Paul Newman (Reuters photo)

Related Remembering Paul Newman Filmography and awards Slideshow: Life and career Newman had passion for auto racing

Paul Newman, who combined Method training with matinee idol looks to become the personification of the cool '60s rebel in such iconic roles as the reckless Hud, the defiant Cool Hand Luke and the hotshot Butch Cassidy, died Friday. Surrounded by friends and family, including his wife, Joanne Woodward, the actor and philanthropist passed away at his farmhouse home near Wesport, Conn., after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.

In a film career that spanned nearly six decades, Newman received seven Oscar nominations before he was finally presented with an Honorary Oscar in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable and compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft."

But then he pulled out a trump card of his own, winning the best actor Academy Award the following year for "The Color of Money," in which he reprised the role of pool shark Fast Eddie Felsen, the character he first played 25 years earlier in "The Hustler." Hardly slowing down as he aged into an ornery character actor, he went on to earn two more nominations -- for "Nobody's Fool" in 1995 and "Road to Perdition" in 2003.

Yet, at times, he almost seemed embarrassed by his success as an actor, as if play-acting wasn't entirely a manly profession. He is reported to have once said, "To be an actor you have to be a child." And so after starring in 1969's "Winning," he found a new passion in fast cars, which drove him to adopt the life of a professional racer. Because of that interest, director John Lasseter sought him out to provide the voice of Doc Hudson, the town elder in Radiators Springs, in the animated "Cars," Newman's last feature film.

In 1975, he came in second at the twenty-four hours of Le Mans. He won four "Sports Car Club of America National Championships," and at 70, he was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the oldest driver to win a professionally sanctioned race -- 1995's twenty-four hours of Daytona.

A committed liberal, Newman also periodically set aside his career to stump for candidates including 1968 presidential contender Sen. Eugene McCarthy. Earning himself a spot high atop Richard Nixon's enemies list, Newman joked it was "the highest single honor I've ever received."

Newman also discovered a deep philanthropic streak. In 1982, from his home in Westport, he a partnered with author A.E. Hotchner to create Newman's Own, a line of food products. Beginning with a salad dressing, it was initially intended as a lark, but has since taken over the supermarket shelf, expanding into popcorn, salsa and spaghetti sauce and earning more than $250 million in profits that have been donated to charity through Newman's Own Foundation.

Newman considered it wonderfully ironic that young moviegoers knew him better as the guy on a spaghetti sauce label than for his charismatic portrayals on the silver screen. "The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films," he often quipped.

The 1978 death of his son Scott from an accidental overdose led Newman to establish the Torrance, Ca.-based Scott Newman Center to prevent drug abuse through education. In 1986, he also created a summer camp for ill children in Ashford, Conn., calling it the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, after his outlaw gang in "Butch Cassidy." That effort grew in an association of 11 such camps around the world.

"Paul Newman soared to fame with a fondness for portraying scamps, louts and ne'er-do-wells, yet he will be remembered as an artist, gentleman and humanitarian whose extraordinary career was rivaled in every respect by an exemplary life," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said Saturday.

In 1994, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Newman with its Irving Thalberg Award because of his charitable work.

Playing a Greek artisan in the 1954 Biblical epic "The Silver Chalice," Newman might have made an in auspicious film debut. But he redeemed himself two years later, playing boxer Rocky Graziana in "Somebody Up There Likes Me," and from then on, his career was remarkably surefooted.

He realized the heights of stardom in the '60s as he joined forces with relative newcomer Robert Redford in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."





Under George Roy Hill's direction, the Newman-Redford pairing proved a hip, easygoing teaming -- two golden boys effortless sharing the screen together. At the time of its release, it became the top-grossing Western of all time. Inevitably, Newman and Redford were paired together again four years later in "The Sting," playing a couple of engaging con artists. Their chemistry, aided and abetted by a tricky script by David Ward and a Scott Joplin-sequel score from Marvin Hamlisch, vaulted the unassuming entertainment to a best picture Oscar.

Born to a well-off Ohio family, Newman grew up in the Shaker Heights area of Cleveland. After a stint as a radioman/gunner on a Navy torpedo plane in the Pacific during World War II, he attended Kenyon College. (He repaid his alma mater with a $10 million donation in 2007.)

Although he made some halfhearted stabs at acting in college, he often said that selling sporting goods, which his father did for a living, was his true inspiration to get into acting. Newman loathed retail so much, he sold out his interest in the family's thriving sporting goods business.

After a year at the Yale Drama School, he moved to New York, attending the New York Actors Studio, where he was associated with up-and-coming Method actors including Marlon Brando and James Dean. His first Broadway appearance in 1953's "Picnic" earned him a contract from Warner Bros.

Embarrassed by his film debut in "The Silver Chalice," Newman took out an ad apologizing for his performance. But after he returned to the movie ring with "Somebody Up There Likes Me," he never looked back.

He cornered the market on Southern bad boys, beginning with 1958's "The Long, Hot Summer," where he starred opposite Woodward, who would become his second wife and occasional collaborator. The same year, he starred with Elizabeth Taylor in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," one of the year's biggest hits. Newman's performance as an alcoholic ex-football player married to a sexually repressed woman was electric, an intoxicating mix of dissipation and desire. In 1962, he reteamed with Geraldine Page in Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" -- the two had created the roles on Broadway -- as a sexual stud who kindles an affair with an aging actress in hopes of launching a Hollywood career.

