Paul Leonard Newman
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Film credits
11
Awards
In 1987, Paul Newman won his first competitive Oscar for The Color of Money, following seven previous nominations. He founded Newman’s Own, which donates all profits to charity. Newman also raced cars and co-founded Newman-Haas Racing. He died of lung cancer in 2008 at age 83.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Paul Newman — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Paul Newman by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Paul Newman — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Shaker Heights High School plays and grade school productions revealed Paul Newman’s early acting talent. His father’s sporting goods business provided a comfortable upbringing in affluent Shaker Heights. After Navy service as a radio operator during World War II, he studied at Kenyon College and the Yale School of Drama.
Newman publicly apologized for his 1954 film debut in The Silver Chalice, but redeemed himself in 1956’s Somebody Up There Likes Me. He earned his first Oscar nomination for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1958. The 1960s brought iconic roles in The Hustler 1961, Hud 1963, and Cool Hand Luke 1967. He teamed with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969 and The Sting 1973. After his son’s 1978 death, his performances deepened, culminating in an Oscar win for The Color of Money 1986.
Newman married Jacqueline Witte in 1949; they had three children. He met Joanne Woodward while understudying in the Broadway play Picnic in 1953. They married in 1958 and had three daughters, remaining together until his death. He also founded Newman’s Own in 1982 and The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in 1988.
Newman’s philanthropic impact is measured by over $600 million donated through Newman’s Own since 1982. He inspired a generation of actors and philanthropists. The Newman-Haas racing team he co‑founded continues to compete. His film performances remain touchstones, with The Color of Money earning him his only competitive Oscar. Newman is remembered as much for his charity and humanitarian work as for his legendary film career.
The complete filmography of Paul Newman — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Paul Newman — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from Paul Newman — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
The Embarrassing Thing Is That My Salad Dressing Is Out Grossing My Films.
I Really Just Can’t Watch Myself. I See All the Machinery at Work and It Just Drives Me Nuts.
If I Ever Feel Like I’m Doing Something I’ve Done Before, I Scrap It and Start Over Again.
When I Realized I Was Going to Have to Be a Whore, to Put My Face on the Label, I Decided That the Only Way I Could Do It Was to Give Away All the Money We Make. Over the Years, That Ethical Stance Has Given Us a 30 per Cent Boost. One in Three Customers Buys My Products Because All the Profits Go to Good Causes and the Rest Buy the Stuff Because It Is Good.
It’s All Been a Bad Joke That Just Ran Out of Control. I Got into Food for Fun but the Business Got a Mind of Its Own. Now My Good Lord Look Where It Has Gotten Me. My Products Are on Supermarket Shelves, in Cinemas, in the Theater. and They Say Show Business Is Odd.
I Like Racing but Food and Pictures Are More Thrilling. I Can’t Give Them Up. in Racing You Can Be Certain, to the Last Thousandth of a Second, That Someone Is the Best, but with a Film or a Recipe, There Is No Way of Knowing How All the Ingredients Will Work Out in the End. the Best Can Turn Out to Be Awful and the Worst Can Be Fantastic. Cooking Is Like Performing and Performing Like Cooking.
I’m a Supporter of Gay Rights. and Not a Closet Supporter, Either. from the Time I Was a Kid, I Have Never Been Able to Understand Attacks Upon the Gay Community. There Are so Many Qualities That Make up a Human Being… by the Time I Get Through with All the Things That I Really Admire About People, What They Do with Their Private Parts Is Probably so Low on the List That It Is Irrelevant.
You Can’t Be as Old as I Am Without Waking up with a Surprised Look on Your Face Every Morning: Holy Christ, Whaddya Know I’m Still Around! It’s Absolutely Amazing That I Survived All the Booze and Smoking and the Cars and the Career.
I Was Always a Character Actor. I Just Looked Like Little Red Riding Hood.
If You’re Playing a Poker Game and You Look Around the Table and Can’t Tell Who the Sucker Is, It’s You.
Every Time I Get a Script It’s a Matter of Trying to Know What I Could Do with It. I See Colors, Imagery. It Has to Have a Smell. It’s Like Falling in Love. You Can’t Give a Reason Why.
For Those of You Who Like to Scarf Your Popcorn in the Sack, the Good News Is That Newman’s Own Contains an Aphrodisiac.
I’ve Repeatedly Said That for People as Little in Common as Joanne and Myself, We Have an Uncommonly Good Marriage. We Are Actors. We Make Pictures and That’s About All We Have in Common. Maybe That’s Enough. Wives Shouldn’t Feel Obligated to Accompany Their Husbands to a Ball Game, Husbands Do Look a Bit Silly Attending Morning Coffee Breaks with the Neighborhood Wives When Most Men Are Out at Work. Husbands and Wives Should Have Separate Interests, Cultivate Different Sets of Friends and Not Impose on the Other…You Can’t Spend a Lifetime Breathing Down Each Other’s Necks.
