Paul Newman: Search & Destroy (now also RIP)

I like Torn Curtain esp. the oven killing!

The Sting is definitely a destroy, though.

The Hudsucker Proxy
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
The Verdict
Fort Apache the Bronx
Slap Shot
The Towering Inferno
The Sting
The MacKintosh Man
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Secret War of Harry Frigg
Cool Hand Luke
Hud
The Hustler

In several of these he is the best thing about them admittedly.

Nobody's Fool should've been his Oscar. He does a funny caricature in Altman's Buffalo Bill in the Indians, even if it's a bit long.

reported to have lung cancer:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/06/facing_it.php

I saw a tabloid at the market on Monday.

This thread should have gone on longer.

: (((

saw The Verdict and Slap Shot earlier this week. think this guy is probably my favourite actor.

Butch Cassidy is truly brilliant. I don't like the musical interlude all that much, but I understand why it's there, considering how dark the rest of the film is really.

* His character is insufferably righteous, though, and I wish Rossen had made a whole movie around George C. Scott's character.

Hmmm. I don't know how righteous he is really, though. He comes on strong at the end, but what has he learned? Possibly more bad lessons than useful ones. The movie doesn't answer the question of whether Burt is right about him and that whole "born loser" thing. He certainly has an argument there.

but yeah OTM -- a movie about Burt could have gotten even darker and deeper than one about Fast Eddie. But, hey, it was 1961, and thematically, it's still a very groundbreaking movie.

movie doesn't answer the question of whether Burt is right about him and that whole "born loser" thing

OTM...and I'm inclined to think he IS, and that's where Newman's charisma interferes.

But his charisma is a big part of the point -- it's all he's got!

Ok shit... I have to watch this movie again. Karagarga will be good to me this evening, I have confidence.

Basically it breaks down like this:

Eddie: I coulda been a contender! I got poetry in me!

Burt: Go cry, emo kid.

The suspicion that Eddie's just a blue-eyed charmer is the subtext running through The Color of Money, and it's one of that film's few grace notes: he's aware of Tom Cruise's shallowness and, like Burt, wants to manipulate it.

TCM showed a trailer of The Outrage (Rashomon remake) the other night, and man, Paul shoulda left the Mexican-bandit hamming to Eli Wallach.

blaze!

OK so nothing from the BIG papers but RIP big guy...

WESTPORT, Conn., Sept 27, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Remembering the life and legacy of Paul Newman, Newman's Own Foundation has issued a statement. The statement, from Vice-Chairman Robert Forrester, follows:
"Paul Newman's craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.
"Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one's life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.
"An exceptional example is the legacy of Newman's Own. What started as something of a joke in the basement of his home, turned into a highly-respected, multi-million dollar a year food company. And true to form, he shared this good fortune by donating all the profits and royalties he earned to thousands of charities around the world, a total which now exceeds $250 million.
"While his philanthropic interests and donations were wide-ranging, he was especially committed to the thousands of children with life-threatening conditions served by the Hole in the Wall Camps, which he helped start over 20 years ago. He saw the Camps as places where kids could escape the fear, pain and isolation of their conditions, kick back, and raise a little hell. Today, there are 11 Camps around the world, with additional programs in Africa and Vietnam. Through the Camps, well over 135,000 children have had the chance to experience what childhood was meant to be.
"In Paul's words: "I wanted to acknowledge luck; the chance and benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, who might not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it."
"Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humor, and humanness. His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps, for which he cared so much.
"We will miss our friend Paul Newman, but are lucky ourselves to have known such a remarkable person."

RIP indeed. My parents will be bummed, they were huge fans.

My mom too. PN spoke at my college graduation because JW was in my graduating class, so madre hyperventilated.

It's weird, I don't have a defining performance in my head to draw on as being a favorite; I'd say he was more someone who transcended film if that makes any sense. Obviously his public profile vis-a-vis politics and philanthropy was a large part of that. Still, first thing that leapt to my mind was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, so that.

http://

http://videodetective.com/photos/039/001650_1.jpg

(In some ways, Ned, you and I are very different people)

True, true.

