Paul Newman was born 90 years ago today. Newman was an actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver, auto racing team owner and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film, The Color of Money, and eight other nominations, three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing. Newman was a co-founder of Newmans Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of June 2012, these donations exceeded $330 million. Newman was one of the few actors who successfully made the transition from 1950s cinema to that of the 1960s and 1970s. His rebellious persona translated well to a subsequent generation. Newman starred in Exodus (1960), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Harper (1966), Hombre (1967), Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Towering Inferno (1974), Slap Shot (1977) and The Verdict (1982). He teamed with fellow actor Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). He appeared with his wife, Joanne Woodward, in the feature films The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, (1958), From the Terrace (1960), Paris Blues (1961), A New Kind of Love (1963), Winning (1969), WUSA (1970), The Drowning Pool (1975), Harry & Son (1984) and Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990). Twenty-five years after The Hustler, Newman reprised his role of Fast Eddie Felson in the Martin Scorsese–directed The Color of Money (1986), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He told a television interviewer that winning an Oscar at the age of 62 deprived him of his fantasy of formally being presented with it in extreme old age. Newman announced that he would entirely retire from acting on May 25, 2007. He stated that he did not feel he could continue acting at the level he wanted to. You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So I think thats pretty much a closed book for me, he said. Newman was scheduled to make his professional stage directing debut with the Westport Country Playhouses 2008 production of John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men, but he stepped down on May 23, 2008, citing health issues. In June 2008, it was widely reported that Newman had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was receiving treatment at Sloan-Kettering hospital in New York City. Photographs taken of Newman in May and June showed him looking gaunt. In August, after reportedly finishing chemotherapy, Newman told his family he wished to die at home. He died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, surrounded by his family and close friends. Here is a series of clips highlighting Newman’s career.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 07:02:10 +0000
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