Twenty Five Years Ago, I Couldn’t Walk Down the Street Without Being Recognized. Now I Can Put a Cap On, Walk Anywhere and No One Pays Me Any Attention. They Don’t Ask Me About My Movies and They Don’t Ask Me About My Salad Dressing Because They Don’t Know Who I Am. Am I Happy About This? You Bet.
I’ve Been Accused of Being Aloof. I’m Not. I’m Just Wary.
I Had No Natural Gift to Be Anything Not an Athlete, Not an Actor, Not a Writer, Not a Director, a Painter of Garden Porches Not Anything. so I’ve Worked Really Hard, Because Nothing Ever Came Easily to Me.
I Can Remember in My High School Days and I Kept Thinking to Myself, Now, Why Did Those Actors Go Out in Public After a Certain Age? I Mean, Why Would They Wanna Blow This Image They’d Worked so Hard and Allow Themselves to Be Photographed? They Should Have Just Stayed at Home and Stayed Young and Youthful. and Now It’s There for Everybody to Look at All Our Words, Stuttering, and Bad Posture. All Those Things That Should Never Happen, Really. Well, Times Change. Yeah, It Ain’t so Bad!
I Picture My Epitaph: Here Lies Paul Newman, Who Died a Failure Because His Eyes Turned Brown.
I’m Always Puzzled by This Talk About Star… Image. I Think There’s People Who Are Writers or Barbers or Mechanics or Race Car Drivers That Have Certain Recognizable Personalities, and I Don’t Think Just Because They Happen to Be on the Screen That It Makes Them Any More Exceptional.
I Will Continue to Get Behind the Wheel of a Racing Car as Long as I Am Able. but That Could All End Tomorrow…
In the Early Days of Films, the Movie Star in This Country Replaced Royalty. They’ve Been Demoted Since Then but They’re Still Treated as Beings Larger Than Life.
A Man Can Only Be Judged by His Actions, and Not by His Good Intentions or His Beliefs.
Acting Is a Question of Absorbing Other People’s Personalities and Adding Some of Your Own Experiences.
Almost Everything I Learned About Being an Actor Came from Those Early Years at the Actor’s Studio.
I Would Like It If People Would Think That Beyond Newman, There’s a Spirit That Takes Action, a Heart, and a Talent That Doesn’t Come from My Blue Eyes.
I Don’t Think There’s Anything Exceptional or Noble in Being Philanthropic. It’s the Other Attitude That Confuses Me.
I’d Like to Be Remembered as a Guy Who Tried Who Tried to Be Part of His Times, Tried to Help People Communicate with One Another, Tried to Find Some Decency in His Own Life, Tried to Extend Himself as a Human Being. Someone Who Isn’t Complacent, Who Doesn’t Cop Out.
A Man with No Enemies Is a Man with No Character.
Men Experience Many Passions in a Lifetime. One Passion Drives Away the One Before It.
Once I Started Taking Drama Classes, I Asked Myself Why I Had Ever Wasted so Much Time on a Football Team.
As Long as My Heart Continues to Beat, I Think I Will Continue.
Little-known facts about Paul Newman — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Newman created his own line of food products called Newman’s Own, featuring spaghetti sauces and salad dressings, and the company made over $100 million in profits all donated to charity.
He and Robert Redford played numerous pranks on each other; for Newman’s 50th birthday, Redford had a beaten-up Porsche shell delivered to Newman’s porch, and Newman retaliated by having the metal turned into a sculpture and dropped into Redford’s garden.
He turned down the role of Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry 1971 because he found the screenplay too right-wing, and recommended Clint Eastwood for the part.
Little known was his skill as a jazz and blues piano player; one photo appears to show him playing while Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin sing, with Robert Mitchum and James Garner looking on.
The animated comedy Cars 2006, his last film, became the highest-grossing film of his career.
He said he burned his tuxedo on his 75th birthday because he was through with formality.
Often said that of all the films he had performed in, Slap Shot 1977 was the most fun and his personal favorite.
He was among the celebrities on the famous Enemies List kept by President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
Nine years after his death, he reprised his role as Doc Hudson in Cars 3 2017 using unused recordings from the original film.
Finished second in the 1979 Le Mans 24-hour race in a Porsche 935.
When repeatedly asked the secret to his long marriage to Joanne Woodward, he responded, I don’t know what she puts in my food.
When Premiere magazine lists of 24 Great Performances from each year, actors often cite Newman as their idol; he is the most frequently cited idol so far.
