F
or more than half a century, Steve McQueen and Paul
Newman have been cosmic twins of masculinity. Box-
oice rivals throughout the sixties and seventies—they
would have starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid but couldn’t agree on who would receive top billing—
the actors were also revered for their ofscreen passions: rac-
ing cars, riding motorcycles and collecting watch-
es. Years aer their deaths—McQueen died at 50 in
1980, while Newman passed away in 2008 at 83 —the
two men still regularly compete over the ever-escalat-
ing prices of their memorabilia.
Last October, Paul Newman’s 1968 Rolex Dayto-
na—with a white-and-red “exotic” dial that came
to be known as the Paul Newman Daytona sim-
ply because he wore it—sold at Phillips auction
house in New York for an astonishing $17.8
million. he price was not only a record for a
Rolex at auction but also the highest amount
ever paid for a wristwatch at auction.
More than a year before the gavel came down
on Paul Newman’s Paul Newman, Michael Eisen-
berg, a Beverly Hills real estate broker and developer
who is also a prominent memorabilia collector, was
privately negotiating with the consignor of the Day-
tona, a deal that would have kept it from ever going
on the block. “I really wanted to buy it,” the 53-year-
old Eisenberg recalls. “I had the money, but obviously it wasn’t
anywhere near the money the watch sold for.”
He also soon began a quest for another so-called grail
watch—one owned by McQueen. “he idea was to join the two
watches—then I’d have Butch and Sundance,” says Eisenberg,
who wears a Rolex 1675 GMT Master with a root beer dial
and bezel. “A n d I would never sell them. I’d tour them and putthem on display.”
he watch Eisenberg sought, however, wasn’t the one for
which McQueen is best known—a Heuer Monaco, which was
actually just a prop for his 1971 racing movie, Le Mans. But
the McQueen mystique has made that timepiece a classic and
collectible for decades. In 2012 a Monaco he wore in the ilm
sold at auction for nearly $800,000. Ofscreen, Mc-
Queen was frequently photographed wearing his ac-
tual watch: a ref. 5513 Rolex Submariner, circa 1964.
Now Phillips will bring that watch to auction on
October 25 in New York.
Like the Newman watch, McQueen’s Subma-
riner has a fascinating history, one that com-
bines elements from two of his most famous
movies, he Great Escape and he Towering
Inferno, and even involves a stuntman. He
bought the watch in the mid-1960s, when
it would have cost around $250, and also
owned another model, a ref. 5512 Submari-
ner from 1967 that brought $234,000 at an An-
tiquorum auction in 2009.
Some time in the late 1970s, McQueen gave the
older Submariner to his favorite stunt double, Loren
Janes. he pair had been working together since
1958, when McQueen was making the TV series
Wanted: Dead or Alive. Over the next two decades,
in 19 movies—including Bullitt, he Getaway and he hom-
as Crown Aair—Janes performed some of McQueen’s most
memorable stunts. hat iconic ten-minute car chase in Bullitt,
where McQueen careens through San Francisco in a 1968 Mus-
tang? It was actually Janes behind the wheel.
To show his gratitude for Janes’ work and friendship, Mc-
Queen also had the case back engraved—LOREN, THE BESTJUNE 2018 FORBES ASIA | 79Forbes Life OUT OF THE ASHES
Long Live McQueen
BY MICHAEL SOLOMONFor years, Steve McQueen’s Rolex Submariner was presumed lost. Then it was
destroyed in a fire—until it wasn’t. Now the King of Cool’s timepiece has reemerged
and will go up for auction in October. The secret history of a grail watch.