Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September
26, 2008) was an American actor,
film
director,
entrepreneur,
humanitarian, and
auto racing enthusiast.
He won numerous
awards, including an Academy Award for
his performance in the 1986 Martin
Scorsese film The Color of
Money and eight other nominations three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a
Cannes Film
Festival Award
, an Emmy award, and many
honorary awards. He also won several national championships
as a driver in
Sports Car
Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several
championships in
open wheel
IndyCar racing.
Newman was a co-founder of
Newman's
Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax
profits and royalties to charity. As of October 2008, these
donations had exceeded US $280 million.
Early life
Newman was
born in Shaker Heights,
Ohio
(a suburb of Cleveland
), the son of Theresa (née Fetzer or Fetsko; )Lax, Eric (1996). - Paul Newman: A
Biography. - Atlanta, Georgia: Turner Publishing. - ISBN
1570362866. and Arthur Samuel Newman, who ran a profitable sporting
goods store. Newman's father was Jewish, the son of immigrants from Poland
and Hungary
; Newman's
mother, who practiced Christian
Science, was born to a Slovak
Roman Catholic family at Ptičie
(formerly Pticsie) in the former Austria–Hungary (now in Slovakia
).
Newman had no religion as an adult, but described himself as "a
Jew", stating that "it's more of a challenge". Newman's mother
worked in his father's store, while raising Paul and his brother,
Arthur, who later became a producer and production manager.
Newman showed an early interest in the theater, which his mother
encouraged. At the age of seven, he made his acting debut, playing
the court jester in a school production of
Robin Hood.
Graduating
from Shaker
Heights High School
in 1943, he briefly attended Ohio University
in Athens,
Ohio
, where he was initiated into the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.
Military service
Newman served in the
United States
Navy in
World War II in the
Pacific theater.
Newman
enrolled in the Navy V-12 program at Ohio University, hoping to be accepted for pilot training, but was
dropped when it was discovered he was color blind. He was sent instead to
boot camp and then received further training as a radioman and
gunner. Qualifying as a rear-seat radioman and gunner in
torpedo bombers, in 1944, Aviation Radioman
Third Class Newman was sent to Barber's Point, Hawaii. He was
subsequently assigned to Pacific-based replacement torpedo
squadrons (VT-98, VT-99, and VT-100). These torpedo squadrons were
responsible primarily for training replacement pilots and combat
air crewmen, placing particular importance on carrier
landings.
He later flew from
aircraft
carriers as a turret gunner in an
Avenger torpedo bomber. As a radioman-gunner, he
served aboard the
USS Bunker
Hill during the
Battle of
Okinawa in the spring of 1945. He was ordered to the ship with
a draft of replacements shortly before the Okinawa campaign, but by
a fluke of war, was held back because his pilot had an ear
infection. The rest of his detail died.
After the
war, he completed his degree at Kenyon College
in Gambier, Ohio, graduating in 1949.
Newman
later studied Drama at Yale University
, graduating in 1954, and later studying under
Lee Strasberg at the Actors' Studio
in New York
City
.
Oscar Levant wrote that Newman
initially was hesitant to leave New York for Hollywood: "Too close
to the cake," he reported him saying, "Also, no place to
study."
Career
Early work
Newman
made his Broadway
theater
debut in the original production of William Inge's Picnic with Kim
Stanley. He later appeared in the original Broadway
productions of
The
Desperate Hours and
Sweet Bird of Youth with
Geraldine Page. He would later star in the
film version of
Sweet Bird of Youth, which also starred
Page.
His first
movie for Hollywood was
The Silver Chalice (1954),
followed by acclaimed roles in
Somebody Up There Likes
Me (1956), as boxer
Rocky
Graziano;
Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof (1958), opposite
Elizabeth Taylor; and
The Young Philadelphians
(1959), with
Barbara Rush and
Robert Vaughn. However, predating all of these
above was a small but notable part in an August 8, 1952 episode of
the science fiction TV series
Tales of Tomorrow entitled "Ice from
Space", in which he played Sergeant Wilson, his first credited TV
or film appearance.
