Sand pebbles was a great movie. When I was much younger and living and working in Chicago, Steve McQueen was filming one of his movies, I forget which one, at a place called the Marina Towers, two condo buildings in the heart of the Loop right near the Chicago River. They were circular in design, with parking on the first levels, then condos above. Like two garbage cans sticking up into the sky, considered very modern back then. I used to pay to park there as I worked across the street from the Marina Towers.
I watched some of the filming of the movie, and saw McQueen doing his own stunts, in this case driving a car down the circular ramp of the parking area in the Towers. He would zoom around the ramp at high speed (probably part of a car chase seen). At a later point, and this was cool, they dropped a car off a helicopter, which then went down into Lake Michigan below. They did this scene a couple of times, so I got to watch a car go off the helicopter again.
Steve McQueen was ruggedly handsome, not a large man, and physically well put together. He eventually died from cancer caused by asbestos, they said from the suits he would wear when car racing, which contained asbestos before anyone really knew the dangers of it. He died too young.