic mother and a father that left him early in life, but eventually he found himself on the wrong side of the law more than once. Then, as his star began to rise higher and higher he began to chase harder and harder after every pleasure this planet had to offer.But notwithstanding all his fame and fortune, a colossal vacuum lived rent-free in Steve McQueen’s heart, a yawning chasm, a lack of purpose rooted in the absence of functional, involved parents. He spent his whole life avoiding his mother and searching for his father—searching for someone or something to stand in for him, someone to love him.He had the best cars money could buy, the most beautiful women at his beck and call, drugs galore, booze until the well ran dry, and much more.While still the top movie star on the planet, and with all the money and power in the world, he decided to search for more than this world could offer. That was the story I was interested in, and I chased it till I found it. Everyone knew about McQueen’s Bullitt! but I wanted to find McQueen’s salvation. Read full post here.READ>> Las Vegas Shooting: ‘Lord, We Need You Now;’ Firestorm of Reactions

Steve McQueen Finally Tells World 'What Christ Did For Me' Through Film

Legendary actor Steve McQueen returned to the screen Sunday (June 11) before an audience of 38,000 packed into a Phoenix stadium for the Harvest America Crusade as Pastor Greg Laurie shared the most important part of McQueen’s saga.Laurie, a McQueen fan whose book, Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon has now been made into a documentary, gave the audience a preview of his film.“I thought this is a story that needs to be told,” Laurie said. “It’s a story McQueen, in his own words, worried he’d never be able to share with the world. Now, almost 40 years after his step into heaven, he’ll finally get the chance.”“And one thing Steve said before he died was, ‘My only regret in life is that I was not able to tell people about what Christ did for me,'” he added.McQueen, who starred in more than two dozen films from 1953-1980, died in 1980 at the age of 50 from mesothelioma.“In a significant turn toward the end of his life, ironically, just before he found out that he had cancer and while still the top movie star on earth, Steve did something that showed me that he really was ‘the coolest of them all.’ He put his faith in God and became a believer in Jesus Christ,” said Laurie.“He was simultaneously the most unlikely and then again maybe the most likely person to come to faith in God,” Laurie said.

Steve McQueen: Something was missing

Despite being one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood at the peak of his career — and one of its highest-paid — Laurie said McQueen sought out a spiritual significance in his life.“When you’ve experienced everything that this culture offers, you will see how empty it is,” Laurie said. “That was true of Steve: He had it all, but something was missing, and that led him to a little church in Santa Paula, California, where he heard the message of Jesus Christ for maybe the first time in a way he understood it.”

Steve McQueen’s Missing Bullitt Car: The Big Reveal [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]

Laurie said McQueen’s experience was like that of many others: He asked a church-going friend if they could attend church together. In this case, Laurie noted, the friend was flight instructor Sammy Mason, who was teaching McQueen to fly a biplane.Leonard DeWitt, the pastor of Ventura Missionary Church at the time, helped McQueen accept Christ, Laurie said.“I know this because Pastor DeWitt met with Steve maybe a month after that, and they had a long discussion where the pastor answered a lot of Steve’s questions,” Laurie said. “The pastor asked Steve, ‘Have you become a born-again Christian?’ And Steve said he had.”

Steve McQueen: American Icon Official Trailer

Laurie said there is a message in McQueen’s journey.“Steve had the statistical cards stacked against him — no father in his life, an alcoholic mother who really didn’t have time for him,” Laurie said. “The fame and all the power he acquired actually, in some ways, made his life worse. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire.“He could have ended up overdosing on drugs or killed behind the wheel of an automobile, but yet he made his way to hear the gospel and so I think the takeaway truth is, ‘Wow, if God can reach someone like Steve, he can certainly reach me,’” he said.The article above was originally published at Western Journalism.