Background

Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He was the second son of Theresa Garth and Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1961), who ran a sporting goods store.

Paul's father was Jewish, the son of Simon Newman and Hannah Cohn, emigrants from Hungary and Poland. His mother, Theresa, whose year of birth remains unclear but appears to have been between 1889 and 1895, was a practitioner of Christian Science. She was born to a Slovak Roman Catholic family in Peticse (near Homonna) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Ptičie near Humenné, Slovakia). Newman's mother worked in his father's store, while raising Paul and his elder brother, Arthur, who later became a producer and production manager.

Education

Newman showed an early interest in the theater; his first role was at the age of seven, playing the court jester in a school production of Robin Hood. At age 10, Newman performed at the Cleveland Play House in a production of Saint George and the Dragon, and was a notable actor and alumnus of their Curtain Pullers children's theatre program. Graduating from Shaker Heights High School in 1943, he briefly attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Newman served in the United States Navy in World War II in the Pacific theater. Initially, he enrolled in the Navy V-12 pilot training program at Yale University, but was dropped when his colorblindness was discovered.

Boot camp followed, with training as a radioman and rear gunner. Qualifying in torpedo bombers in 1944, Aviation Radioman Third Class Newman was sent to Barbers Point, Hawaii. He was subsequently assigned to Pacific-based replacement torpedo squadrons VT-98, VT-99, and VT-100, responsible primarily for training replacement combat pilots and air crewmen, with special emphasis on carrier landings. He later flew as a turret gunner in an Avenger torpedo bomber. As a radioman-gunner, his unit was assigned to the USS Bunker Hill along with other replacements shortly before the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945. The pilot of his aircraft had an ear infection which kept their plane grounded. The rest of their squadron flew to the Bunker Hill. Days later, a kamikaze attack on the vessel killed a number of service members, including the other members of his unit.

After the war, Newman completed his Bachelor of Arts in drama and economics at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio in 1949. Shortly after earning his degree, he joined several summer stock companies, most notably the Belfry Players in Wisconsin and the Woodstock Players in Illinois. He toured with them for three months and developed his talents as a part of Woodstock Players. He later attended the Yale School of Drama for one year, before moving to New York City to study under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. At Yale, Newman honed his stage skills and sold encyclopedias on the side for cash. His talents landed him a place with the acclaimed New York drama workshop, the Actors Studio, where he studied with such luminaries of the craft as Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan in the early 1950s.

Career

In 1949, Paul Newman joined a summer stock company in Wisconsin, then an Illinois repertory theater. When Newman's father passed away, he returned to the Cleveland area to take over the sporting goods store. It was a life and career path to which he was deeply averse. Fortunately for him, the store was sold.

Soon Newman found work in television plays, then a fresh and innovative union of the two arts that was attracting stellar writers, directors, and performers. His success in this medium led to Broadway work, and, in 1953, he was cast as the understudy for the lead in the play Picnic. Hungry for a chance to prove himself, Newman asked the director if he could play the part on the road, to which the director, Joshua Logan, refused. Newman, Logan said, did not possess the sexual charisma required for the character.

Crushed, Newman adopted a new attitude. He began working out, but more importantly, he began observing others and their behavior. It was also around this time that he met actress Joanne Woodward, and the chemistry between the two dissolved Newman's first marriage. Film seemed the next logical career move, but he was wary. He finally accepted the lead in the 1955 biblical drama The Silver Chalice. It was a disastrous move and almost ended his acting career in one fell swoop. Newman played a Greek slave who hammered the cup from which Jesus and the apostles allegedly drank at the Last Supper.

Newman returned to New York and devoted his energies to more gratifying stage work. He was next cast alongside James Dean in a teleplay, but when Dean died in a car crash in September of 1955, Newman was asked to take the lead. He hesitated, but his role in the adaptation of a story by Ernest Hemingway revived his reputation and his faith in his abilities. Hollywood beckoned again, but this time with an offer to play the boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me. The 1957 hit made the actor into an overnight sensation, and Warner Brothers signed Newman to seven-year contract.

Newman's next film, The Long Hot Summer, also starred his new wife, Woodward, in the tale of small town Southern politics and a malevolent drifter. The role would come to typify the characterization in which the tougher, now battle-scarred actor would excel and build his career upon. Other films included Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which was also released in 1958 and earned him his first Academy Award (Oscar) nomination, and another biblical drama, Exodus. Still, Newman was unhappy with the Hollywood system and managed to be released from his contract through the help of his savvy agent. Now an independent actor not influenced by studio whims, he was able to take a role that offered a well-written dramatic challenge: the smooth talking pool shark Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler. The 1961 role brought Newman his second Academy Award nomination.

Similar roles followed, with similar results. For the 1963 drama Hud and the mournful prison picture Cool Hand Luke, one of 1967's biggest box-office successes, Newman again won nominations, but did not win the Oscar in either instance. Subsequent roles in period pieces, such as 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and 1973's The Sting, again teamed him with Robert Redford and did phenomenally well. Later in the decade, Newman's career took a slight downturn. His only admirable portrayal came as a vicious minor league hockey coach in the 1977 cult classic Slap Shot.

Newman continued to command respect with his film roles as well, especially with the 1981 drama Absence of Malice, for which he earned his fifth Oscar nomination. The role of a wretched alcoholic lawyer in 1982's The Verdict landed him his sixth. His Oscar losing streak became a joke among Newman and his circle of family and friends. When he was nominated for reprising his "Fast Eddie" role in the sequel to The Hustler, the 1986 Tom Cruise movie The Color of Money, he didn't even travel to Los Angeles for the ceremony. This time, he won.

In 1989 he portrayed Louisiana Gov. Earl K. Long in Blaze. At age 70 he was nominated yet again, for his depiction of Sully, an irresponsible yet humorous construction worker in Nobody’s Fool (1994), directed by Robert Benton and based on the novel by Richard Russo; Newman once claimed that the character was the closest to himself that he had ever played. That same year the actor gave a broadly satirical performance as an unscrupulous tycoon in Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Hudsucker Proxy. Benton also directed him in the detective thriller Twilight (1998).

Subsequent roles for Newman included a mob boss in Sam Mendes’s Road to Perdition (2002), which earned him another Oscar nomination. In 2005 he starred with Woodward in the television miniseries Empire Falls (2005), which was based on a Russo novel; Newman won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of the cantankerous father of protagonist Miles Roby (Ed Harris). After he voiced a character in the animated film Cars (2006), Newman retired in 2007, saying, “I’m not able to work anymore as an actor at the level I would want to…so that’s pretty much a closed book to me.” That year he was diagnosed with cancer, which would prove fatal.

Newman died on the morning of September 26, 2008, in the presence of his family. His body was cremated after a private funeral service near his home in Westport.

Achievements

• Paul Newman was one of the most distinguished twentieth-century American actors. He won and was nominated for numerous awards, winning an Academy Award for his performance in the 1986 film The Color of Money, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy Award, and many others.
  
  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 Kennedy Center Honors in 1992 along with his wife, Joanne Woodward.
  
  In 2015, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 'forever stamp' honoring Newman, which went on sale September 18, 2015. It features a 1980 photograph of Newman by photographer Steve Schapiro, accompanied by text that reads: 'Actor/Philanthropist'.
  
  Since the 1970s, an event called "Newman Day" has been celebrated at Kenyon College, Bates College, Princeton University, and other American colleges.
  
  Newman 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 posthumously inducted into the SCCA Hall of Fame at the national convention in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 21, 2009.

Works

More photos

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  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969
  • A New Kind of Love 1963
  • The Drowning Pool 1975
  • When Time Ran Out 1980
  • Fat Man and Little Boy 1989
  • The Helen Morgan Story 1957
  • The Young Philadelphians 1959
  • The Battler 1955
  • The Long, Hot Summer 1958
  • The Verdict 1982
  • Hud 1963
  • Nobody's Fool 1994
  • Sometimes a Great Notion 1971
  • The Sting 1973
  • Hombre 1967
  • The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean 1972
  • The Hustler 1961
  • Pocket Money 1972
  • From The Terrace 1960
  • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958
  • Harper 1966
  • Winning 1969
  • The Color of Money 1986
  • Blaze 1989
  • Macho Men of the Movies 2017
  • The Left Handed Gun 1958
  • Quintet 1979
  • Torn Curtain 1966
  • Message in a Bottle 1999
  • The Silver Chalice 1954
  • Sweet Bird of Youth 1962
  • The MacKintosh Man 1973
  • Harry and Son 1984
  • Buffalo Bill And The Indians 1976
  • Hudsucker Proxy 1994

Religion

Newman had no religion as an adult, but described himself as a Jew, saying "it's more of a challenge".

Newman was an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.

Politics

Newman was a lifelong Democrat. For his support of Eugene McCarthy in 1968 (and effective use of television commercials in California) and his opposition to the Vietnam War, Newman was placed nineteenth on Richard Nixon's enemies list, which Newman claimed was his greatest accomplishment. During the 1968 general election, Newman supported Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey and appeared in a pre-election night telethon for him. Newman was also a vocal supporter of gay rights.

In January 1995, Newman was the chief investor of a group, including the writer E.L. Doctorow and the editor Victor Navasky, that bought the progressive-left wing periodical The Nation. Newman was an occasional writer for the publication.

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. Newman earlier donated money to Bill Richardson's campaign for president in 2008.

Newman attended the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, and was also present at the first Earth Day event in Manhattan on April 22, 1970.

Newman was concerned about global warming and supported nuclear energy development as a solution.

Views

In 1983, Newman became a Major Donor for The Mirror Theater Ltd, alongside Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, matching a grant from Laurence Rockefeller. Newman was inspired to invest by his connection with Lee Strasberg, as Lee’s then daughter-in-law Sabra Jones was the Founder and Producing Artistic Director of The Mirror. Paul Newman remained a friend of the company until his death and discussed at numerous times possible productions in which he could star with his wife, Joanne Woodward.

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.

Upon Newman's death, the Italian newspaper (a "semi-official" paper of the Holy See) L'Osservatore Romano published a notice lauding Newman's philanthropy. It also commented that "Newman was a generous heart, an actor of a dignity and style rare in Hollywood quarters."

Newman was responsible for preserving lands around Westport, Connecticut. He lobbied the state's governor for funds for the 2011 Aspetuck Land Trust in Easton. In 2011 Paul Newman's estate gifted land to Westport to be managed by the Aspetuck Land Trust.

Quotations: "On adultery: "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?"

"Newman's second law: Just when things look darkest, they go black."

"A man with no enemies is a man with no character."

"f you don't have enemies, you don't have character."

"People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked."

"The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films."

"You only grow when you are alone."

"Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience."

Membership

Newman was initiated into the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

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.

• Phi Kappa Tau fraternity

  1943

• Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy

  1999

Personality

Many people all over the world found Newman appealing. He seemed an uneasy, self-regarding personality. He was mannered, and his smirking good humor always seemed more appropriate to glossy advertisements than to good movies.

Physical Characteristics: Newman was blue-eyed. His sometimes gruff, sometimes duplicitous, nearly always captivating characterizations have earned him a place in the pantheon of celebrated and beloved American film stars.

Quotes from others about the person

• "He makes it look so easy, and he looks so wonderful, that everybody assumes he isn't acting." - William Goldman.
  
  "He is the most private man I've ever known. He has a moat and a drawbridge which he lets down only occasionally." - A. E. Hotchner.
  
  "He has the attention span of a bolt of lightning."- Robert Redford.
  
  "He has a good character, and not many people do. I think he would rather not do anything wrong, whether on a moral or an artistic level. He is what you would call a man of conscience — not necessarily of judgment, but of conscience. I don't know any actors like that." - Gore Vidal.
  
  "Paul likes to test himself. That's what makes Paul run. He's got a lot of courage, a highly underrated element in people's lives these days." - Joanne Woodward.

Interests

• Politicians

  Eugene McCarthy, Ned Lamont, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson

• Sport & Clubs

  Auto racing

Connections

Newman was married twice. His first marriage was to Jackie Witte from 1949 to 1958. They had a son, Scott (1950–1978), and two daughters, Susan (born 1953) and Stephanie Kendall (born 1954). Scott, who appeared in films including Breakheart Pass, The Towering Inferno, and the 1977 film Fraternity Row, died in November 1978 from a drug overdose. Newman started the Scott Newman Center for drug abuse prevention in memory of his son.

Newman met actress Joanne Woodward in 1953. Shortly after filming The Long, Hot Summer in 1957, he divorced Witte. He married Woodward early in 1958. The Newmans moved away from Hollywood in the early 1960s, buying a home and starting a family in Westport, Connecticut. They were one of the very first Hollywood movie star couples to choose to raise their families outside California. They remained married for 50 years, until his death in 2008. They had three daughters: Elinor "Nell" Teresa (b. 1959), Melissa "Lissy" Stewart (b. 1961), and Claire "Clea" Olivia (b. 1965). Newman was well known for his devotion to his wife and family. When once asked about his reputation for fidelity, he famously quipped, "Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?" He also said that he never met anyone who had as much to lose as he did. In his profile on 60 Minutes he admitted he once left Woodward after a fight, walked around the outside of the house, knocked on the front door and explained to Joanne he had nowhere to go.

Father:

Arthur Newman

(1893–1950)

Mother:

Theresa Fetzer

(1894–1982)

ex-wife:

Jackie Witte

Brother:

Arthur S. Newman Jr.

(b. January 22, 1924, Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States)

Wife:

Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Newman

Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Newman is an American actress, producer, activist, and philanthropist. She is best known for her performance in The Three Faces of Eve (1957), which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

Son:

Alan Scott Newman

(September 23, 1950 – November 20, 1978)

Alan Scott Newman was an American film and television actor and stuntman, whose most prominent roles were in The Towering Inferno and Breakheart Pass. He was the only son of Academy Award-winning actor Paul Newman. After Scott Newman's death in 1978 from a drug overdose, his father established the Scott Newman Center in his honor, dedicated to preventing drug abuse through education.

Daughter:

Elinor Teresa Newman

She is a former child actress who performed under the name of Nell Potts. She is an environmentalist, biologist, and a prominent supporter of sustainable agriculture, who became an entrepreneur when she founded an organic food and pet food production company, Newman's Own Organics.

Daughter:

Melissa Newman

(b. September 27, 1961)

She is an American artist, singer and former actress who appeared in the 1990 film Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, and at the 30th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

Daughter:

Claire Olivia Newman

(b. 1965 )

Daughter:

Susan Kendall Newman

(b. February 21, 1953, New York City, New York, United States)

Daughter:

Stephanie Newman

(b. 1951)

colleague:

Elizabeth Taylor

(27 February 1932 – 23 March 2011)

Elizabeth Taylor was a British-born American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian.

References

• Paul Newman: A Life
  2009
• Paul Newman: A Life in Pictures
  2006
• Paul Newman: A Biography
  1996
• Paul Newman: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies)
  2010
• Paul Newman: A Life
  1986
• Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman
  2015
• American Legends: The Life of Paul Newman
  2014