Steve McQueen: Missed Roies

For as successful as he was this reads like an impossible amount of missed opportunities.

From Wikipedia...

McQueen was offered the lead male role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but was unable to accept due to his Wanted: Dead or Alive contract (the role went to George Peppard).

He turned down parts in Ocean's 11, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing), The Driver, Apocalypse Now,:172 California Split, Dirty Harry, A Bridge Too Far, The French Connection (he did not want to do another cop film), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Spielberg, in a documentary on the Close Encounters DVD, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.

McQueen and Barbra Streisand were tentatively cast in The Gauntlet, but the two could not get along, and both withdrew from the project. The lead roles were filled by Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.

McQueen expressed interest in the Rambo character in First Blood when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age.

He was offered the title role in The Bodyguard (to star Diana Ross) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death (which eventually starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in 1992).