Oh man... :-( RIP

Sad news. His performances in "Hud" and "Cat on A Hot Tin Roof" have always meant a lot to me, his kind of masculinity is missing nowadays from Hollywood.

I remember a story years ago in which Robert Redford said that Paul Newman was sadly senile and mentally incapable these days. But I think it was a JOKE. Right?

Surely he was one of the most beloved actors of his generation.

RIP

Oh, I see that Dr Morbius reported on PN's cancer back in June, just 2 days or so before I met the legendary Dr Morbius in fact. I bet Mr Morbius will have a view on PN.

:(

Wow RIP - very sad

...so really, they're all gone now, right? The star-legends...who is left of "Classical Hollywood," ? Only Bacall now

oh, and Taylor, or what's left of her

there never has been, nor will there ever again be, a handsomer jew. RIP.

my mom is gonna be bummed. she has always maintained that paul newman is the most attractive man ever to have lived.

"His likableness is infectious; nobody should ever be asked not to like Paul Newman."

This is really sad, RIP. Feel like watching The Sting tonight.

Ebert remembers

Newman looked like a god in his youth. He radiated a "healthy" ideal of American masculinity / sex appeal that was in sharp contrast to say, Brando, but it's interesting to compare the two in terms of how they held up - Newman was just one year younger, but look at Brando's physicality by the time of the Godfather, versus a still-sexy Butch Cassidy & the Sundance King, and Sting era Newman!! No one remembers this... I guess Brando had just let himself (physically) go by then..

Or maybe it's all the race car driving that kept him well-preserved

sigh

http://theroadshowversion.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/newman.jpg

http://www.legayblog.com/images/2008/04/25/080425paulnewman01.jpg

RIP. :(

Aw man, rest in peace.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb171/pablokjolseth/george/slapshot-2.jpg

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n138/thegregage/Metal/slapshot256.jpg

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTcyMjQzMDg5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNzkzNzM2._V1._SX262_SY400_.jpg

Rachel, Rachel unavailable on DVD. Worth watching?

I so hope this anecdote is true:

In Newman's Connecticut home, he had a letter framed in his bathroom, from a rancher in a remote Western state. The rancher's letter said his family grew all their own food, but recently had won a jar of Newman's spaghetti sauce at a church raffle. The rancher wrote how much they liked the product, and also wrote that he'd mentioned it to a friend, and the friend told the rancher that Newman was also an actor. The rancher wrote that if his acting was as good as his sauce, they'd be on the lookout for some of his movies.

This one is great:

http://images.plumgoodfood.com/images/Kristin/aphotos/treeoflife/tol2/200lg/200020662000224.jpg

Didn't know that Nobody's Fool is oop on dvd :>( Wonder how long it'll stay that way.

I saw Rachel, Rachel tonight for the first time. Much better than I expected. That may have something to do with just having seen The Swimmer (same year), where just about everybody is an ugly caricature, but other than the requisite overkill in the Elmer Gantry scene, I thought Newman's pacing was just right. Woodward's excellent--the doctor in Sybil is pretty much all I'd ever seen her in before this. The Estelle Parsons subplot is handled well, and the aging-parent stuff rings very true. Teacher films always interest me. I laughed at the one kid, maybe 10, who romps into the school with a couple of toy six-shooters on his belt. He'd be jailed coming off the bus today.

Excellent print, too. Too excellent--I suspect they were screening a DVD.

you can't tell?

Well...a perfect print matched to a DVD? Probably not--I'm a really poor audiophile, too. But if it's a normal print, with the normal imperfections, of course. Which is why I think it was a DVD tonight, unless Rachel, Rachel underwent a major restoration.

New print of his second directorial effort in Brooklyn for a week:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-02/film/deserved-second-act-for-paul-newman-s-sometimes-a-great-notion/

From Michael Ontkean's intro/reminiscence to Jonathon Jackson's The Making of Slap Shot: Behind The Scenes of The Greatest Hockey Movie:

One Saturday night I coaxed my teammate Reg Dunlop (51 years young) into Lower Manhattan and CBGB's to see and hear some brand new music. As the Ramones rattled the walls, Reggie grinned from ear to ear and shouted "This is what we're doing every day on the ice!"

