Shockingly handsome in 1957, the world would soon learn of an inner beauty that burned brightly until yesterday.
Graceful and dignified until the very end, Paul Newman will always serve as a model for how to live. Sharing the substantial rewards of celebrity far beyond Hollywood, New York and Westport was a way of life before it was fashionable. Waking to the news of his passing was stunning despite reports of his illness.
Just yesterday, his only film with Hitchcock (and costarring Julie Andrews) was screened on Turner Classic Movies. I thought of him, remembered the news he was ill but felt if anyone could rally and defeat it, he could.
That fabulous face
His face could make you forget your troubles. When he approached a milestone birthday, I sat in my oncologist's waiting room so grateful to snatch up a magazine whose cover he graced. I read with great disbelief that Hud, Fast Eddie, Brick was 70. How could this be? I chuckled at his self deprecating humor and marveled at his humility. I was lifted by learning of the extent of his humanitarian work. He made the most of his remaining 13 years.
For Paul Newman, change was no cliché.
How many artists, actors, directors leave behind a body of humanitarian work to rival their artistic achievements? Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Hud, Our Town, Sweet Bird of Youth. Newman's Own, Summer Camps for Children with Cancer, Discover: A Program for Inner City Children, more than $200 million donated to charities around the world. And taking to the streets to march for Civil Rights in the 1960s and nuclear disarmament in the 1970s. The actor and humanitarian was an ardent activist as well.
Paul Newman and Shirley Knight in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, which also starred Geraldine Page and was directed by Richard Brooks in 1962.
He achieved success in work and in love. Oscars. A Palme d'Or. Side by side with Joanne Woodward (an artistic powerhouse in her own right) for more than 50 years. A life filled children and friends who by all accounts adored him.
Side by side with wife Joanne Woodward in 1967 on the set ofWinning.
Thirty eight years later, the extraordinary team of Woodward and Newman in 2005.
It tears at the heart that Paul Newman is gone, but his art, his generosity and his beauty are ever present.
His was a life that mattered.