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POSTED: 02:59 p.m. EDT, Sep 27, 2008
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Paul Newman was not only a model citizen, he was a model of what an acting career can be.
As citizen or actor, Newman — who died Friday at the age of 83 — had buckeyes in his bones: Born in Cleveland, grown up in Shaker Heights, educated in part at Kenyon College, acting at Cleveland Play House and in local TV commercials early in his career. He went far beyond the state's borders, of course — he is second only to Bob Hope in terms of important performers from Northeast Ohio — but he still retained a deep personal connection.
In 2004, while on the campaign trail for John Kerry, he stopped at his childhood home and began a detailed exploration. As The Wall Street Journal later noted, ''He asked for a flashlight and went to the basement crawl space, where he searched unsuccessfully for a liquor bottle his dad stored there during Prohibition. He opened a third-floor window and looked in the gutter lining the roof. That's where he hid cigarette butts so his mom wouldn't find them, he said.''
Kenyon College, from which he graduated in 1949, was influential on Newman as an actor and as an entrepreneur. An appreciation of Newman on the Kenyon Web site says that ''displaying the pluck that would resurface some 40 years later [in the Newman's Own food products] . . . he ran a laundry service out of his dorm room.'' He also ran a flower and corsage business, taking orders before dance weekends and making sure of a profit by buying the flowers from a wholesale shop in Cleveland.
Newman repaid Kenyon for his education many times over, notably with a $10 million scholarship gift to help first-generation college students and minority students. And that was just one example of his generosity and social commitment, which also included political activism and enormous donations of income from the Newman's Own products.
But none of that might have been possible were it not for Newman the actor.
To be sure, he was dismissive of some of his earliest roles, which tend to be overly mannered. And he was for a time in the shadow of stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean; when Dean died young, Newman inherited two movies, The Left-Handed Gun and Somebody Up There Likes Me, which had been intended for Dean.
But Newman's good looks and charming style made him a box-office star. He was not overly protective of that stardom, playing anti-heroes and rogues, comfortable yielding screen presence to other actors — George C. Scott, Robert Redford and, as the generations changed, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.
''Newman is the least starlike superstar I've ever worked with,'' wrote William Goldman, who scripted Newman's landmark Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as well as Newman's Harper. ''He's an educated man and a trained actor and he never wants more close-ups. What he wants is the best possible script and character he can have.''
And that gets to what made him an acting model: Even when he no longer had anything to prove as a star, he continued to try to improve his craft.
The Color of Money finally won him his Oscar, but look at what he did in The Verdict and wonder why that did not bring him a statuette. Look, too, at Nobody's Fool, where Newman's work is stunning in its sublety and economy.
In 2007, at the age of 82, he famously announced that he was done with acting. But it was not a lamentation over a lack of roles. Rather, it was that he didn't think he was good enough.
''I'm not able to work anymore at the level I would want to,'' Newman told ABC News. ''You start to lose your memory, your confidence, your invention.'' While he had made undistinguished movies, he was clearly not content to give indifferent performances.
Yet he had not given up on stagecraft. His social commitment, too, remained strong. But his body began to fail him, and with it his ability to do the things he most loved. A few months ago, the first sign that he was facing major health problems was that he dropped out of directing a stage production of Of Mice and Men.
Click here to see The Associated Press report on Newman's death.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://www.ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Paul Newman was not only a model citizen, he was a model of what an acting career can be.
As citizen or actor, Newman — who died Friday at the age of 83 — had buckeyes in his bones: Born in Cleveland, grown up in Shaker Heights, educated in part at Kenyon College, acting at Cleveland Play House and in local TV commercials early in his career. He went far beyond the state's borders, of course — he is second only to Bob Hope in terms of important performers from Northeast Ohio — but he still retained a deep personal connection.
In 2004, while on the campaign trail for John Kerry, he stopped at his childhood home and began a detailed exploration. As The Wall Street Journal later noted, ''He asked for a flashlight and went to the basement crawl space, where he searched unsuccessfully for a liquor bottle his dad stored there during Prohibition. He opened a third-floor window and looked in the gutter lining the roof. That's where he hid cigarette butts so his mom wouldn't find them, he said.''
Kenyon College, from which he graduated in 1949, was influential on Newman as an actor and as an entrepreneur. An appreciation of Newman on the Kenyon Web site says that ''displaying the pluck that would resurface some 40 years later [in the Newman's Own food products] . . . he ran a laundry service out of his dorm room.'' He also ran a flower and corsage business, taking orders before dance weekends and making sure of a profit by buying the flowers from a wholesale shop in Cleveland.
Newman repaid Kenyon for his education many times over, notably with a $10 million scholarship gift to help first-generation college students and minority students. And that was just one example of his generosity and social commitment, which also included political activism and enormous donations of income from the Newman's Own products.
But none of that might have been possible were it not for Newman the actor.
To be sure, he was dismissive of some of his earliest roles, which tend to be overly mannered. And he was for a time in the shadow of stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean; when Dean died young, Newman inherited two movies, The Left-Handed Gun and Somebody Up There Likes Me, which had been intended for Dean.
But Newman's good looks and charming style made him a box-office star. He was not overly protective of that stardom, playing anti-heroes and rogues, comfortable yielding screen presence to other actors — George C. Scott, Robert Redford and, as the generations changed, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.
''Newman is the least starlike superstar I've ever worked with,'' wrote William Goldman, who scripted Newman's landmark Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as well as Newman's Harper. ''He's an educated man and a trained actor and he never wants more close-ups. What he wants is the best possible script and character he can have.''
And that gets to what made him an acting model: Even when he no longer had anything to prove as a star, he continued to try to improve his craft.
The Color of Money finally won him his Oscar, but look at what he did in The Verdict and wonder why that did not bring him a statuette. Look, too, at Nobody's Fool, where Newman's work is stunning in its sublety and economy.
In 2007, at the age of 82, he famously announced that he was done with acting. But it was not a lamentation over a lack of roles. Rather, it was that he didn't think he was good enough.
''I'm not able to work anymore at the level I would want to,'' Newman told ABC News. ''You start to lose your memory, your confidence, your invention.'' While he had made undistinguished movies, he was clearly not content to give indifferent performances.
Yet he had not given up on stagecraft. His social commitment, too, remained strong. But his body began to fail him, and with it his ability to do the things he most loved. A few months ago, the first sign that he was facing major health problems was that he dropped out of directing a stage production of Of Mice and Men.
Click here to see The Associated Press report on Newman's death.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://www.ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
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