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The Paul Newman Centennial

Writer: goldenstateservicesj
goldenstateservicesj
Jan 26, 2025
3 min read

That’s right, ladies and other lovers of Paul Newman — he was born on this day in 1925. Another Newmanian benchmark recently passed a few weeks ago: 70 years since his first movie The Silver Chalice (December, 1954).

It’s impossible to imagine what he would look like if he were still living. Newman passed in 2008 at the age of 83, and pretty close to the end he was still sporting those legendary good looks. Every mother I ever talked to, included my own, was in love with him, citing those pale blue eyes as his principal attribute. The Navy vet remained fit and trim throughout his life. He wasn’t buff, but he could take his shirt off without embarrassment. Dudes liked him because he seemed like a tough old bird. He wasn’t the kind of guy to beat someone else up, but he definitely seemed like the kind of guy who could TAKE a licking and then trick the caveman who trounced him into some kind of humiliating helplessness that would amount to a victory for the underdog anyhow.

Born and raised in the area around Shaker Heights, Newman was the son of European immigrants. His father was a Hungarian Jew, his mother a Slovakian Catholic who converted to Christian Science. (Newman later identified as a Unitarian Universalist). He went to Yale for a year, then studied at the Actor’s Studio with Lee Strasberg. He was in the original Broadway casts of Picnic (1953), The Desperate Hours (1955), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959).

Newman married actress Joanne Woodward (who’s still living!) in 1958. They were one of the great stage and screen couples of all time. I feel like I’m checking off boxes of items that you already know about when I tell you he loved auto racing, and that he founded the charitable food concern Newman’s Own, producer of fine sauces and dressings. His long-term residency in Connecticut made us Rhode Islanders very proud, especially the location of his Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for terminally ill kids, which is about a 10 minute drive from my mother’s home town.

Onscreen, Newman had the quality we call in women “resting bitch face”. He was forever scowling, brooding, frowning, and, above all, thinking, which is a terrific quality for a screen actor. You felt like you could read his thoughts. And on those rare occasions when he opened his face up in surprise or laughter, you really paid attention, because it was rare. And those icy blue eyes would seem to blaze — especially when he was in a western or something where his complexion was bronzed. Like most normal human beings, I am a fan, though there are plenty of his performances I would criticize. He was no comedian, for example, and comedy is my bag, so that’s kind of a major “hole in the wall” for me. There are a couple of movies, such as Alfred Hitchcock’sTorn Curtain, and Altman’s Buffalo Bill and the Indians, that Newman almost single-handedly brings down with his self indulgence. He’s entirely too one-note in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But the fact that I have written about so MANY of his movies will speak to my enthusiasm.

I provide links to the Paul Newman movies I have written about below.

Hud (1963)

The Outrage (1964)

Hombre (1967)

The Sting (1973)

Quintet (1979)

Blaze (1989)

Of those I’ve not yet written about, but plan to sometime soon, look for upcoming posts on The Hustler (1961), What a Way to Go (1964), Torn Curtain (1966), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Sometimes a Great Notion (1971), When Time Ran Out (1980), Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981), The Color of Money (1986), and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994).

 
 
 

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