biography

Then, suddenly, at the age of 31, Newman's breakthrough came. In Somebody Up There Likes Me (with his Silver Chalice co-star Pier Angeli), he played Rocky Graziano, a young tearaway who finds trouble on the streets and then in jail, gets drafted, goes AWOL and then finds redemption in the boxing-ring. Alternately troubled and effusive, Newman was superb, bringing great depth to the character. At last, he was on his way.

Things moved fast. In The Helen Morgan Story, he played a gun-runner and con-man who gets involved with the '30s singing star of the title. Then in New Zealand-set war romance Until They Sail, back with his Somebody Up There director Robert Wise, he was involved with four sisters (including Jean Simmons and Piper Laurie) and a murder.

Both these movies were released in 1957, a landmark year for Newman for off-screen reasons, too. For a start, he won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer, an award he shared with Anthony "Psycho" Perkins and John "Er, The Pit And The Pendulum?" Kerr. Then, while filming his next picture, The Long Hot Summer, he became involved with co-star Joanne Woodward, who'd that year won the Best Actress Oscar for The Three Faces Of Eve. Divorce from Jackie Witte soon followed. A year later, he would marry Woodward, beginning one of Hollywood's longest unions. When later asked why he never strayed, Newman said "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?". They'd produce three more children - Elinor, Melissa and Claire. Elinor, taking the name of Nell Potts would become an actress, too. Indeed, when she was young she was down to play opposite her father in Paper Moon, but the director dropped out and so did they, leaving the way open from Ryan and Tatum O'Neal to clean up.

winning
(1969)

The Long Hot Summer, based on the work of William Faulkner, saw Newman as Ben Quick, drummed out of one Mississippi town for the revenge-burning of a barn, then turning up in Frenchman's Bend. Here he works for big cheese Orson Welles and is pushed into a relationship with Welles' daughter (Woodward). Tense and well-made by debuting director Martin Ritt (like Paul a free-thinker and libertarian and with whom Newman would make some of his better pictures), it was another hit, and won Newman Best Actor at Cannes.

Now came the first real blockbuster. With Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, which paired Method-man Brando with great beauty Vivien Leigh, having been a mighty success, Hollywood was ready for a repeat. So, Method-newboy Newman was teamed with Elizabeth Taylor in Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Here Paul was Brick Pollitt, a drunken ex-football star who's abusing his wife (Taylor, as Maggie The Cat) and destroying his marriage. Meanwhile, Brick's father Big Daddy (Burl Ives) who favours Brick above all his family, is dying and his estate is up for grabs. But he'll only give part of it to sons who have kids - and Brick and Maggie have none (in the play, this is because Brick's a homosexual).

The film was one of the biggest grossers of the year - despite the fact that Williams hated it and went out telling cinema queues to go home - and sealed Newman's image as "a troubled opportunist whose sex appeal was balanced by his seeming contempt for women". It also earned him his first Oscar nomination.

the hustler
(1961)

Next came The Left Handed Gun, where he once again played Billy The Kid (a role originally intended for James Dean), this time as an essentially decent child ruined by a tempestuous temper. Incredible, really, that at 32 Newman could still play teenagers. Then came his first comedy, actually a thoroughly out-of-character rough-house sex comedy called Rally 'Round The Flag, Boys!, where a small town protests at the building of a missile base nearby. Co-starring were Woodward and a young Joan Collins. Then there was The Young Philadelphians, where he was a young lawyer whose grand social aspirations are set against his sense of loyalty when his best friend is accused of murder. Robert Vaughn was Oscar nominated for his efforts as the alleged killer.

After Rally Round The Flag, Boys!, Newman had returned to the New York stage in another Tennessee Williams effort, Sweet Bird Of Youth. Then, back in Hollywood, he bought himself out of his contract with Warner Brothers, and was soon enjoying two more big hits. First was Otto Preminger's Exodus, an adaptation of Leon Uris's novel about the foundation and early defence of the state of Israel. Then came John O'Hara's From The Terrace, where he played a high-financier who's married into wealth and must choose between his beautiful but faithless wife (Woodward once more) and true love with a much younger woman.

Now came another of Newman's signature roles, as cocky pool-shark Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler. Challenging Jackie Gleason's veteran Minnesota Fats to a marathon duel, he loses big money and goes on the skids. Then, with the help of gritty manager George C. Scott, he hits the road and attempts to rebuild his career. Both Newman and Gleason were Oscar-nominated, as was Piper Laurie, later nominated again as Carrie's mad mum. In The Hustler, Laurie played Newman's horribly mistreated girlfriend, a woman he slaps around. This raises an interesting point about Newman. Despite his use of the Method (Newman himself actually claimed he was fascinated by it, but couldn't make it work for him), he's always a really likeable guy onscreen, no matter what kind of swine he's playing - and he's played some real swine. Thus, he complicates matters, his personality somehow justifying his characters' bad behaviour. Many find this confusing, and lambast Newman for it. Others enjoy the moral challenge.

pocket money
(1972)

Next came Paris Blues, another movie with Martin Ritt, this time addressing feminism and civil rights, with Newman as a rising jazz star in France. Louis Armstrong and Diahann Carroll also featured, as did Sidney Poitier. Ten years later, in 1971, Paul would form a new production company with Poitier, along with Barbra Streisand and Steve McQueen. Called First Artists, it would be inspired by United Artists, its role being to give performers a chance to produce their own projects.