Newman. Ultimate Punk with a heart of rowdy, unbounded generosity. Lead singer and gang leader with giving hands of perpetual cool, Paul never wavered in his delight with "Slap Shot", maintaining his experience was "The most fun I ever had making a movie - absolutely!"

"Rescreened" Nobody's Fool last night, first time since mid nineties. Its amiability is its drawback; it has a TV movie all's-well-that-ends-well attitude that results in facile resolutions (and the film composer should've been shot). But, boy, Newman's at the peak of let's-make-it-look easy, and, yeah, he should've won his overdue Oscar for this instead of TCOM.

This time 'round Melanie Griffith less impressive than Jessica Tandy.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the loser cop.

Bruce Willis asked to be uncredited because he felt his action film reputation would hurt the film.

Michael Koresky on queerness and sexual freedom in Newman's Rachel, Rachel

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-1968/

it'll take more than Koresky and jumper cables to turn RR's engine

Really enjoyed the Last Movie Stars documentary series. (Good job Ethan Hawke!)

Made me realize I don't think I've ever seen a Joanne Woodward movie. And there are a shit-ton of Paul Newman movies I haven't seen, although not that many that seem like I need to — he made a good number of clunkers and middlebrow fare. Fascinating in particular how much he seemed to lack confidence in his own acting. He knew that he knew how to look good on camera, but he had a hard time opening up as an actor.

There's also a shit-ton of Woodward movies, but maybe try one of her first big hits, The Three Faces of Eve, a rather hokey tale of "multiple personalities," but yep she acted her ass off, won won Oscar, Golden Globes, other---also let fly in The Fugitive Kind, which is Tennessee Williams as Hail, and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,one of the many she did produced and directed by Newman (their daughter Nell Potts is also real good in that). She can be more low-key and subtle, but those are the ones that come first to my unsubtle mind.

Sybil, where she plays Sally Fields' psychiatrist.

Yes, more multiples, aieee!

agree that Last Movie Stars series was excellent

also such a great, nuanced portrayal of a real relationship. impressed that hawke & the family were able to achieve that but somehow didn’t diminish either Paul or Joanne in the process. like, by showing that it wasnt perfect it still somehow didnt affect my overall opinion.

plus god those long movie clips were so great

I remember seeing an interview with Newman talking about Color Of Money where he talked about how much he enjoyed working with Scorsese and that he'd love for him to cast him again - "I'm still here, you know!". Never happened. :(

Actually I have seen The Miracle Worker, so there’s one. But there are clips from all those Woodward movies and many more in the documentary. Some looked interesting but none leapt out as must-sees. It’s interesting that for somebody who had as long a career as she did, and won basically all the awards you can win, she doesn’t really have a single movie or performance in the “all-time great” canon. Her movies don’t really have much of a critical presence — unlike Newman, who has several films I grew up regarding as classics, she’s not someone you hear about or read about much even if you’re into movies. Some of that is probably just sexism, since she made lots of melodramas and women’s pictures. But even compared to other top actresses of her era — Shirley MacLaine, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe — it doesn’t feel like she has much of an enduring footprint.

Lol never mind The Miracle Worker is Anne Bancroft. See what I mean?

Woodward is fine in the Newman-directed Rachel Rachel and as the victim of Newman's quiet haute bourgeois suppression in Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.

Judging Woodward, a fine actor, is hard because she paid as much if not more attention to raising kids.

Mr. and Mrs. Bridge is one that has interested me — maybe because it’s one of her few high profile roles that came out while I have been a moviegoing adult.

And yeah, this series very much portrays the imbalance in the relationship when it came to taking care of the kids. Tho to Newman’s credit he used his clout to make a lot of movies with her.

