{"id":86949,"date":"2022-09-26T15:28:03","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T19:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=86949"},"modified":"2022-09-26T15:38:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T19:38:42","slug":"remembering-paul-newmans-life-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/remembering-paul-newmans-life-death.html","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Paul Newman\u2019s Life & Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is the anniversary of the death of Paul Newman (1925-2008), who died on 26 September 2008 at the age of 83.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: Paul Newman with second wife, actress Joanne Woodward, in a publicity photograph for the 1958 film \u201cThe Long, Hot Summer.\u201d Credit: 20th Century Fox; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Paul Newman was an Academy Award-winning American actor who appeared in more than 60 movies during his long career. Gifted, handsome, famous and wealthy, Newman avoided the Hollywood lifestyle and preferred his home life with his wife Joanne Woodward, to whom he was married 50 years \u2013 right up to his death.<\/p>\n

Newman also was a great philanthropist, co-founding a food company called \u201cNewman\u2019s Own\u201d that donated more than $330 million to charity during his lifetime.<\/p>\n

This newspaper obituary was published the day after Newman died.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Sun (Lowell, Massachusetts), 27 September 2008<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n

Paul Newman Dies at Age 83<\/strong><\/p>\n

WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) \u2013 Paul Newman, the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as an activist, race car driver, popcorn impresario and the anti-hero of such films as \u201cHud,\u201d \u201cCool Hand Luke,\u201d and \u201cThe Color of Money,\u201d has died. He was 83.<\/p>\n

Newman died Friday after a long battle with cancer at his farmhouse near Westport, publicist Jeff Sanderson said. He was surrounded by his family and close friends.<\/p>\n

In May, Newman had dropped plans to direct a fall production of \u201cOf Mice and Men,\u201d citing unspecified health issues.<\/p>\n

He got his start in theater and on television during the 1950s, and went on to become one of the world\u2019s most enduring and popular film stars, a legend held in awe by his peers. He was nominated for Oscars 10 times, winning one regular award and two honorary ones, and had major roles in more than 50 motion pictures, including \u201cExodus,\u201d Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,\u201d \u201cThe Verdict,\u201d \u201cThe Sting\u201d and \u201cAbsence of Malice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman worked with some of the greatest directors of the past half century, from Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston to Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese and the Coen brothers. His costars included Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and, most famously, Robert Redford, his sidekick in \u201cButch Cassidy\u201d and \u201cThe Sting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sometimes teamed with his wife and fellow Oscar winner, Joanne Woodward, with whom he had one of Hollywood\u2019s rare long-term marriages. \u201cI have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?\u201d Newman told Playboy magazine when asked if he was tempted to stray. They wed in 1958, around the same time they both appeared in \u201cThe Long Hot Summer,\u201d and Newman directed her in several films, including \u201cRachel, Rachel\u201d and \u201cThe Glass Menagerie.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his strong, classically handsome face and piercing blue eyes, Newman was a heartthrob just as likely to play against his looks, becoming a favorite with critics for his convincing portrayals of rebels, tough guys and losers. \u201cI was always a character actor,\u201d he once said. \u201cI just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon\u2019s \u201cenemies list,\u201d one of the actor\u2019s proudest achievements, he liked to say.<\/p>\n

A screen legend by his mid-40s, he waited a long time for his first competitive Oscar, winning in 1987 for \u201cThe Color of Money,\u201d a reprise of the role of pool shark \u201cFast\u201d Eddie Felson, whom Newman portrayed in the 1961 film \u201cThe Hustler.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman delivered a magnetic performance in \u201cThe Hustler,\u201d playing a smooth-talking, whiskey-chugging pool shark who takes on Minnesota Fats \u2013 played by Jackie Gleason \u2013 and becomes entangled with a gambler played by George C. Scott. In the sequel \u2013 directed by Scorsese \u2013 \u201cFast Eddie\u201d is no longer the high-stakes hustler he once was, but rather an aging liquor salesman who takes a young pool player (Cruise) under his wing before making a comeback.<\/p>\n

He won an honorary Oscar in 1986 \u201cin recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft.\u201d In 1994, he won a third Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for his charitable work.<\/p>\n

His most recent academy nod was a supporting actor nomination for the 2002 film \u201cRoad to Perdition.\u201d One of Newman\u2019s nominations was as a producer; the other nine were in acting categories. (Jack Nicholson holds the record among actors for Oscar nominations, with 12; actress Meryl Streep has had 14.)<\/p>\n

