Ultimate Behind-the-Scene Look At Steve McQueen, King Of Cool

Why He Had a Butterfly Tattoo

It’s not exactly the strictly touch-guy image that you’ve come to expect, but Steve McQueen did appear to have a butterfly tattoo in Franklin J. Schaffner´s movie, Papillon, which is billed as the true story of Henri Charrière. Schaffner is perhaps best remembered for Planet of the Apes and Patton, but this prison-break adventure story is still remembered.

Originally used to represent freedom from the repressive Devil’s Island penal colony in French Guiana, the tattoo took on a life of its own. Escape becomes the only focus of his life, and the tattoo is a dramatic representation of that mission.