In February 1954, Newman appeared in a screen test with
James Dean, directed by Gjon Mili, for
East of Eden (1955).
Newman was testing for the role of Aron Trask, Dean for the role of
Aron's fraternal twin brother Cal. Dean won his part, but Newman
lost out to
Richard Davalos. The
same year, Newman co-starred with
Eva
Marie Saint and
Frank Sinatra in a
live —and
color —television
broadcast of
Our
Town, a musical adaptation of
Thornton Wilder's stage play
with the same name. Newman was a last-minute
replacement for James Dean. In 2003, Newman acted in a remake of
Our Town, taking on the role of the stage manager.
Major films
Newman was one of the few actors who successfully made the
transition from 1950s cinema to that of the 1960s and 1970s. His
rebellious persona translated well to a subsequent generation.
Newman starred in
Exodus
(1960),
The Hustler
(1961),
Hud (1963),
Harper (1966),
Hombre (1967),
Cool Hand Luke (1967),
The Towering Inferno (1974),
Slap Shot (1977), and
The Verdict (1982). He teamed
with fellow actor
Robert Redford and
director
George Roy Hill for
Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid (1969) and
The
Sting (1973).
He appeared with his wife,
Joanne
Woodward, in the feature films
The Long, Hot Summer (1958),
Rally 'Round the Flag,
Boys!, (1958),
From the
Terrace (1960),
Paris
Blues (1961),
A New Kind
of Love (1963),
Winning
(1969),
WUSA (1970),
The Drowning Pool
(1975),
Harry & Son
(1984), and
Mr. and Mrs.
Bridge (1990). They both also starred in the
HBO miniseries Empire Falls, but did not
have any scenes together.
In addition to starring in and directing
Harry & Son,
Newman also directed four feature films (in which he did not act)
starring Woodward. They were
Rachel,
Rachel (1968), based on
Margaret Laurence's
A Jest of
God, the screen version of the
Pulitzer Prize-winning play
The Effect
of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), the
television screen version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play
The Shadow Box (1980), and a
screen version of
Tennessee
Williams'
The
Glass Menagerie (1987).
Twenty-five years after
The Hustler, Newman reprised his
role of "Fast" Eddie Felson in the
Martin Scorsese-directed
The Color of Money (1986), for which
he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He told a television
interviewer that winning an Oscar at the age of 62 deprived him of
his fantasy of formally being presented with it in extreme old
age.
Last works
In 2003, he appeared in a Broadway revival of Wilder's
Our
Town, receiving his first
Tony Award
nomination for his performance.
PBS and the
cable network
Showtime aired a taping of
the production, and Newman was nominated for an
Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a
Miniseries or TV Movie.
His last screen appearance was as a conflicted mob boss in the 2002
film
Road to Perdition
opposite
Tom Hanks, although he continued
to provide voice work for films. In keeping with his strong
interest in car racing, he provided the voice of
Doc Hudson, a retired
race car in
Disney/
Pixar's
Cars.
Similarly, he served as narrator for the 2007 film
Dale, about the life of the legendary
NASCAR driver
Dale
Earnhardt, which turned out to be Newman's final film
performance in any form. Newman also provided the narration for the
film documentary "The Meerkats" to be released in 2009.
Retirement from acting
Newman announced that he would entirely retire from acting on May
25, 2007. He stated that he did not feel he could continue acting
at the level he wanted to. "You start to lose your memory, you
start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So
I think that's pretty much a closed book for me."
Philanthropy
With writer
A.E. Hotchner, Newman founded
Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982.
The brand started with salad dressing, and has expanded to include
pasta sauce, lemonade, popcorn, salsa, and wine, among other
things. Newman established a policy that all proceeds, after taxes,
would be donated to charity. As of early 2006, the franchise has
donated in excess of $250 million. He co-wrote a
memoir about the subject with Hotchner,
Shameless
Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good. Among other
awards, Newman's Own co-sponsors the
PEN/Newman's Own First
Amendment Award, a $25,000 reward designed to recognize those
who protect the
First
Amendment as it applies to the written word. His daughter,
Nell Newman, took the helm of the
company with his death.
