The end of Newman era in filmdom
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Billy Ahmed
A true era has come to an end this weekend as screen legend Paul Newman, the last surviving member of a trio of actors who changed their trade, has passed away after a battle with cancer. Newman, died Friday at the age of 83.
Paul Newman is an Oscar, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actor in a career that has spanned over fifty years and stood alongside James Dean and Marlon Brando as three of cinema's real icons.
His film debut came in 1954 with The Silver Chalice. Later throughout the fifties he starred in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and The Young Philadelphians (1959).
He successfully made the transition to the sixties, the decade in which he made most of his most famous movies.
Paul Newman, the lean, famously blue-eyed, laconically humorous actor/director, writer, entrepreneur/philanthropist, environmentalist, gourmet, liberal activist, race car driver and benefactor of theatre, camps for dying children and countless other causes, lived in Westport with his wife, the actor-director and former theatre executive Joanne Woodward.
Initially a stage actor trained at the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Newman soon became a movie star in the era of Marlon Brando and James Dean. Eventually, he surpassed them both, as the great Brando failed to find the right roles and grew fat, and Dean passed into legend in a fatal sports car crash after only three movies.
Newman's self-mocking, whimsical humour can be seen in his biography in the Westport Country Playhouse programme for Our Town which said in part: Paul Newman is probably best-known for his spectacularly successful food conglomerate.
Besides giving the profits to charity, such as his "Hole in the Wall Camps" for children with cancer, named after his gang in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." He also drove Frank Sinatra out of the spaghetti sauce business.
But Newman, who died Friday of cancer at age 83, told the men he wanted to be remembered for the "Hole in the Wall" camps he helped to start across the world for children with life-threatening illnesses and to make sure that 100 per cent of the profits from his popular food company, Newman's Own, would continue to benefit such camps and thousands of other charities.
Unrepentant liberal, Newman was dedicated to civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, and was determined to elect opponents of war and militarism.
Actors do not usually turn in performances that gain the notice of presidents.
But when Paul Newman decided to take the role of antiwar activist in the early days of the Vietnam imbroglio, he performed so ably -- as an early and essential campaigner for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and prominent supporter of George McGovern -- that he ranked high on then-President Richard Nixon's "enemies list."
Newman's name was on the original list of enemies produced by Nixon aide Charles Colson in 1971.
Colson's notes on the memorandum about the actor read: "Paul Newman, California : Radic-lib causes. Heavy McCarthy involvement '68. Used effectively in nationwide T.V. commercials. '72 involvement certain."
The official purpose, according to internal memos that circulated in the Nixon White House before the 1972 election was to "screw" liberal politicians, labour leaders, business titans, academics, activists and an actor who might be threats to the president's reelection.
"This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with people known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly -- how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies," wrote White House counsel John Dean.
He won acting's top honours and even became one of the nation's most successful entrepreneurs, marketing his own exceptionally successful "Newman's Own" brand of salad dressings and organic food. ("It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control," Newman said of the food business, which allowed him donate more generously than just about anyone in Hollywood or on Wall Street to charity.)
Newman remained political -- dedicated to civil rights, women's rights and gay rights, committed to ending the nuclear arms race and determined to elect opponents of war and militarism.
Newman supported, and even wrote for, The Nation.
And he was a steady campaigner for and contributor to progressive causes and candidates -- mostly Democrats but also antiwar Republican Pete McCloskey when he challenged Nixon in the Republican primaries of 1972 and to Green Ralph Nader in 2000. In 2006, the actor helped Connecticut 's Ned Lamont mount a successful Democratic primary challenge to U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. (Newman got so into the Lamont campaign that he even volunteered to do calls for the campaign -- and wrote his own script.)
This year, Newman was a maxed-out contributor to the campaign of Barack Obama for president.
The actor finished his life with more friends and fewer enemies than just about anyone in his chosen profession. And Newman's extensive philanthropy earned him little but praise in his final years.
Yet, Paul Newman was particularly proud to have been an "enemy."
Indeed, he said to the end of his days the place he held on Nixon's list was "the highest single honour I've ever received."
He retired from acting in 2006 after a 50-year career that included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1971), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967).
Newman was nominated for ten Oscars, winning best actor for his role in The Color of Money in 1986.