Donated between $150 million and $175 million to charity since the 1980s.
Said in an interview that a film had never made any special impact on him until he saw On the Waterfront 1954.
Godfather of Jake Gyllenhaal.
The GI Bill got him through his first three months at Yale University; to pay tuition for the rest, he sold Encyclopedia Britannica, claiming he was very good at it.
He was the visual inspiration for the illustrations of superhero Green Lantern/Hal Jordan when the character was reintroduced in 1959; Newman was 34 at the time.
While training to be a pilot in the United States Navy, he was discovered to be color blind, ending his flying aspirations.
Students at Princeton University have named April 24 as Newman’s Day, attempting to drink 24 beers over 24 hours, a tradition Newman himself wanted to end.
Once at a Westport charity event, a dowager asked him to stir her drink with his finger; he replied he would be glad to, but he just took it out of a cyanide bottle.
Got two roles first offered to Elvis Presley but turned down by Presley’s manager: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958 and Sweet Bird of Youth 1962.
Early in his career, he was often mistaken for Marlon Brando and claimed to have signed around 500 autographs reading, Best wishes, Marlon Brando.
Turned down the role of the shark hunter Quint in Jaws 1975, which went to Robert Shaw.
He was nominated for nine acting Academy Awards in five different decades 1950s, 1960s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, winning once for The Color of Money 1986.
Said the sound he loved most is that of a V-8 engine.
Turned down the role of Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur 1959 because he said he did not have the legs to wear a tunic.
For a Mother’s Day gift, he gave wife Joanne Woodward two hours of uninterrupted driving around roads of Westport, Connecticut they had never seen before.
So ashamed of his debut in The Silver Chalice 1954, he took out an ad in Variety apologizing; later he was given the Golden Turkey Award for Most Embarrassing Movie Debut and fully agreed.
Became friends with future Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme when they were students at Kenyon College in Ohio in the 1940s.
Founded The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in 1988, a medically inclusive camp for children with serious illnesses in Ashford, Connecticut, now part of SeriousFun Children’s Network.
His performance as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969 is ranked #20 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Heroes & Villains list, a ranking shared with Robert Redford.
Newman did all of his own driving in films despite his color blindness.
In June 2002, he returned to live theater for the first time in 35 years in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town at the Westport Country Playhouse, directing and starring as the Stage Manager.
One of only six actors nominated for acting Oscars over five decades 1950s, 1960s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, alongside Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine, and Meryl Streep.
One of the most sought-after collectible Rolex watches, the early Daytona model from the 1960s, is known as the Rolex Paul Newman; in steel it can fetch up to $100,000 at auction.
Appeared on Quigley Publications’ annual poll of Top Ten Money Making Stars 14 times from 1963 to 1986, ranking #7 all-time in appearances.
He was the first actor to receive an Oscar nomination for a performance in a comic book adaptation, for Road to Perdition 2002.
Otto Preminger cast him in Exodus 1960 because he wanted someone of Jewish heritage who did not look Jewish.
The Simpsons episode Lost Verizon 2008 was dedicated to his memory.
His only son, Scott Newman, died of a drug overdose in 1978; his daughter Susan Kendall Newman is known for stage acting and philanthropy.
His father was Ashkenazi Jewish from Hungary and Poland; his mother was Slovak Roman Catholic. Newman described himself as Jewish because it’s more of a challenge.
He and his daughter Nell were originally set to star in Paper Moon 1973 until director John Huston left the project.
When he failed to get an Oscar nomination for Somebody Up There Likes Me 1956, producer Charles Schnee and director Robert Wise gave him a Noscar with a humorous inscription.
His performance as Frank Galvin in The Verdict 1982 is ranked #19 on Premiere magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time 2006.
He was William Friedkin’s first choice for the lead role of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection 1971, but deemed too expensive; the role went to Gene Hackman.
Before filming The Hustler 1961, Newman practiced pool and bet co-star Jackie Gleason $50 on a game; after losing, he paid in $50 worth of pennies.
In May 2007, he announced retirement from acting, having previously retired in 1995 but returning for four more movies.
Lee Strasberg said Newman could have been as great as Marlon Brando but too often relied on his good looks.
Directed three actors to Oscar nominations: Joanne Woodward Best Actress, Rachel, Rachel, Estelle Parsons Best Supporting Actress, Rachel, Rachel, and Richard Jaeckel Best Supporting Actor, Sometimes a Great Notion.
Nominated 10 times for the Academy Award: eight times for Best Actor, once for Best Supporting Actor, and once for Best Picture for Rachel, Rachel.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Paul Newman.
Celebrities similar to Paul Newman — same craft, ranked by reach.
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