Paul Newman an icon of cool masculinity

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Paul Newman an icon of cool masculinity
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic
Sunday, September 28, 2008

Paul Newman, the addictively handsome superstar film actor and entrepreneur-philanthropist who resisted the conventional trappings of stardom and carved out a singular version of American masculinity onscreen and off, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.

Mr. Newman died Friday at his farmhouse near Westport, Conn., his family and close friends at his bedside, according to publicist Jeff Sanderson.

Mr. Newman had been scheduled to direct "Of Mice and Men" at Connecticut's Westport Country Playhouse in October, but withdrew from that project in May, citing health reasons. By then, his cancer was a subject of press reports.

"Paul Newman was the ultimate cool guy who men wanted to be like and women adored," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Saturday. "He was an American icon, a brilliant actor, a Renaissance man and a generous but modest philanthropist. He entertained millions in some of Hollywood's most memorable roles ever, and he brightened the lives of many more, especially seriously ill children, through his charitable works."

Half-century career

In a performance career that spanned more than half a century, Mr. Newman played rogues and rascals that audiences couldn't resist, probed more deeply into roles he played in his 50s, and went on to fashion a gallery of aging and emotionally complex characters in his 60s and 70s. Few American actors have made such a deep and sustained imprint.

With his cool charisma and ice-blue eyes, Mr. Newman ran off a decade of early performances in such films as "Cool Hand Luke," "Hud," "The Left-Handed Gun," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Harper" and "The Long Hot Summer" that established him as a rebel, laconic sex symbol and elusive anti-hero. He was routinely compared to Marlon Brando and James Dean. Film critic David Ansen cited a "wounded, bruised quality, a sardonic irony that women wanted to console and men could identify with."

Mr. Newman's box-office appeal paid off in roles as different as the boxer Rocky Graziano in "Somebody Up There Likes Me" and the Jewish hero Ari Ben Canaan in the founding-of-Israel saga "Exodus." In 1969, he teamed up with Robert Redford in one of Hollywood's most adored buddy-outlaw movies, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." The pair renewed their screen acquaintance in the "The Sting" (1973).

"There is a point where feelings go beyond words," Redford said Saturday. "I have lost a real friend. My life - and this country - is better for his being in it."

In what is widely regarded as a breakthrough role in midcareer, Mr. Newman at 52 played an unruly ice hockey player-coach in the 1977 film "Slap Shot." Subsequent stellar roles included a morally conflicted New York police officer in "Fort Apache the Bronx," an alcoholic lawyer in "The Verdict," a colorful Louisiana Gov. Earl Long in "Blaze," a tightly buttoned lawyer and husband in "Mr. & Mrs. Bridge" and the charmingly conniving Sully in "Nobody's Fool."

Valued hard work

"I can say fairly safely that I didn't really know much about acting until I got to be in my 50s," the perennially self-deprecating star said in a 2000 interview. Mr. Newman once assessed himself to have "no natural gift to be anything - not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches - not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me."

His limited but well-regarded work as a director included "Rachel, Rachel," "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" and "The Glass Menagerie." His wife of 50 years, Joanne Woodward, appeared in all three. The oldest of the couple's three children, Elinor Teresa, acted under the stage name Nell Potts in two of her father's films.

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, Mr. Newman won his only acting Oscar in 1987 for "The Color of Money," in which he reprised the role of Eddie Felson, a pool shark he had created in "The Hustler" 25 years earlier. Additional Academy Awards came in 1986 for his film career and in 1994 for his humanitarian work.

"The same qualities that made him a charitable and socially engaged citizen made him a fabulous actor," said Bay Area film and stage actor Peter Coyote, citing Mr. Newman's "selflessness, his unwavering sense of truthfulness and his compassion. He was one of those people who just transcended any genre that you put him in - celebrity, movie star, beautiful person. His unassailable integrity was visible from 360 degrees. I'm just heartbroken to be talking about him under the circumstances."

Philanthropic success story

Honors and awards can't begin to capture the magnetic pull Mr. Newman had for filmgoers, or the affection and respect he commanded across a spectrum of American life. In a stroke of serendipity that has made him as well-known on supermarket shelves as he was on movie screens, a food product line Mr. Newman and writer A.E. Hotchner launched with salad dressing in 1982 became an improbable success story and philanthropic bonanza. Total post-tax proceeds from Newman's Own, all of which go to charity, exceed $200 million, according to the company's Web site ( www.newmansown.com). The Hole in the Wall Camps for gravely ill children, founded by Newman in 1986, are key beneficiaries.