As he passed his 80th<\/sup> birthday, he remained in demand, winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the 2005 HBO drama \u201cEmpire Falls\u201d and providing the voice of a crusty 1951 car in the 2006 Disney-Pixar hit, \u201cCars.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in May 2007, he told ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America\u201d he had given up acting, though he intended to remain active in charity projects. \u201cI\u2019m not able to work anymore as an actor at the level I would want to,\u201d he said. \u201cYou start to lose your memory, your confidence, your invention. So that\u2019s pretty much a closed book for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He received his first Oscar nomination for playing a bitter, alcoholic former star athlete in the 1958 film \u201cCat on a Hot Tin Roof.\u201d Elizabeth Taylor played his unhappy wife and Burl Ives his wealthy, domineering father in Tennessee Williams\u2019 harrowing drama, which was given an upbeat ending for the screen.<\/p>\n

In \u201cCool Hand Luke,\u201d he was nominated for his gritty role as a rebellious inmate in a brutal Southern prison. The movie was one of the biggest hits of 1967 and included a tagline, delivered one time by Newman and one time by prison ward Strother Martin, that helped define the generation gap, \u201cWhat we\u2019ve got here is (a) failure to communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman\u2019s hair was graying, but he was as gorgeous as ever and on the verge of his greatest popular success. In 1969, Newman teamed with Redford for \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,\u201d a comic Western about two outlaws running out of time. Newman paired with Redford again in 1973 in \u201cThe Sting,\u201d a comedy about two Depression-era con men. Both were multiple Oscar winners and huge hits, irreverent, unforgettable pairings of two of the best-looking actors of their time.<\/p>\n

Newman also turned to producing and directing. In 1968, he directed \u201cRachel, Rachel,\u201d a film about a lonely spinster\u2019s rebirth. The movie received four Oscar nominations, including Newman, for producer of a best motion picture, and Woodward, for best actress. The film earned Newman the best director award from the New York Film Critics.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, Newman, admittedly bored with acting, became fascinated with auto racing, a sport he studied when he starred in the 1972 film, \u201cWinning.\u201d After turning professional in 1977, Newman and his driving team made strong showings in several major races, including fifth place in Daytona in 1977 and second place in Le Mans in 1979.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacing is the best way I know to get away from all the rubbish of Hollywood,\u201d he told People magazine in 1979.<\/p>\n

Despite his love of race cars, Newman continued to make movies and continued to pile up Oscar nominations, his looks remarkably intact, his acting becoming more subtle, nothing like the mannered method performances of his early years, when he was sometimes dismissed as a Brando imitator. \u201cIt takes a long time for an actor to develop the assurance that the trim, silver-haired Paul Newman has acquired,\u201d Pauline Kael wrote of him in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

In 1982, he got his fifth Oscar nomination for his portrayal of an honest businessman persecuted by an irresponsible reporter in \u201cAbsence of Malice.\u201d The following year, he got his sixth for playing a down-and-out alcoholic attorney in \u201cThe Verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1995, he was nominated for his slyest, most understated work yet, the town curmudgeon and deadbeat in \u201cNobody\u2019s Fool.\u201d New York Times critic Caryn James found his acting \u201cwithout cheap sentiment and self-pity,\u201d and observed, \u201cIt says everything about Mr. Newman\u2019s performance, the single best of this year and among the finest he has ever given, that you never stop to wonder how a guy as good-looking as Paul Newman ended up this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman, who shunned Hollywood life, was reluctant to give interviews and usually refused to sign autographs because he found the majesty of the act offensive, according to one friend.<\/p>\n

He also claimed that he never read reviews of his movies.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018If they\u2019re good you get a fat head and if they\u2019re bad you\u2019re depressed for three weeks,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

Off the screen, Newman had a taste for beer and was known for his practical jokes. He once had a Porsche installed in Redford\u2019s hallway \u2013 crushed and covered with ribbons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that my sense of humor is the only thing that keeps me sane,\u201d he told Newsweek magazine in a 1994 interview.<\/p>\n

\u2026In December 1994, about a month before his 70th<\/sup> birthday, he told Newsweek magazine he had changed little with age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not mellower, I\u2019m not less angry, I\u2019m not less self-critical, I\u2019m not less tenacious,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe the best part is that your liver can\u2019t handle those beers at noon anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Newman is survived by his wife, five children, two grandsons and his older brother Arthur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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