One
beneficiary of his philanthropy is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a
residential summer camp for seriously ill children, which is
located in Ashford
, Connecticut
. Newman co-founded the camp in 1988; it was
named after the gang in his film
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid (1969). Newman's college fraternity,
Phi Kappa Tau, adopted Hole in the Wall as
their "national philanthropy" in 1995. One camp has expanded to
become several Hole in the Wall Camps in the U.S., Ireland, France,
and Israel. The camps serve 13,000 children every year, free of
charge.
In June
1999, Newman donated $250,000 to Catholic Relief Services to aid
refugees in Kosovo
.
On June
1, 2007, Kenyon
College announced that Newman had donated $10 million to
the school to establish a scholarship fund as part of the college's
current $230 million fund-raising campaign. Newman and
Woodward were honorary co-chairs of a previous campaign.
Paul Newman was one of the founders of the Committee Encouraging
Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), a membership organization of CEOs
and corporate chairpersons committed to raising the level and
quality of global corporate philanthropy. Founded in 1999 by Newman
and a few leading CEOs, CECP has grown to include more than 175
members and, through annual executive convenings, extensive
benchmarking research, and best practice publications, leads the
business community in developing sustainable and strategic
community partnerships through philanthropy.
Newman was named the Most Generous Celebrity of 2008 by
Givingback.org. He contributed $20,857,000 for the year of 2008 to
the Newman's Own Foundation, which distributes funds to a variety
of charities.
Marriages and family
Newman was married twice. He was married to Jackie Witte from 1949
to 1958. They had a son, Scott (1950), and two daughters, Susan
Kendall (1953) and Stephanie. Scott Newman, who died in November
1978 from an accidental
drug overdose,
appeared in the films
Breakheart Pass,
The Towering Inferno,
and the 1977 film
Fraternity
Row. Paul Newman started the Scott Newman Center for drug
abuse prevention in memory of his son.
Susan is a documentary filmmaker and
philanthropist and has Broadway and screen
credits, including a starring role as one of four Beatles fans in
I Wanna Hold Your
Hand (1978), and also a small role opposite her father in
Slap Shot. She also received an Emmy nomination as
co-producer of his telefilm,
The Shadow Box. Newman had
two grandsons.
Newman married actress
Joanne
Woodward on February 2, 1958. They had three daughters:
Elinor "Nell" Teresa (1959), Melissa
"Lissy" Stewart (1961), and Claire "Clea" Olivia (1965). Newman
directed Elinor (stage name Nell Potts) in the central role
alongside her mother in the film
The Effect
of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.
The
Newmans lived away from the Hollywood environment, making their
home in Westport,
Connecticut
. Paul Newman was well known for his devotion
to his wife and family. When asked about infidelity, he famously
quipped, "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at
home?"
Political activism
For his strong support of
Eugene
McCarthy in
1968 (and
effective use of television commercials in California) and his
strong opposition to the
War in
Vietnam, Newman was placed nineteenth on
Richard Nixon's enemies list, which he
claimed was his greatest accomplishment.
Consistent with his work for
liberal causes, Newman
publicly supported
Ned Lamont's candidacy
in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic Primary against Senator
Joe Lieberman, and was even rumored as a
candidate himself, until Lamont emerged as a credible alternative.
He donated to
Chris Dodd's
presidential campaign.
He
attended the first Earth Day event in
Manhattan
on April 22, 1970. Newman was also a vocal
supporter of
gay rights, including
same-sex marriage.