Beneath that handsome veneer, his characters offered an anti-establishment challenge as Newman played a young gunslinger Billy the Kid in 1958's "The Left Handed Gun"; a Jewish freedom fighter in 1960's "Exodus"; an upstart pool player in 1961's "The Huster"; the reprobate son in 1963's "Hud"; and a private investigator in 1966's "Harper."

In 1969, befitting his superstar status, Newman, along with Barbra Streisand and Sidney Poitier, formed a production company, First Artists. It was an alliance modeled after the Chaplin/Pickford/Fairbanks teaming, and was later joined by Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. Although the venture was short-lived, it produced Newman's "Pocket Money" and "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean."

Between acting gigs, Newman also carved out a respectable career as a director of modest dramas, beginning with 1968's "Rachel, Rachel," which earned Woodward an Oscar nomination for her performance as a spinster schoolteacher. He also directed his wife in 1972's "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds," the TV drama "The Shadow Box" and yet another Williams drama, 1987's "The Glass Menagerie."

As Newman matured, he began to play more edgy, flawed characters, extending his acting talent beyond his charm and good looks: a fading hockey player/coach in 1977's "Slap Shot," an unfairly accused man in 1981's "Absence of Malice," an alcoholic lawyer in 1982's "The Verdict."

With Martin Scorsese's "The Color of Money," Newman's career almost seemed to have come full circle. Paired with Tom Cruise, the veteran actor stepped out of the shadows as a now-aging aging pool shark who takes on the challenge of mentoring a young upstart. The Academy rewarded him with the competitive Oscar that had long been just out of his reach.

But Newman's career still had several final scenes to play out, as he went on to earn Oscar noms as leading actor for in 1995 for "Nobody's Fool" and supporting actor in 2003 for "Road to Perdition." He also captured an Emmy for the 2005 HBO miniseries "Empire Falls."

Newman is survived by Woodward and their three daughters, Nell, Melissa (Lissy) and Clea and his daughters Susan and Stephanie by his first wife, Jackie Witte; as well as two grandchildren, Peter and Henry Elkind; sons-in-law Raphe, Kurt and Gary; and his brother Arthur Newman.


PAUL NEWMAN FILMOGRAPHY

Television
1952 “Suspense” (Woman in Love)
1952 “Tales of Tomorrow” (Ice from Space)
1952-53 “The Aldrich Family”
1953 “The Web” (One for the Road, The Bells of Damon)
1953 “You Are There” (The Fate of Nathan Hale, The Death of Socrates, The Assassination of Julius Caesar)
1954 “Danger” (Knife in the Dark)
1954 “Armstrong Circle Theatre” (The Contender)
1954 “Goodyear Television Playhouse” (Thunder of Silence, Guilty Is the Stranger)
1954 “The Mask” (The Party Night)
1954 “The Joe Palooka Story” (The Big Blow-Off)
1955 “Playwrights ’56” (The Battler)
1955 “Producers’ Showcase” (Our Town)
1955 “The Philco Television Playhouse” (The Death of Billy the Kid)
1955 “Appointment With Adventure” (Honeymoon in Spain, Five in Judgment)
1954-56 “The United States Steel Hour” (Bang the Drum Slowly, The Five Fathers of Pepi, The Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham)
1956 “The Kaiser Aluminum Hour” (The Rag Jungle, The Army Game, The Rack)
1958 “Playhouse 90” (The 80 Yard Run, Until They Sail)

Film
1956 The Rack
1956 Somebody Up There Likes Me
1957 Until They Sail
1957 The Helen Morgan Story
1958 Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!
1958 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
1958 The Left Handed Gun
1958 The Long, Hot Summer
1959 The Young Philadelphians
1960 Exodus
1960 From the Terrace
1961 Paris Blues
1961 The Hustler
1962 Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man
1962 Sweet Bird of Youth
1963 The Prize
1963 A New Kind of Love
1963 Hud
1964 The Outrage
1964 What a Way to Go!
1965 Lady L
1966 Torn Curtain
1966 Harper
1967 Cool Hand Luke
1967 Hombre
1968 The Secret War of Harry Frigg
1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1969 Winning
1970 WUSA
1971 Sometimes a Great Notion
1972 The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
1972 Pocket Money
1973 The Sting
1973 The MacKintosh Man
1974 The Towering Inferno
1975 The Drowning Pool
1976 Buffalo Bill and the Indians
1977 Quintet
1980 When Time Ran Out...
1981 Absence of Malice
1981 Fort Apache the Bronx
1982 The Verdict
1984 Harry & Son
1986 The Color of Money
1989 Blaze
1989 Fat Man and Little Boy
1994 Nobody's Fool
1994 The Hudsucker Proxy
1998 Twilight
1999 Message in a Bottle
2000 Where the Money Is
2002 Road to Perdition
2003 Our Town
2005 Magnificent Desolation:
2005 Walking on the Moon 3D
2005 Empire Falls
2006 Cars

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS

1959 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof -- best actor
1962 The Hustler -- best actor
1963 Hud -- best actor
1967 Cool Hand Luke -- best actor
1968 Rachel, Rachel -- best picture
1982 Absence of Malice -- best actor
1982 The Verdict -- best actor
1987 The Color of Money -- best actor (win)
1995 Nobody's Fool -- best sctor
2002 Road to Perdition -- best supporting actor

HONORARY ACADEMY AWARDS

1986 Honorary Award
1994 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Filmography and awards source: IMDb