The Late Great Paul Newman
Paul Newman was a character actor with movie star looks. He was married to the same woman for forty years, and they had three children together, but in order to marry her he left another wife and three children - a decision he was said to have never gotten over. His second wife, actress Joanne Woodward, and he, shared a home and raised their children in Westport CT, far from the glitter of Hollywood. He was a top movie star for much of his career, but managed to avoid some of the pitfalls that so often accompany the degree of fame he enjoyed.
Newman was born in Ohio in 1925, and grew up in suburban Shaker Heights, the son of successful Hungarian-Jewish sporting goods store owner. He went to Ohio University for a year before joining the Navy, intending to be a pilot, but instead was relegated to radioman-gunner during the war in the pacific. After three years in the Navy, he returned to Ohio after the war, finishing his undergraduate degree at Kenyon college (1946-1949). Following graduation, he married Jackie White, and for awhile ran the family business. However, unsatisfied with selling sporting goods, he decided to enroll in Yale drama.
After Yale, Newman headed to the New York, where studied at the actor’s studio and did work in a series of plays. Newman’s Broadway debut was in Picnic in 1953. He met Woodward while working on the stage, left his wife (the marriage to officially lasted nine years (1949-1958) and went to Hollywood. Over the course of the next few years he had a number of successful television roles, but his film debut came in The Silver Chalice (1954), an acting performance he was so ashamed of that he continued to refer to it in a mocking way for the rest of his life.
His big film break came in Somebody Up There Likes Me(1956), playing real-life boxer Rocky Graziano. Soon after, he became a star, and would go on to rack up nine Oscar acting nominations and one win (for The Color of Money, 1986) throughout his career. He was nominated for Oscars in five different decades, a testament to both the longevity and quality of his legacy. He also directed five films, and served as producer for a number of others. An avid car racer, he enjoyed the sport throughout his life, racing professionally and owning a team. He also established a food company, Newman’s Own, which donated some 250 million dollars to charity during his lifetime.
Newman had the kind of on-screen style, sangfroid, and presence embodied by only the greatest male movie stars. He had numerous well-known roles in popular movies over the course of multiple decades. His roles in the films chosen for this list, though (Hud; The Hustler; Cool Hand Luke; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; The Sting; Slapshot; The Verdict; Absence of Malice; The Color of Money; Nobody’s Fool; and Empire Falls) are, for the most part, iconographic characterizations, performances actors the world over aspire to match. Newman often played cocky men, full of bravado, who also seemed to carry with them a kind of heaviness from their pasts. They were heroes with flaws, contending with demons of various sorts - the kind we could identity with even if there was no escaping the fact that with Newman playing them they were all inherently better looking than most everyone else. In fact, Newman seemed to come into his own when he got a little older - grey haired, blue-eyes still ablaze, but with a kind of weariness to his countenance, a gravitas earned from living life, enduring one’s share of sadness and pain.
The Hustler(1961) Directed by Robert Rossen. Newman is pool ace Fast Eddie Felsen. Co-stars Jackie Gleason and Piper Laurie.
Hud(1963) Directed by Martin Ritt. Based on the book by Larry McMurtry. Newman plays farmhand Hud Barron, an insolent young man who rebels against hard-line father Homer (Melvyn Douglas). Co-stars Patricia Neal.
Harper(1966) Directed by Jack Smight. Newman plays the titular character, detective Lew Harper. Based on the Lew Archer books by Ross Macdonald (the name was changed to Harper for the movie). Co-stars Lauren Bacall as the wife of a missing millionaire.
Cool Hand Luke(1967) Directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Luke Jackson is a petty thief sentenced to a Southern chain gang. While there, he engages in a battle of wills with the all powerful Captain (Strother Martin), thereby serving as an inspiration to some of his fellow prisoners, including Dragline (George Kennedy).
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid(1969) Directed by George Roy Hill. With a price on their head, robbers Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) are chased all the way to Bolivia by authorities. Co-stars Katherine Ross.
The Sting(1973) Directed by George Roy Hill. Henry Gondorff (Newman) and Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) are two con men in 1930s Chicago looking to take off a dangerous crime boss played by Robert Shaw.
Slapshot(1977) Directed by George Roy Hill. Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, aging player/coach of the Charlestown Chiefs, a minor league hockey team based in PA. Co-stars Strother Martin.
Absence of Malice (1981) Directed by Sydney Pollack. Newman plays liquor distributor Colin Michael Gallagher, son of a dead crime boss, who is falsely accused of wrongdoing by Miami reporter Megan Carter (Sally Field).
The Verdict(1982) Directed by Sydney Lumet. Based on a book by Barry Reed and script by David Mamet, Newman plays has-been attorney Frank Galvin , who stumbles upon the case of his career. Co-starring Charlotte Rampling and Jack Warden.
The Color of Money(1985) Directed by Martin Scorcese. Twenty years later, Newman reprises his Fast Eddie Felsen role. Tom Cruise co-stars.
Nobody’s Fool (1994) Directed by Robert Benton. Based on the novel by Richard Russo. Newman plays “Sully” Sullivan a contractor and failed father with a bum knee who, despite his age, is loathe to change his bad boy ways. Co-starring Bruce Willis; Melanie Griffith; Phillip Seymour Hoffman; and Jessica Tandy (in her last role).
Empire Falls (2005) Directed by Fred Schepisi. This HBO mini-series was based on another novel by Richard Russo. Newman plays an older version of Sully, and thus another stand-in for Russo’s fictional father. Here he’s Max Robey, hard-drinking, hard-living father to Ed Harris’ Miles. The stellar cast includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman; Robin Wright-Penn; and Joanne Woodward as town matriarch Francine Whiting.