Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Paul Newman
Fourteen years after his death, Parade turns to our vintage cover stories, a new documentary and books—and the legend’s former co-stars—to help discover “the real Paul Newman.”
Who doesn’t know Paul Newman? The man with the beautiful blue eyes, the chiseled face and body, the 50-plus years of memorable roles, the awards, the movie-star marriage. Well, it turns out, there is lots more to know, as revealed in a recent HBO Max documentary ( The Last Movie Stars) about his marriage to Joanne Woodward and an upcoming posthumous memoir, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man (Knopf ), out Oct. 18. The documentary was revelatory, says Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz. “Newman and Woodward teach us that the last part of your life can be the best part of your life.”
Parade cover stories going back to 1969 are also revealing. They show a reluctant star, sometimes more interested in civil rights or racing cars than acting, and a loyal, sometimes cranky husband. And we’re learning Newman could be unpredictable. After working for five years with screenwriter Stewart Stern of Rebel Without a Cause fame on interviews with himself, Woodward, family, friends and artistic partners, Newman burned the tapes. (Luckily, the transcripts—used for the doc and the book—were not destroyed.) Why did he burn the tapes? Nobody knows, says Mankiewicz, but maybe “he thought, Nobody needs this arrogant actor talking about how great he is.” And, says Mankiewicz, laughing, “He also clearly liked setting things on fire,” remembering a moment in The Last Movie Stars where Newman is described torching some formalwear. “That was the other part. He had a little low-grade pyromania— burning the tuxedo in the driveway is pretty great.”
What else don’t we know about Paul Newman? Read on to find out.
THE MAKING OF A STAR
Newman was born on Jan. 26, 1925, to a well-off father who ran a sporting goods store and quietly drank. A lot. Most of his life, Newman drank a lot too. “I didn’t know that about him,” says Mankiewicz. “I’m told now that everyone knew.”
Newman acted in school plays and local productions but didn’t take acting seriously. After serving in World War II, he did summer stock, met his first wife, Jackie, got married and had three kids, all before turning 30. His first break was being cast in a new Broadway play, Picnic, in 1953. His second break was working with the understudy for the female lead: Joanne Woodward, who’d grown up in Georgia. “Joanne is a force of nature,” says Michael Ontkean, who co-starred with Newman in 1977’s Slap Shot.
“Where would Paul have been without her giving him the keys to access the voices and souls of his early Southern and Texan characters? Those guys were courtesy of Joanne.”
Mankiewicz agrees. “When they met on the Broadway production of Picnic, there was this universal understanding that he’s this pretty boy who has some talent and she’s Joanne f---ing
Woodward,” he says. “She’s better. And she was probably better for decades, until circumstance and baked-in Hollywood sexism meant that she had to give up her career.”
Newman divorced his wife to marry Woodward and had three more kids. Their film careers skyrocketed. Woodward won an Oscar for 1957’s The Three Faces Of Eve. Newman followed her lead with Oscar-nominated roles in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967).Then in 1968, Newman directed Woodward to an Oscar nomination for her performance in Rachel, Rachel.
In spite of successes like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), Newman was modest, says Sally Field, who starred with him in Absence of Malice (1981). “At the end of the block [where we were shooting] there was a barricade and people were there, watching. Paul saw them and said, ‘Oh, look at that crowd. I wonder what’s going on down there?’ I said, ‘Don’t you know? Paul Newman is making a movie.’ ”
Field also worked with Woodward in the 1976 TV miniseries Sybil and credits the couple with her political awakening. “I learned from them,” she
says. “In both of them, there’s this caring for their fellow man. When I had the opportunity to do roles like Norma Rae and when I was in the shoes of someone I wasn’t, I learned. I was awakened.”
Ontkean remembers Newman’s warmth: “Paul is never far from my thoughts, as he was the father and brother I never had growing up.”
TURNING TRAGEDY ON ITS HEAD
In 1978, Newman lost his son, Scott, to a drug overdose at the age of 28. “He suffered the unfathomable tragedy of losing his son,” Mankiewicz says, “and realizing he probably didn’t do all he could to help him.”
In response, Newman and Woodward launched the Scott Newman Center to fight addiction. In 1986, Newman parlayed his celebrity status into a line of food products, Newman’s Own, which donates all profits to charity. The food angle wasn’t offbeat if you knew Newman, says Field.
“He was a major cook. He and [director] Sydney Pollack would have cook-offs, and I would have to tell them which one was better.”
In 1988, Newman launched the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a camp to help kids and their families dealing with cancer or other medical challenges. “Paul saw it as the place where he could meaningfully acknowledge the benevolence of luck in his own life and the brutality of it in the lives of others,” says James Canton, CEO of the camp. “People would be enamored with Paul when he talked about it, but he was deliberate in redirecting their attention to the courage of the children.”
During all of this, Newman and Woodward flourished artistically. And in 1987, nearly 30 years after Woodward, Newman won his own Oscar for The Color of Money. “The end of Newman’s career— The Verdict, The Color of Money and Nobody’s Fool— those are his best roles,” says Mankiewicz.
The films and their charities live on, even after Newman’s 2008 death and 15 years after Woodward’s Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis. Newman’s Own has raised more than $570 million for charity. The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp has helped thousands of kids and their families.
“He was more complicated than we thought,” Mankiewicz says. “His memoir and the doc are filled with his humanity—his outward humanity toward the world and his sense of obligation. He was a human and he was flawed deeply, but he tried his best to overcome it, and he loved his family.”