PAUL NEWMAN

Biography

Early Years & The Method

He was born Paul Leonard Newman on 26 January 1925, in Shaker Heights, an affluent suburb of Cleveland. His father, Arthur, was Jewish and ran a profitable sports goods store. His mother, Theresa (née Fetzer), was Catholic and helped out in the shop, while raising Paul and his brother Arthur. Young Paul was bright and good at sports. He also showed an early interest in theatre, something that Theresa encouraged. He made his acting debut at 7, as the court jester in a school production of Robin Hood.

With the war on, he tried to enlist in the Naval Air Corps, keen to serve as a pilot. Quickly, though, tests showed that those famous blue eyes were in fact blind to colour. Instead of gallantly strafing the foe, Newman had to be content as a radio operator on torpedo bombers in the South Pacific.

On his return, he won an athletic scholarship to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. After "an incident" at a local bar, he spent the night in Knox County Jail and was summarily thrown off the football team. Needing a replacement extra-curricular activity, he returned to drama, appearing in several college productions.

In 1952, moving to New York, he was accepted at the renowned Actors Studio, studying The Method under Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan. By the next year, he was a hit in his big Broadway debut, Picnic, winning a Theatre World Award. More importantly, he was spotted by Warner Brothers executives, who signed him up.

Breakthrough & Stardom

His breakthrough came in 1956 with Somebody Up There Likes Me, playing Rocky Graziano, a young tearaway who finds trouble on the streets and then in jail, gets drafted, goes AWOL and then finds redemption in the boxing-ring. Alternately troubled and effusive, Newman was superb, bringing great depth to the character.

Then, while filming The Long Hot Summer (1957), he became involved with co-star Joanne Woodward, who'd that year won the Best Actress Oscar for The Three Faces Of Eve. A year later, he would marry Woodward, beginning one of Hollywood's longest unions. When later asked why he never strayed, Newman famously said: "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?"

Now came the first real blockbuster. With Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958), Newman was teamed with Elizabeth Taylor. The film was one of the biggest grossers of the year and sealed Newman's image as "a troubled opportunist whose sex appeal was balanced by his seeming contempt for women". It also earned him his first Oscar nomination.

Signature Roles

1961 brought another of Newman's signature roles, as cocky pool-shark Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler. Challenging Jackie Gleason's veteran Minnesota Fats to a marathon duel, he loses big money and goes on the skids. Both Newman and Gleason were Oscar-nominated.

In 1963's Hud, Newman played another of his total b*stards - drunken, libidinous and arrogant, who comes close to raping housekeeper Patricia Neal. Neal won a Best Actress Oscar, and Melvyn Douglas won Best Supporting Actor. Newman himself was nominated as Best Actor.

Then came 1967's Cool Hand Luke, where, as Lucas Jackson, he cuts the heads off parking-meters and is condemned to Road Prison 36. Refusing to ever back down, he gets pulverised then befriended by George Kennedy's Dragline, then wins over the men by very nearly eating 50 eggs. His prison number, 37, was said to be a reference to Luke 1:37: "For with God nothing is impossible".

Butch Cassidy & Beyond

1969 brought that William Goldman-penned role, as Butch in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Here he teamed up with Robert Redford's Sundance, robbed trains, fled from the most persistent trackers in the West, famously escaping by jumping off a cliff, and went to Bolivia where they unsuccessfully took on hundreds of soldiers.

Back with Redford and George Roy Hill for The Sting (1973), Newman played master con-man Henry Gondorff who, down on his luck in the '30s, teams up with young prankster Redford to take revenge on gangster Robert Shaw. Smart, funny and possessing a brilliant finishing twist, the movie was a monster.

Racing & Philanthropy

Beyond acting, Newman was a passionate race car driver. In 1972, he drove his Lotus Elan to victory at Thompson, Connecticut. In 1977 he came 5th at the 24-hour Daytona meeting, then two years later came 2nd at Le Mans. He won 4 SCCA National titles in the D-production category, and was still winning big races well into his sixties. In 1983, he joined up with Carl Haas to form the famous Newman-Haas racing team.

1982 saw him start up the Newman's Own brand, selling pasta sauces, microwaveable popcorn and more. All profits were to go to charity, particularly the Hole In The Wall Camp - a summer camp in Ashford, Connecticut, for kids with cancer, AIDS and other blood-related diseases. Incredibly, Newman's Own would donate over $220 million to charity by his death. Ever-humble, Newman joked that "The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is now out-grossing my films".

Final Glory

Including Rachel, Rachel, Paul had by 1985 been Oscar-nominated 7 times and never won. So the Academy redressed the balance by presenting him with an honorary statue. And, for it is the Law of Sod, Newman actually won for real the very next year. This was for his deft reprising of the role of Fast Eddie Felson in Martin Scorsese's The Color Of Money.

In 1994's Nobody's Fool, as naughty loser Sully Sullivan, he seeks compensation for his bad knee, rediscovers his family and flirts once more with Melanie Griffith. Still convincingly roguish after all these years, Paul was Oscar-nominated for the 9th time.

Come 2002 and his biggest movie in years, Sam Mendes' Road To Perdition. Here he played Irish mobster John Rooney, who sends hit-man Jude Law after the young son of his best hit-man, Tom Hanks. Excellent stuff, and proof positive that, in his late seventies, Newman had more vitality than most actors of one-third his age.