Auto racing
Newman
was an avid auto racing enthusiast, and first became interested in
motorsports ("the first thing that I
ever found I had any grace in") while training at the Watkins Glen
Racing School
for the filming of Winning, a 1969
film. Newman's first professional event was in
1972, in Thompson,
Connecticut
, and he was a frequent competitor in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA)
events for the rest of the decade, eventually winning several
championships. He later drove in the
1979 24 Hours of Le Mans in Dick
Barbour's
Porsche 935 and finished in
second place. Newman reunited with Barbour in 2000 to compete in
the
Petit Le Mans.
From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, he drove for the Bob Sharp
Racing team, racing mainly
Datsuns (later
rebranded as
Nissans) in the
Trans-Am Series. He became closely
associated with the brand during the 1980s, even appearing in
commercials for them. At the age of 70 years and 8 days, he became
the oldest driver to be part of a winning team in a major
sanctioned race, winning in his class at the 1995
24 Hours of Daytona. Among his last
races were the
Baja 1000 in 2004 and the
24 Hours of Daytona once again in 2005.
Newman initially owned his own racing team, which competed in the
Can-Am series, but later co-founded
Newman/Haas Racing with
Carl Haas, a
Champ Car
team, in 1983. The 1996 racing season was chronicled in the
IMAX film
Super
Speedway, which Newman narrated. He was also a partner in
the
Atlantic Championship team
Newman Wachs Racing. Newman
owned a
NASCAR Winston Cup car,
before selling it to
Penske Racing,
where it now serves as the #12 car.
Newman was inducted into the
SCCA Hall
of Fame at the national convention in
Las Vegas, Nevada on February
21, 2009.
Illness and death
Newman was scheduled to make his professional stage directing debut
with the
Westport Country
Playhouse's 2008 production of
John
Steinbeck's
Of Mice and
Men, but he stepped down on May 23, 2008, citing health
issues.
In June
2008 it was widely reported that Newman, a former chain smoker, had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was receiving treatment at
Sloan-Kettering
hospital in New York City. Photographs taken of Newman in May and June
showed him looking gaunt. Writer
A.E.
Hotchner, who partnered with Newman to
start the Newman's Own company in the 1980s, told the Associated
Press that Newman told him about the disease about eighteen months
prior to the interview. Newman's spokesman told the press that the
star was "doing nicely," but neither confirmed nor denied that he
had cancer. In August, after reportedly finishing
chemotherapy, Newman told his family he wished
to die at home. He died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, surrounded
by his family and close friends.His remains were subsequently
cremated after a private funeral service
near his home in Westport.
Filmography, awards, and nominations
As actor
As director or producer
Additional awards and honors
In addition to the awards Newman won for specific roles, he
received an honorary Academy Award in 1986 for his "many and
memorable and compelling screen performances" and the Jean Hersholt
Humanitarian Award for his charity work in 1994.
He received the Golden Globe
New Star of the Year —
Actor award for
The Silver
Chalice (1957), the Henrietta Award World Film Favorite —
Male in 1964 and 1966 and the Cecil B. DeMille Award for
Lifetime Achievement in 1984.
Newman
won Best
Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for The Long,
Hot Summer and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Nobody's Fool.
In 1968,
Newman was named "Man of the Year" by Harvard University
's performance group, the Hasty Pudding
Theatricals.
Newman Day has been celebrated at Kenyon
College, Bates
College
, Princeton University
, and other American colleges since the
1970s. In 2004, Newman requested that Princeton University
disassociate the event from his name, due to the fact that he did
not endorse the behaviors, citing his creation of the Scott Newman
Centre in 1980, which is "dedicated to the prevention of substance
abuse through education".
Posthumously, Newman was inducted into the Connecticut Hall of
Fame, and was honored with a 37 acre nature preserve in Westport
named in his honor. He was also honored by the
United States House of
Representatives following his death.
Published work
- Newman, Paul; Hotchner, A.E.
Newman's Own Cookbook. Simon & Schuster, 1998. ISBN
0684848325.
- Newman, Paul; Hotchner, A.E. Shameless Exploitation in
Pursuit of the Common Good. Doubleday Publishing, 2003. ISBN
0385508026.