I dunno, The Wicker Man is pretty widely regarded as a classic. I can't actually think of any other movies he was in, so in terms of percentages he's up there with John Cazale.

Hang on. There was Breaker....

Ah, sorry. I'll get my coat.

lol I have in fact seen more Edward Woodward movies than Joanne Woodward movies ...

One of the best, most underappreciated actors of his generation. The reactions itt to his death at the time are striking.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,one of the many she did produced and directed by Newman (their daughter Nell Potts is also real good in that).

A favorite of the Cahiers du Cinema critics in the 1970s. Eli Wallach's daughter is also good in it.

Centenary Today.

https://live.staticflickr.com/7374/8751060956_0a2738cb47_b.jpg

Didn't realize that...probably my favourite actor ever across his whole career.

One of a handful of actors that for me made every movie he was in better or at least more interesting.

I think his greatest performance is also in his greatest film, The Hustler, but also love him in Nobody's Fool - I think he preferred his later performances as I vaguely recall him saying he could see himself trying (perhaps too hard) in his earlier ones, and given how comfortable and effortless his later performances tend to be, I can see what he means. That doesn't diminish his earlier work, but it's something that stands out as he gets older.

(or rather "as he became older")

If it wasn't for lung cancer, I could see him making it to 100.

I betcha he could eat 100 years

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was just on TCM and...he's not exciting in it. His acting got looser after 1968.

I actually like him in that, but tbf I never really liked the film, especially as an adaptation. I forgot how many bowdlerized adaptations were done to Tennessee Williams, but it's frustrating to see when they had so many legends from that era involved.

It's hard for me to sit through one of his performances before 1968, actually. Even The Hustler. He became a different actor: he embraced his star persona and the decision enriched his persona.

*enriched his acting

Not a single mention of Exodus in this thread but one can imagine why.

Otto Preminger made at least 10 films that are better than Exodus

The Academy Museum has been highlighting Newman’s work for the past month. They struck beautiful new 35mm prints of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Sting, and The Color of Money (which I saw this afternoon)

Newman was a hugely underrated director. Rachel, Rachel, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, and The Glass Menagerie all floor me

I once had a cordial chat with the editor of The Glass Menagerie. It was at something unrelated to the movie, but I brought it up, and he basically said Newman was a wonderful human being. He explained that as the film was still being shot, he would be cutting together what they already had (standard practice in the industry) and at one point, he got a phone call that Newman wanted him to come to set. That made him very nervous because it's an unusual request and he thought it meant Newman was unhappy with something he did. So he went down there and he saw the cast rehearsing a scene while Newman was way off to the side, sitting with an enormous bowl of popcorn. He asked Newman what it is he wanted, and Newman explained that he made so much popcorn and that it was so good, he thought he'd might want to have some. He laughed and was like "that's fine but I really should be cutting your movie right now!"

A friend of mine who is a dermatologist also has a wonderful story about Newman from a resident chair she worked under: apparently when he moved to Newman's neighborhood, Newman personally came over to say hello and welcome him. When he told Newman that he was in dermatology, Newman immediately took off his shirt and jokingly asked him to check something on his torso.

Quite a guy, just in terms of personality he may be my favorite film star of all-time. There are others up there like Brando, Cagney, Nicholson and Bogart, but he has an edge over them for the way he overcame his demons a long time ago, for not being too crazy or volatile, and unlike Cagney and a few others for not giving in to reactionary politics in response to changing times - just the opposite.

Hey, that "Once Upon A Wheel" TV show is on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO9vEpB25tg

Great interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, translated in English by Film Stage:

https://thefilmstage.com/paul-newman-on-craft-celebrity-and-destiny-a-conversation-with-oriana-fallaci/

Newman and Burt Lancaster are both neck and neck in terms of the scope of their careers and fearlessness. Gregory Peck is close, but he had less great roles as he aged

hate to subject the late and great gregory peck to this sort of thing, but

*fewer*

unless the roles were less great

I betcha he could eat 100 years

― trm (tombotomod), Sunday, January 26, 2025 6:25 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I lol'd

He was the most beautiful human.