Notable individuals die all the time, and we react with varying degrees of sadness or indifference when their names appear in the weekly obituary sections of magazines like, say, Entertainment Weekly or Time.
But every now and then, a celebrity death truly shocks us, because we really, truly thought the individual in question had already died sometime in the late ‘80s.
Occasionally, though, we react to celebrity death with the heartfelt regret usually reserved for people we actually knew. I moped around for days after heart failure claimed Glenn “Divine” Milstead in 1988, and the 2006 loss of Robert Altman felt like the passing of a beloved, crotchety grandfather.
Paul Newman outlived them both, surviving to the ripe old age of 83. In fact, by a strange coincidence, Wikipedia just informed me that Newman and Altman were both somehow born in 1925, which simply doesn’t compute in my perceptual reckoning of things. How could Newman be older than Robert Altman, or my father, or...or Robert Redford, ferchrissakes? Intellectually, of course, I knew he was old: his film career started way back in 1954 with The Silver Chalice, though I always (erroneously) associated him more with the Baby Boomer class of Nicholson and Beatty, thanks to ‘60s and ‘70s classics like The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Yet, even as Newman aged before our eyes into one of cinema’s grumpy old men in films like Twilight and Road to Perdition, it somehow never registered that he was actually old old. I mean, the man drove freakin’ race cars! How can he be gone while Cheney continues relentlessly on?
Alas...and yet, my Screengrab colleague Phil Nugent has already written a fine memorial tribute to this impressive humanitarian, salad dressing mogul and celebrated paragon of “the Hollywood Elite,” and so we come not to bury Paul Newman but to praise him, and the Top Ten films we’ll always remember him by.
10. THE LONG HOT SUMMER (1958)
This Dixie-fried melodrama, directed by Martin Ritt (who later re-teamed with Newman for Hud), is supposed to be based on the writings of William Faulkner. As a treatment of a great American author it's a soap opera, but as a soap opera it's one hell of an overripe Southern-Gothic sudser, with Newman (modeling the latest in sweat-stained wifebeaters) and a cast that includes Orson Welles, Angela Lansbury, Lee Remick, and Anthony Franciosa making with the wild-eyed ravings in cracker accents that might have been delivered to the set in ten-gallon drums. In addition to its shameless entertainment value, it has a special sentimental place in Newman's oeuvre for marking the on-screen meeting of our hero and his offscreen heroine, Joanne Woodward. The plot revolves around a deal that Newman's hungry drifter, Ben Quick, makes with Welles' bloated paterfamilias, Will Varner, to win the hand of Varner's daughter, played by Woodward, who Will fears will otherwise marry poorly to a girly man played by Richard Anderson, AKA TV's Oscar Goldman. In the movie, Woodward remains stoically resistant to Newman's hard-bodied charms. In real life, not so much, and the two of them, who had met two years earlier while understudying the leads in Picnic (at a time when Newman was still inconveniently married to his first wife) reportedly spent much of the shoot making up for lost time. They would work together another dozen or so times, in co-starring gigs and in movies where Newman directed Woodward, but this is the movie that preserves the priceless and unforgettable sight of two very hot people first fully celebrating how hot they were for each other.
9. THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
One of the most amazing things about Paul Newman’s career was how long he was able to get away with working as a leading man. Well into his sixties and seventies, when most actors -- even A-list stars -- tend to be cast in father or mentor roles to nursemaid younger talent, Newman was still flashing those famous cobalt blues, attracting the women, and carrying movies on his ever-capable shoulders. Best of all, he made it work. Yet in his last two decades, Newman also took on several interesting supporting roles. He received an Oscar nomination for his work in Road to Perdition, and in his final theatrical film, he voiced Doc Hudson, the gruff paterfamilias of the town of Radiator Springs, in Pixar’s Cars (let’s forget Message in a Bottle, shall we?). But best of all was his work in the Coen brothers’ sadly under-appreciated The Hudsucker Proxy. In this Art Deco take on a Preston Sturges-style comedy, Newman might seem an ill fit for the role of Hudsucker Industries vice-president Sidney J. Mussburger, the sort of corporate fat cat that might once have been played by Akim Tamiroff. But damn if Newman isn’t a treat to watch. Having built a fruitful career on his ability to make acting look easy, here he takes the opposite tack, giving a performance as stylized as any he’s ever given. In lesser hands, it might have felt like overacting -- look no further than Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance in the same film for proof. But Newman pulls it off magnificently by somehow under-playing the role, never turning the character into an excuse to twist his (invisible) mustache. Instead, he simply turns the patented Newman charm back on itself, showing it used to an entirely different end. Who could ever forget the way he punctuates seemingly half his lines with a grunted “sure-sure”? In The Hudsucker Proxy, Newman gives us a tantalizing hint of what an irresistible character actor he might’ve been even if he hadn’t been so genetically blessed.
8. SLAP SHOT (1977)
It was asking way too much of Slap Shot for lightning to strike a third time. Hell, it was asking too much of The Sting for lightning to strike twice – and yet the second pairing of Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and director George Roy Hill, following the hugely successful Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid proved to be a giant hit as well, satisfying critics and audiences alike. But Hill’s third go-round with Newman in the lead role didn’t have a William Goldman writing the screenplay, and Robert Redford probably wouldn’t have played particularly well as one of the Hanson Brothers, so the two of them went it alone. The story of the final days of a fading, brawling, largely out-of-control minor league hockey team wasn’t as successful as the previous two films, and it certainly didn’t garner the same level of critical praise. But though some great supporting performances and a funny, filthy script by Nancy Dowd played their part, it’s undeniably a testament to Paul Newman’s undying charisma and likeability as an actor that a lot of people would name Slap Shot as their favorite of all his movies. Newman (who featured as one of his most lasting traits the appearance that he genuinely enjoyed what he did for a living) is clearly having a ball as the foul-mouthed, dysfunctional player-coach of the Charlestown Chiefs (a character partly modeled on the notorious John Brophy). The role even spilled over into his real life: he complained to Time, seven years after the movie premiered, that since playing Reg Dunlop, his language had been “straight out of the locker room”.
Click Here for Part Two & Part Three
Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Paul Clark, Leonard Pierce