See also
References
Notes
- "Film Star Paul Newman dead at 83."
Reuters.com. September 27, 2008.
- "Legendary Actor Paul Newman Dies at Age 83." ABC
News. September 27, 2008.
- FAQs Newman's Own.com.
- Morella, Joe; Epstein, Edward Z. (1988). - Paul and Joanne:
A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. - Delacorte
Press. - ISBN 0440500044.
- Paul Newman Biography (1925-). -
FilmReference.com.
- Ancestry of Paul Newman. -
Genealogy.com.
- Hamill, Denis. - "Paul Newman, A Big Gun at 73". -
Buffalo
News. - March 7, 1998. - Retrieved: 2008-03-08
- Ptičie Resumé. - Obecný úrad Ptičie
- "Fallece el actor Paul Newman" Elmundo.es (27
September 2008)
- Skow, John. - "Verdict on a Superstar". - TIME. -
December 6, 1982.
- Paul Newman biography. -
Tiscali.co.uk.com.
- Paul Newman. - Biographies in Naval History.
- Navy.mil.
- Hastings,
Max (2008). - Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. -
Random House. - ISBN 0307263517.
- Levant,
Oscar (1969). - The Unimportance of Being
Oscar. - Pocket Books. - p.56. ISBN 0671771043.
- Paul Newman quits films after stellar career.
News.com.au. May 27, 2007.
- Hollywood star Newman to retire. BBC
News. May 27, 2007.
- "Paul Newman says he will die at home."
Herald
Sun. August 9, 2008.
- CNN - Incoming Kosovo refugees, outgoing U.S. donations -
April 7, 1999
- CECP - Committee Encouraging Corporate
Philanthropy
- Clark, Hunter S. People. Time magazine. February 17,
1986.
- Welcome. Scott Newman Center.org.
- "Remembering Paul Newman." People.
September 27, 2008.
-
http://web.archive.org/web/20030621235432/www.artsci.wustl.edu/~polisci/calvert/PolSci3103/watergate/enemy.htm
- Dodd Gets Financial Boost From Celebs.
WFSB.com. 17 Apr 2007.
- Paul Newman an icon of cool masculinity
- "Paul Newman has cancer". - The Daily
Telegraph. - June 9, 2008.
- "Gaunt Paul Newman has 'form of cancer,' business
partner says". - Sun Journal. - June 12,
2008.
- Christoffersen, John. "Longtime friend: Paul Newman has cancer".
Associated Press. June 11, 2008.
- "Newman says he is 'doing nicely'". -
BBC - BBC.com. - June 11,
2008.
- Paul Newman, Hollywood legend, dies at 83
- "Film star, businessman, philanthropist Paul Newman
dies at 83." Free Press.com. September 28, 2008.
- Katz, Ivan. "Actor, Philanthropist, Race Car Driver Paul Newman
Dies." Chicago Examiner. September 27, 2008.
- Hodge, Lisa. "Legend laid to rest in private family ceremony."
ahlanlive.com. Retrieved October 11, 2008.
Bibliography
- Demers, Jenifer. Paul Newman: the Dream has Ended!.
Createspace, 2008. ISBN 1440433232
- Lax, Eric. Paul Newman: a
Biography. Turner Publishing, Incorporated, 1999. ISBN
1-57036-286-6.
- Morella, Joe; Epstein, Edward Z. Paul and Joanne: A
Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Delacorte Press,
1988. ISBN 0440500044.
- O'Brien, Daniel. Paul Newman. Faber & Faber,
Limited, 2005. ISBN 057121987X.
- Oumano, Elena. Paul Newman. St. Martin's Press, 1990.
ISBN 0-517-05934-7.
- Quirk, Lawrence J. The
Films of Paul Newman. Taylor Pub., 1986. ISBN
0-8065-0385-8.
- Thomson, Kenneth. The Films of Paul Newman. 1978. ISBN
0-912616-87-3.
Further reading
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