Mr. Newman's long marriage to Woodward, his second, seemed a model of both mutual devotion and decorum. The couple lived in Connecticut, well removed from the Hollywood hurly-burly. In an oft-quoted remark on the pleasures of fidelity, he once asked, "Why fool around with hamburger when you can have steak at home?"

Mr. Newman acquired a long-term infatuation with automobile racing after playing an Indianapolis 500 driver in the 1969 film "Winning." It soon became a serious pursuit. He won his first professional race in 1972, then finished fifth at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1977 and second in a similar race at Le Mans two years later. At age 70, in 1995, he was co-driver in a winning effort at Daytona. That made Mr. Newman the oldest driver in professional racing annals to finish first in an officially sanctioned race. He was co-founder and partner in several racing teams.

"Paul and I have been partners for 26 years, and I have come to know his passion, humor and, above all, his generosity," Carl Haas, Mr. Newman's racing-team partner, said. "Not just economic generosity, but generosity of spirit. His support of the team's drivers, crew and the racing industry is legendary. His pure joy at winning a pole position or winning a race exemplified the spirit he brought to his life and to all those that knew him."

Mr. Newman reveled in certain aspects of stereotypical male behavior. He loved drinking beer and playing elaborate pranks on friends. He once had a Porsche crumpled and festooned with ribbons, and placed in one of Redford's homes. The frat-boy streak was balanced by a commitment to Democratic candidates and causes. He campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and once said that being No. 19 on President Richard Nixon's "enemies list" was one of his proudest achievements. Mr. Newman was a vocal supporter of gay rights and same-sex marriage.

Mr. Newman was born on Jan. 26, 1925, in Cleveland and raised with an older brother, Arthur, in the well-to-do suburb of Shaker Heights. His father, who was Jewish, ran a thriving sporting-goods firm. His Hungarian-born mother converted from Catholicism to Christian Science when Mr. Newman was 5. The actor told his biographer Eric Lax that his father regarded him as "pretty much a lightweight." The senior Newman died in 1950, before his son became famous.

"The theme of unhappy or unresolved relations between father and son (actual and allegorical)," wrote Lax, tracing a pattern from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to "Nobody's Fool," "is at the heart of many of Newman's movies."

Mr. Newman played a court jester in a primary school play about Robin Hood, graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1943 and enrolled at Ohio University. Before finishing, he enlisted in the Navy and served in the Pacific as a radioman and tail gunner. He completed his undergraduate education, studded by some notorious drinking episodes, at Ohio's Kenyon College. In 2007, he donated $10 million for a scholarship fund at his alma mater.

Mr. Newman married his first wife, Jackie Witte, in 1949. Before divorcing in 1958, the couple had three children, including a son, Scott, who died from a drug and alcohol overdose in 1978. Newman founded the anti-drug Scott Newman Foundation at the University of Southern California in his son's honor.

Determined to act, Mr. Newman continued his studies at the Yale School of Drama in 1951 and then at the famed Actors Studio in New York, where he was steeped in the Method acting technique of tapping deep emotional resources. Mr. Newman got his first break as an understudy in the Broadway production of "Picnic" in 1953. The next year, he appeared in his first feature film, "The Silver Chalice." Mr. Newman was so mortified by that effort that he placed an ad in Variety to apologize for his performance. In 1956, he played the boxer Graziano in "Somebody Up There Likes Me," and a heavyweight career with remarkable staying power was launched.

Varied repertoire

Like any actor who worked as long as he did, Mr. Newman made films of highly variable quality. There were box-office blockbusters like "The Towering Inferno" and obscurities like "Fat Man and Little Boy." In his major farewell screen role, Mr. Newman played a crime boss in the 2002 "Road to Perdition" And still he wasn't through, winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the 2005 TV miniseries "Empire Falls."

Mr. Newman returned to his Broadway roots in 2003 and earned a Tony nomination for his understated performance as the Stage Manager in "Our Town."

In addition to his wife, Mr. Newman is survived by daughters Susan, Stephanie, Nell, Melissa and Clea; two grandchildren; and his brother Arthur.

Chronicle news services contributed to this report. E-mail Steven Winn at swinn@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle