Oscar Profile #425: Paul Newman Revisited

Born January 26, 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio to Theresa (née Fetsko) and Arthur Newman, who ran a profitable sporting goods store, Paul Newman would become a world-famous actor, director, professional racing car driver and humanitarian. He would receive numerous awards throughout his career including nine Oscar nominations and one win for acting, a nomination for producing, and two honorary awards. With twelve citations from the Academy, he is tied with Jack Nicholson with twelve acting nominations and three wins. They are second only to Laurence Olivier among actors with multiple citations. Olivier has thirteen including ten nominations for acting and one win, along with one for nomination directing and two honorary awards.

Newman, who caught the acting bug early, made his debut in a school play as the court jester in a production of Robin Hood at the age of 7.

After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II he completed his B.A. in Drama at Kenyon College in Gambler, Ohio in 1949. In minor TV roles from 1949, he made his Broadway debut in the original 1953 production of Picnic in the role Cliff Robertson would play on screen. Quickly picked up by Hollywood in 1954, Newman’s first big screen role was as the Greek sculptor in The Silver Chalice, one of a myriad of biblical films in fashion at the time. Although Newman loathed the film and his performance in it, it hardly hurt his career.

Newman tested for the role of James Dean’s brother in 1955’s East of Eden but lost to Dick Davolos. Instead, he replaced Dean in a highly regarded TV production of Our Town opposite Eva Marie Saint. He then took the role of Rocky Graziano, originally intended for Dean, in Somebody Up There Likes Me after Dean’s untimely death.

Married to Jackie Witte in 1949, with whom he had three children; Newman met Joanne Woodward in 1953 as his marriage was going sour. Although Witte refused for years to grant him a divorce, she finally relented, and Newman was married to Woodward in January, 1958.

Following Somebody Up there Likes Me, he starred in such successful films as The Rack; The Helen Morgan Story; Until They Sail, The Long, Hot Summer, and The Left-Handed Gun as Billy the Kid, another role intended for James Dean.

Newman’s next role was as Brick opposite Elizabeth Taylor in 1958’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for which he received his first Oscar nomination. Equally fine in 1959’s The Young Philadelphians and 1960’s From the Terrace, he received a second Oscar nomination for his signature role of Fast Eddie Felson in 1961’s The Hustler. Having returned to Broadway in 1959 to star opposite Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of Youth, the 1962 film version in which both stars reprised their roles was a critical and commercial hit. That same year’s Adventures of a Young Man gave Newman his first character role as a battered boxer.

1963 provided Newman with another iconic role as the Texas stud in Hud, but a series of so-so films threatened to tarnish his image when 1967’s Cool Hand Luke provided him with another signature opportunity.

Adding producer/director to his resume, Newman directed his wife in Rachel, Rachel for which she would earn an Oscar nod for Best Actress and he for Best Film, although Woodward was still irked that he didn’t receive one for Direction as well.

1969’s Winning introduced Newman to the sport of auto racing, which would occupy more of his off-screen time beginning in 1976. It was another 1969 film, however, that added to his already impressive acting legend, as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid opposite Robert Redford. The two would reunite for The Sting four years later, further advancing the star power of both actors.

In such hit films as 1974’s The Towering Inferno and 1977’s Slap Shot, Newman had not received another Oscar nomination for acting until 1981’s Absence of Malice and 1982’s The Verdict reaffirmed his status as one of our greatest actors.

After his actor son Scott (1950-1978) died of a drug overdose, Newman started the Scott Newman Center for drug abuse. His philanthropy continued in 1982 with his introduction of Newman’s Own, a brand of salad dressing, which later included pasta sauce and other food items, the proceeds of which all went to charity. In 1988 he established the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, Connecticut for seriously ill children. It has since expanded around the world, serving 130,000 children every year free of charge. His contributions to Catholic Relief Services prompted the Vatican to take the unusual step of publishing a notice commending his philanthropy upon his death.

Hollywood must have thought his best work was behind him when they gave an honorary career achievement Oscar at the 1985 awards. Proving once again that the best was yet to come, Newman reprised his role as Fast Eddie Felson in 1986’s The Color of Money and won his first and only competitive Oscar on his seventh acting nomination.

Newman directed Woodward in 1987’s The Glass Menagerie, co-starred opposite her in 1990’s Mr. & Mrs. Bridge and received yet another Oscar nomination, his eighth and last as a lead actor in 1994’s Nobody’s Fool. His supporting role in 2002’s Road to Perdition would earn him another. He had also been honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1993 ceremonies.

Newman’s last big screen performance was his critically acclaimed voice-over work in 2006’s Cars after which he announced his retirement.

Paul Newman died of lung cancer on September 26, 2008. He was 83 years old.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE HUSTLER (1961), directed by Robert Rossen

Rossen’s powerful film is about people who live life in the margins of society. Newman’s Fast Eddie Felson is a pool hustler taken advantage of by parasites. Piper Laurie’s crippled alcoholic Sara is as pathetic a leading female character as was ever put on the screen. Laurie was so convinced she couldn’t repeat the magic of her performance here that she retired from acting, returning fifteen years later as Sissy Spacek’s mother in Carrie. Newman, thankfully, would continue acting uninterrupted for decades, getting better all the time and finally winning an Oscar reprising Fast Eddie in Martin Scorsese’s 1986 film, The Color of Money.

HUD (1963), directed by Martin Ritt

Never afraid of taking chances, Newman plays a heel, a callous stud who lives only for kicks; a dangerous role model for worshiping nephew Brandon de Wilde and a an even more dangerous adversary for his strict, highly moral father, Melvyn Douglas. The three actors burn up the screen with their intensity while Patricia Neal plays it cool as the housekeeper who has had enough. Douglas, who actually has a larger role than Neal, won a much deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actor while Neal easily won her Best Actress Oscar for what is essentially a supporting role in a lean year for leading actresses.

COOL HAND LUKE (1990), directed by Stuart Rosenberg

Not since 1932’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and never since, has a film about the injustice of the American prison system hit audiences where they live like this one. Newman plays a carefree young man who is arrested for a minor crime and spends years fighting the injustices of the system. It’s a serious, complex, film about non-conformity with a serious, complex performance by one of our deceptively brilliant actors. Newman’s performance earned him his fourth Oscar nomination for Best Actor, but it was character actor George Kennedy as a fellow prisoner who took home the statuette for Best Supporting Actor.

THE VERDICT (1982), directed by Sidney Lumet

In what was arguably his best late career performance, Newman plays a boozy ambulance chasing Boston lawyer who takes on the Catholic Church in a wrongful death suit that the odds are against his winning. With sterling support from James Mason as a smooth-talking defense lawyer; Jack Warden as Newman’s friend and private investigator, Milo O’Shea as the far from partial presiding judge and Lindsay Crouse as a nurse with critical information, the film fascinates from beginning to end. It’s Newman, however, who provides the film’s audience with the film’s central appeal, that of a middle-aged loser who proves it’s not too late to turn your life around.

NOBODY’S FOOL (1994), directed by Robert Benton

Approaching 70, Newman proves he is still an actor’s actor without artifice, succeeding as perhaps only he could at playing another loser who struggles to turn his life around and does so even at his advanced age. Newman plays a small town rascally ne’er-do-well who is suing his boss (Bruce Willis) while secretly having an affair with his wife (Melanie Griffith) and re-establishing his relationship with the son (Dylan Walsh) he abandoned as a child and getting to know his grandson (Carl J. Metusovich). Jessica Tandy, who died before the film’s release, gives a lovely performance as Newman’s landlady.