PAUL NEWMAN
In a business
where public scandal and bad-boy behaviour are the rule rather than
the exception, Paul Newman is as much a hero offscreen as on. A
blue-eyed matinee idol whose career has successfully
spanned five decades, he is also a prominent social activist, a major
proponent of actors' creative rights, and a noted philanthropist.
EARLY LIFE
Born January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, OH, Newman served in World War
II prior to attending Kenyon College on an athletic scholarship; when
an injury ended his sports
career, he turned to drama, joining a summer stock sompany in Wisconsin.
After relocating to Illinois in 1947, he married actress Jaqueline
Witte, and following the death of his father took over the family's sporting-goods
store. Newman quickly grew restless, however, and after selling
his interest in the store to his brother, he enrolled at the Yale School
of Drama. During a break from classes he travelled to New York
City, where he won a role in the CBS television series The Aldrich Family.
A number of other TV performances followed, and in 1952 Newman
was accepted by the Actors' Studio, making his Broadway debut a year
later in Picnic, where he was spotted by Warner Bros. executives.
CAREER
Upon Newman's arrival
in Hollywood, media buzz tagged him as "the new Brando." Newman
followed up disastrous screen debuts in The Silver Chalice
and The Rack with
his stellar portrayal of boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me
. The film was a commerical and critical success, and Newman
won rave reviews for his performance. His next
film of note was 1958's The Long
Hot Summer , an acclaimed adaptation of a pair of William Faulkner short stories. After next appearing as Billy
the Kid in Arthur Penn's underrated The Left-Handed Gun , Newman
starred opposite Elizabeth
Taylor in Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof , scoring his first true box-office
smash as well as his first Academy Award nomination. Newman gained his
second Oscar nomination in 1961 with his portrayal of "Fast" Eddie Felson
in Robert Rossen's The Hustler.
His
third Oscar nod came for 1963's Hud ; a fourth came for
1967's superb chain-gang drama Cool Hand Luke , but,
once again, he went home empty handed.
His starring role with Robert Redford
in 1969's Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid went on to become the highest-grossing Western
in movie history, but it was his reprise as "Fast" Eddie Felson in Martin Scorcese
's, The Color of Money
, that finally won Newman his first Oscar in1986. After starring
in two 1989 films, Blaze
and Fat Man and Little Boy
, New began appearing onscreen less and less. Nonetheless, in 1994
he earned yet another Academy Award nomination for his superb performance
in Robert Benton's slice-of-life tale Nobody's Fool . His
films since then have been fairly sparse and of mixed quality, with
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
being at the higher end of the spectrum and Message in a Bottle
(1999) resting near the bottom. Newman again graced screens in 2000
with Where the Money Is
, a comedy that cast him as a famous bank robber who fakes a stroke to
get out of prison (filmed in part at Verdun's Douglas Hospital). For
his role as a kindly crime boss in 2002's Road to Perdition, Newman would
become a ten-time Oscar nominee.
For more information concerning Paul Newman's
extensive film history, check out his filmography at www.imdb.com
!
FAMILY
Newman met
his second wife, Joanne
Woodward, while appearing on Broadway
in The Desperate Hours. Soon after starring together in
The Long Hot Summer, Newman divorced his first wife and married Woodward
in an impromptu ceremony in Las Vegas. After appearing together
in Rally Round the Flag, Boys!--the
couple would frequently team onscreen throughout their careers. In
1968, Newman made his directorial debut with the Joanne Woodward vehicle
Rachel, Rachel, scoring Best
Director honors from the New York critics as well as an Oscar nomication
for Best Picture. The couple next appeared onscreen together in
1969's Winning, which cast
Newman as a professional auto racer; the motor sport remained a preoccupation
in his real life as well. In 1991, he and his wife starred together
as the titular Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.
Together, the two have three daughters and celebrated
their 40th wedding anniversary in 1998.
CHARITY WORK
Despite his movement away from Hollywood, Newman has remained
a prominent public figure
through his extensive charitable work; he created the Scott Newman
Foundation after the drug-related death of his son and later marketed
a series of gourmet foodstuffs under the umbrella name "Newman's Own ," with all profits
going to support his project for children suffering from cancer.
--adapted from Jason Ankeny's, All Movie Guide