Paul Newman 1925 - 2008

[cinemabon]

We thought he would always be alive... those blue eyes flashing at the camera. He turned his Hollywood career into a cause for wholesome food and gave the profits from its sales to the many charities he and Joanna cherished.

He is one of those rare individuals in Hollywood who had very few enemies and was admired by friends and rivals alike. A great legend of the silver screen has passed.

What were your favorite Newman pix?

Thus far, voting on various sites include:

1. Cool Hand Luke

2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

3. The Sting (which is my favorite)

4. Cat on a hot tin roof

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for the thread. The list below is based on memory obviously. It'd be fun to see if new viewings of these films would result in significant changes. Perhaps Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Rachel, Rachel, Fat Man and Little Boy and The Color of Money, all good films, would displace a title from the bottom of the list. I kindda doubt it, I have a good memory, but it's definitely possible. List includes two grossly neglected 90s Robert Benton/Richard Russo collaborations and two 60s Martin Ritt/DP James Wong Howe westerns. It also includes my favorite film produced and directed but not starring the great Paul Newman.
[list=1]
THE HUSTLER
MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE
NOBODY'S FOOL
TWILIGHT
HUD
HOMBRE
THE STING
THE EFFECTS OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS
COOL HAND LUKE
THE VERDICT
[/list=1]

[Chris Knipp]

Newman was good in just about everything. He is remarkable for his continued importance into advanced age and for the rich variety of his accomplishments, notably in grocery products turned into philanthropy, and car racing even unto the age of seventy. He was a man of independent spirit and I admired him for a lifelong good marriage to a fine actress, Joanne Woodward, and for living on the East Coast away from Hollywood. To me he stood early for macho boldness in a good sense and I think the first time he impressed me in a film role was in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Hud is notable, and the depth and length of his career is proven by The Color of Money and Nobody's Fool, an interesting film of a novel one might not have expectred to be made into a film, especially not with a big handsome star. He said that what made him notable that was he played crooks without having the face of a crook. A very cool guy. He quit acting about ten years ago I believe, because, he says in an interview you can find online, he didn't have the memory or the confidence to do it well enough any more. But he kept on making a lot of money and giving it away.

[cinemabon]

If you never saw Tennessee William's "Cat on a hot tin roof" Chris, I highly recommend it (or "Cool Hand Luke"). Newman plays Brick, the injured football player who had a questionable male relationship with his best friend. Maggie (played brilliantly by Elizabeth Taylor) is his wife. Burl Ives plays the father, "Big Daddy" ("I smell mendacity in this room!") as Daddy. Dame Judith Anderson played "Big Mamma." Richard Brooks directed.

In 1958, the idea that a lead actor would play the role of a bisexual or even a gay man (his relationship with Skipper is never explained well in the film... even in the play, William's purposely wrote ambiguity into the part) seemed ludicrous. Newman went out on a limb to play this part. The one liners fly as William's story, adapted by Brooks and James Poe, stirred controversy at the time. The basement scene with Ives is some of Newman's best work.

Big Daddy: "You're a thirty-year-old kid. Soon you'll be a fifty-year-old kid. Pretendin' you're hearin' cheers when there ain't any. Dreamin' and drinkin' your life away. Heroes in the real world live twenty-four hours a day, not just two hours in a game. Mendacity!"