By Dan Wooding

WHEN American entertainer Pat Boone heard that Hollywood actor Steve McQueen had cancer 30 years ago, he penned a letter to him to give him spiritual support.

Sadly, McQueen died at age 50 on November 7, 1980, in Mexico, following an operation to remove or reduce several metastatic tumours in his abdomen.

Boone had forgotten about the letter – until September 25 of this year. He was attending the 12th Annual Media Fellowship International Praise Brunch in Beverly Hills, California, when a woman approached him and told him she had found the long lost letter.

The woman, Judy Ragsdale, was married to Grady Ragsdale, who was the mechanic for McQueen’s airplane.

Judy revealed that McQueen had accepted Christ three months before he ever knew he had cancer. “I am sharing this – otherwise, people might have thought it was a death bed decision,” she said.

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Judy went on to say, “That was in 1979, and later Grady wrote the book The Final Chapter.”

Her late husband’s book focuses on McQueen’s final year on earth, as he bravely battled the cancer that killed him.

With Boone standing at her side, Judy explained she was recently going through her memorabilia and had discovered the letter from the singer.

Boone said:’Äà“I had forgotten about the letter which I wrote to Steve McQueen all those years ago – in which I was encouraging him, and letting him know that we loved and admired him, and were praying for his battle against cancer.

“I don't even know what else I said; but I have now asked Judy if she would send me a copy – because it's one of many that I've written over the years. I mean, I've written people like J. Paul Getty, H.L Hunt and Howard Hughes – not asking for anything, but instead offering to be of spiritual help.”

McQueen’s widow, Barbara Minty, in Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, wrote of McQueen becoming an evangelical Christian toward the end of his life.

November 2010