Back in the States, Newman starred in the film version of Sweet Bird Of Youth as Chance Wayne, returning to his home town with a faded film star and meeting his old flame, a girl whose father, the town's head honcho, would very much like a word. It was an excellent production though, as with all Hollywood adaptations, much of Williams' earthiness was excised. Ed Begley Sr won an Oscar for his efforts, while Shirley Knight was nominated. If you want serious recognition as an actor, it's always been a good idea to stand near Paul Newman.

After this, and an appearance in Ritt's collage of Hemingway stories, Adventures Of A Young Man, Newman stuck with Ritt once more for another of his best-known roles, in Hud. Here Melvyn Douglas played a straight-laced landowner, battling to keep his ranch going in the face of an arid landscape and a bad boy son. This is Paul, drunken, libidinous and arrogant - another of Newman's total bastards, who comes close to raping housekeeper Patricia Neal. To further prove that point about serious recognition, Neal won a Best Actress Oscar, and Douglas Best Supporting Actor. Newman himself was nominated as Best Actor.

butch cassidy and the sundance kid
(1969)

The same year, 1963, saw Newman back in Paris for fashion industry satire A New Kind Of Love, as a journalist interviewing Joanne Woodward in the mistaken belief that she's an expensive prostitute. Then he was Andrew Craig in The Prize, in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature and drawn into spy-style intrigue.

Next there was the black comedy What A Way To Go!, where Shirley MacLaine donates millions to the tax-man and is promptly sent to a psychiatrist. In therapy she discusses how each of her husbands was killed by their pursuit of money - Newman featuring alongside Gene Kelly and Robert Mitchum. Then it was back to Martin Ritt for The Outrage, a remake of Kurosawa's Rashomon, which told the tale of a rape/murder from four different vantage-points, Newman playing a Mexican bandit.

Lady L, directed by Peter Ustinov, had an elderly woman recounting her loves and bawdy adventures, Newman co-starring with Sophia Loren and David Niven. Then came Harper, written by William Goldman who'd soon pen one of Newman's greatest roles. Here Paul played Lew Harper, a top-line PD called in by Lauren Bacall to find her missing hubbie, Robert Wagner appearing as her suspect pilot friend and Strother Martin as a manic cult leader. This was followed by Torn Curtain, sadly one of Hitchcock's weaker efforts, where Paul played a rocket scientist who appears to defect to the East.

the towering inferno
(1974)

1967 brought two more classics. In Hombre, yet again directed by Ritt, he played a half-breed Apache who's accepted by whites when they think he's white too, but shunned when they discover he's not. Then, when bad guys attack their stagecoach, they really don't care what colour he is, as long as he saves them. And then came Cool Hand Luke where, as Lucas Jackson, he cuts the heads off parking-meters and is condemned to Road Prison 36. Refusing to ever back down, he gets pulverised then befriended by George Kennedy's Dragline, then wins over the men by scoring them rest-time and very nearly eating 50 eggs. But he doesn't win over Strother Martin's boss-man ("What we have here is a failure to communicate") whose punishments for Newman's escape attempts become ever more brutal. Luke will not stop, though. His prison number, 37 (it's said), was a reference to the Bible, Luke 1:37, which says simply "For with God nothing is impossible".

It was a fantastic movie (and a lucky break, as Telly Savalas was down to play Luke but wouldn't fly back from Europe), with Newman Oscar-nominated once again (Kennedy, naturally, won one). Paul moved on to The Secret War Of Harry Frigg where, as an another incorrigible guard-house escapee, he's promoted to 2-star general and sent to break out five one-star generals captured in Italy. They can't break out on their own because none of them will accept orders from the others. That year, 1968, also saw Newman and Woodward campaign full-time for Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, then battling against Tricky Dicky Nixon.

1969 was another big year. First there was Winning where he played Frank Capua, an obsessive indie-car racer who's losing his wife (Woodward again) to his main rival (Wagner again). The movie was a very public admittance of his real-life love for car-racing, which he'd now take up in deadly earnest. In 1972, he'd drive his Lotus Elan to victory at Thompson, Connecticut. In '77 he came 5th in the 24-hour Daytona meeting, then two years later came 2nd at Le Mans. '76 brought the first of 4 SCCA National titles in the D-production category, and he was still winning big races well into his sixties. Beyond this, he fielded his own indie drivers - big names like Al Unser, Teo Fabi and Keke Rosberg - and, in 1983, joined up with Carl Haas to form the famous Newman-Haas team.

the sting
(1973)

Also in 1969 there was more Oscar glory. Just as he'd take up racing seriously, so he'd seriously moved into producing and directing, in '68 making Rachel, Rachel. Here Woodward played a down-at-heel Connecticut spinster, badly bossed by her mother, who gets one last chance at romance. It was sweet and deep, sorrowful and joyous, and won Academy Award nominations for Woodward, co-star Estelle Parsons, and writer Stewart Stern (who'd years earlier penned Newman's The Rack, as well Rebel Without A Cause). It was also nominated as Best Film.