(Billy I Ahmed is a tea planter, columnist and researcher)
A true era has come to an end this weekend as screen legend Paul Newman, the last surviving member of a trio of actors who changed their trade, has passed away after a battle with cancer. Newman, died Friday at the age of 83.
Paul Newman is an Oscar, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actor in a career that has spanned over fifty years and stood alongside James Dean and Marlon Brando as three of cinema's real icons.
His film debut came in 1954 with The Silver Chalice. Later throughout the fifties he starred in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and The Young Philadelphians (1959).
He successfully made the transition to the sixties, the decade in which he made most of his most famous movies.
Paul Newman, the lean, famously blue-eyed, laconically humorous actor/director, writer, entrepreneur/philanthropist, environmentalist, gourmet, liberal activist, race car driver and benefactor of theatre, camps for dying children and countless other causes, lived in Westport with his wife, the actor-director and former theatre executive Joanne Woodward.
Initially a stage actor trained at the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Newman soon became a movie star in the era of Marlon Brando and James Dean. Eventually, he surpassed them both, as the great Brando failed to find the right roles and grew fat, and Dean passed into legend in a fatal sports car crash after only three movies.
Newman's self-mocking, whimsical humour can be seen in his biography in the Westport Country Playhouse programme for Our Town which said in part: Paul Newman is probably best-known for his spectacularly successful food conglomerate.
Besides giving the profits to charity, such as his "Hole in the Wall Camps" for children with cancer, named after his gang in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." He also drove Frank Sinatra out of the spaghetti sauce business.
But Newman, who died Friday of cancer at age 83, told the men he wanted to be remembered for the "Hole in the Wall" camps he helped to start across the world for children with life-threatening illnesses and to make sure that 100 per cent of the profits from his popular food company, Newman's Own, would continue to benefit such camps and thousands of other charities.
Unrepentant liberal, Newman was dedicated to civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, and was determined to elect opponents of war and militarism.
Actors do not usually turn in performances that gain the notice of presidents.
But when Paul Newman decided to take the role of antiwar activist in the early days of the Vietnam imbroglio, he performed so ably -- as an early and essential campaigner for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and prominent supporter of George McGovern -- that he ranked high on then-President Richard Nixon's "enemies list."
Newman's name was on the original list of enemies produced by Nixon aide Charles Colson in 1971.
Colson's notes on the memorandum about the actor read: "Paul Newman, California : Radic-lib causes. Heavy McCarthy involvement '68. Used effectively in nationwide T.V. commercials. '72 involvement certain."
The official purpose, according to internal memos that circulated in the Nixon White House before the 1972 election was to "screw" liberal politicians, labour leaders, business titans, academics, activists and an actor who might be threats to the president's reelection.
"This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with people known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly -- how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies," wrote White House counsel John Dean.
He won acting's top honours and even became one of the nation's most successful entrepreneurs, marketing his own exceptionally successful "Newman's Own" brand of salad dressings and organic food. ("It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control," Newman said of the food business, which allowed him donate more generously than just about anyone in Hollywood or on Wall Street to charity.)
Newman remained political -- dedicated to civil rights, women's rights and gay rights, committed to ending the nuclear arms race and determined to elect opponents of war and militarism.
Newman supported, and even wrote for, The Nation.
And he was a steady campaigner for and contributor to progressive causes and candidates -- mostly Democrats but also antiwar Republican Pete McCloskey when he challenged Nixon in the Republican primaries of 1972 and to Green Ralph Nader in 2000. In 2006, the actor helped Connecticut 's Ned Lamont mount a successful Democratic primary challenge to U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. (Newman got so into the Lamont campaign that he even volunteered to do calls for the campaign -- and wrote his own script.)
This year, Newman was a maxed-out contributor to the campaign of Barack Obama for president.
The actor finished his life with more friends and fewer enemies than just about anyone in his chosen profession. And Newman's extensive philanthropy earned him little but praise in his final years.
Yet, Paul Newman was particularly proud to have been an "enemy."
Indeed, he said to the end of his days the place he held on Nixon's list was "the highest single honour I've ever received."
He retired from acting in 2006 after a 50-year career that included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1971), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967).
Newman was nominated for ten Oscars, winning best actor for his role in The Color of Money in 1986.
(Billy I Ahmed is a tea planter, columnist and researcher)