And '69 also brought that William Goldman-penned role, as Butch in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Here he teamed up with Robert Redford's Sundance, robbed trains, fled from the most persistent trackers in the West, famously escaping by jumping off a cliff, and went to Bolivia (via New York) where they unsuccessfully took on hundreds of soldiers.

Originally, Steve McQueen was up for playing Sundance, but he demanded equal billing with Newman. Having both names above the title, with McQueen's on the right-hand side of the poster, wasn't good enough. People always read the left-hand name first. So, a new solution was worked out. Both names would go above the title, BUT the name on the right would be a little higher, giving the impression that the stars were indeed equal in ability, charisma and manliness. And it STILL didn't work out. Asked whether he wanted his name on the left or right, Newman said he didn't care. McQueen, who really, REALLY cared, suspected that Newman was playing a trick on him, and pulled out of the project altogether. Five years later, McQueen would finally agree to this poster set-up when the two starred together in The Towering Inferno.

what a way to go
(1964)

Oh, as an aside, there's a reason why the New York segment of Butch is a montage of photos. Director George Roy Hill had wanted to use the sets of Hello Dolly, being filmed on the next soundstage, but was refused at the last minute. Consequently, he took stills of Newman, Redford and Katherine Ross on the Hello Dolly set and mixed them in with genuine old photos of the Big Apple.

As the Seventies began, Newman worked once more with Woodward and - showing that he likes a familiar team around him - Cool Hand Luke director Stuart Rosenberg, on WUSA. Here Paul played another cynical drifter, this time getting work at a New Orleans radio station with sinister connections to a ruthless right-wing organisation. Paul just doesn't care till he's challenged by Woodward and his former Best Newcomer rival, Anthony Perkins.

1971 took him back to directing with an adaptation of Ken Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion, in which he also starred. Featuring Henry Fonda and Lee Remick (who'd earlier appeared beside Newman in The Long Hot Summer), this freewheeling comedy-drama concerned a fiercely independent family lumberjacking in Oregon. Keeping up the Newman tradition, Richard Jaeckel would be Oscar-nominated.

cool hand luke
(1967)

Next, he was back with Rosenberg, as well as Lee Marvin and Strother Martin, in Pocket Money, where he played a poor cow-poke getting turned over by a sneaky rancher. Then came a John Huston double-header. In The Life And Times Of Judge Roy Bean, he was an outlaw, bashed up and left to die, who then creates his own violent scheme of justice in his own town. A very young Victoria Principal featured, while Stacy Keach provided a crazy cameo as Bad Bob. Then came the labyrinthine spy thriller, The Mackintosh Man, with James Mason. A decade later, the pair would have a far more memorable screen confrontation.

Now there were two massive hits. Back with Redford and George Roy Hill for The Sting, Newman played master con-man Henry Gondorff who, down on his luck in the '30s, teams up with young prankster Redford to take revenge on gangster Robert Shaw, who's had a mutual buddy murdered. Smart, funny and possessing a brilliant finishing twist, the movie was a monster. It also re-popularised the ragtime music of Scott Joplin which, as it happens, was WAY out of fashion by 1936.

The second big hit was The Towering Inferno, a combination of two disaster novels, and one of the first all-star disaster epics. Here Newman played the architect of a skyscraper who, attending the opening party, finds that the stupid cheapskates haven't followed his wiring instructions. William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, Roberts Wagner and Vaughn - can firefighter Steve McQueen get any of these people out alive? Naturally, with McQueen present, there were yet more shenanigans. Though agreeing to the poster idea, Mr McQueen demanded that he and Newman have EXACTLY the same number of lines. Furthermore, McQueen and Dunaway specified that there would be no interviews and that they must not, on any account, be approached by visitors. Newman, on the other hand, simply requested that he not be "surprised".

cat on a hot tin roof
(1958)

Next Newman took a series of more interesting roles. In The Drowning Pool, re-teamed with Woodward and Rosenberg, he reprised the part of Lew Harper, investigating a blackmail case in Louisiana, while getting involved with an old flame (Woodward) and her vampish daughter (a young Melanie Griffith). Then he played William Cody in Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill And The Indians, a sprawling work that discussed the plight of Native Americans as well as the creation of legends.

After this came Slap Shot, the film some critics claim to be the first where Newman finally discarded his pretty-boy rep and became a mature and fully-fledged actor (he was, after all, now over 50). With George Roy Hill back at the helm, here Paul played the player-coach of the Charlestown Chiefs, the hockey team of a dying Pennsylvania steel town. Charged with turning a bad season around, he encourages some rough-house tactics but then the manager (Strother Martin again), recognising that the crowd loves this new violent approach, brings in the Hanson brothers - hardcore mentalists who just want a bit of aggro. Even Newman is appalled but, hey, a win's a win. At the time, Slap Shot was fairly controversial for its violence but, gritty and realistic in its portrayal of an industrial wasteland, it proved to be thoroughly influential.