R.I.P. Paul Newman :(

Is there anything I can even begin to say here?

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WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) - Paul Newman, the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as an activist, race car driver, popcorn impresario and the anti-hero of such films as "Hud,""Cool Hand Luke" and "The Color of Money," has died, a spokeswoman said Saturday. He was 83.

Newman died Friday of cancer, spokeswoman Marni Tomljanovic said. No other details were immediately available.

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Oh my god.

"Sure, sure."

I'll miss the guy, alright.

This is so sad...

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I think this should be a tribute thread, eh?

"What's the matter with those guys?!" One of my favorite scenes ever:



There are so many others....

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I feel really bad at the moment...
This one got to me.
The world was much better for him being in it.

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"If you can't be funny be interesting."
Harold Ross

I loved his later characters -- thought he was the best thing about Empire Falls, for instance. And added a little bit of humanity to Message in a Bottle, too.

A family man, a great actor, a generous humanitarian.

I can only hope my life is a fraction as remarkable as his was.

He will be missed.

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Johann von Goethe

Paul Newman was a great actor who loved the craft, an iconic movie star who never took that position too seriously, a humanitarian and political activist who put his money and time where his heart and passion were, and simply one of the coolest and most beautiful humans to ever walk the planet.There will never be another Paul Newman, which is a testament to his singularity but also a damn shame because this world could use about a billion more of him. His health had been rapidly deteriorating for months so this news isn't a total surprise, but it's still a shock to my psyche because I was hoping against hope that he'd live to be three hundred. Of course one of the great things about cinema is that he will continue to live forever as Lukas Jackson, Eddie Felson, Hud Bannon, Brick Pollitt, Lew Harper, Robert "Butch Cassidy" Parker, Henry Gondorff, Frank Galvin, Sidney J. Mussburger and every other performance he leaves behind. But his legacy is much bigger than that, and just as indelible.


REST IN PEACE

Rest in Peace

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

Holden usually says it so well and this time is no different. Rest in peace Paul.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

"Boy, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals."
- Butch (Paul Newman), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1969, screenplay by William Goldman, directed by George Roy Hill

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I heard about this. It's very sad.

I'm going to watch Cool Hand Luke tonight to honor him.

I was just thinking about him this early morning.
He was truly a wonderful man.

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Paul Newman's life & career are a rarity.

One of the most respectable filmographies in cinema history,
a marriage that exceeds typical Hollywood standards,
& a charitable nature that never stopped giving.

My top 5 fave Paul Newman flix:

5. The Sting
I always felt that scripting a movie that focuses on a successful elaborate con-job really requires an exercizing of creativity from the writer. Bringing in all the elements of the characters & acts to pull off a scheme that is both credible in it's enactment & at the same time fascinating in it's grand unfolding is a balancing act on a extremely narrow margin.
This was one of the 1st. ones I watched as a kid. The chemistry between Newman & Robert Redford was evident even to me, as young as I was. They acted cool, they looked cool & particpated in a scheme that, in my mind, was cool. This was the movie that began my affection for quality heist/confidence movies.



4. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
The first example of the lightning captured in a bottle that is the Newman & Redford combo. I like Paul Newman's portrayal of his character more thoughout in this movie than in the role he played for in the Sting. The chemistry of friendship between he & Robert Redford is more palpable in this film as we get to see more of him as Butch Cassidy & the relationship with his fellow bank robber, Harry Longabaugh.
The direction, screenplay, music & just over-all tone was really different for the period that this movie initially came out in, & for me, makes it a really unique western that is both lotsa of fun & tragic at the same time.
One of my favorite westerns ever & one of the first that excited me enough to make me switch over from the mentality that I had as a child that most works from the genre were just the same ol' boring standard shoot 'em ups.



3. Cool Hand Luke
How cool is Cool Hand Luke?
He's so cool that he's willing to eat 50 hardboiled eggs within an hour just to win a bet. This, in a prison where he has to share his immediate space with a
bunch of hardcore criminal chain-gang types, who are well within his ratio of flatulenciated influence. And if you can't understand that,
well then,
what we've got here
is a failure to communicate.



2. Nobody's Fool
Definitely, one of my top favorite holiday movies. Along with Paul's seasoned acting abilities, there are a bunch of reasons why I like this movie so much. However, I'll concentrate on the one scene that sold me over to this story of a father-son-grandson relationship. When Newman's character, a broken down old small-towner who still needs to grow up, attempts to make some amends for his neglective years as a father, by giving to his grandson a stopwatch, which, he claims will help in aiding to delay his fears for a full 60 seconds, every time the kid needs to enter a situation that requires him to be brave.



1. The Verdict
Probably my favorite court drama of all time. With almost a seasoned ease, Paul portrays a disheveled, aging, never-has-been, malpractice lawyer who finds within himself the humanity which never really had a chance to surface due to the layered weight of his chronic alcoholism. The movie & Newman's performance sets up very well the desolation & loneliness that the main character moves his life thru as he goes up against the legal system that giganticly favors the "big guys" over the "little guys". One can really get the sense that Newman knows that he stands no chance of winning the case, but continues moving on forward because he is, for the 1st. time in his barely neglible career, fueled by the honesty & goodness of what is right. A feeling that is so new to this character, that, combined with the realizaton that a human life is totally dependent him for justice, it becomes emotion exhilirating enough to keep an almost broken old man to keep fighting on, no matter how high the price.



One of those rare times when the performance comes thru real enough to make us ( oh, what am I'm talkin' about this "us" bullsh#t? What I really mean is "me" ) almost believe that even under the most insurmountable odds, there is always some kind of hope.



R.I.P.

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Right now, all I'm wearing is a mustard-stained wife-beater T-shirt, no pants & a massive sombrero.

He was born not too far from where I was, in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

To me, he'll always be best known as Henry Gondorff from The Sting.

R.I.P. Paul

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Everything I do, I do to make my second stepdad proud.

Usually the passing of a celebrity doesn't greatly effect me. As much as I may cherish their work or respect their abilities I rarely feel any real attachment to them. This is different. I'm genuinely bummed. I am surprised just how much this news has saddened me. Ugh.. jebus I think I'm gonna cry. Thank you Mr. Newman, you're a legend.

These are my choices for Paul's best performances...



1. Hud (1963)
2. The Hustler (1961)
3. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
4. The Verdict (1982)
5. Nobody's Fool (1994)
6. The Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
7. Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
8. The Sting (1973)
9. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
10. The Color of Money (1986)
11. Paris Blues (1961)
12. Hombre (1967)


Newman also directed five films over his career. Rachel, Rachel (1968) was his debut behind the camera and wound up his best film, containing one of Joanne Woodward's very best performances. It was nominated for four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Stewart Stern). Paul was also nominated as Best Director by both The Directors Guild of America and at the Golden Globes. It was a very strong and impressive debut.



But nothing that followed ever reached that level again. I rather like his adaptation of Paul Zindel's play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972) which not only starred Joanne again but also their daughter, Nell Potts. I thought young Nell did a fine job, but she clearly didn't have the taste for the business that her parents did because she never acted again on screen (as a trivia note: Nell and Paul were originally cast in Paper Moon before it went to director Bogdanovich and eventually Ryan and Tatum O'Neal). Effect of Gamma Rays garnered nominations at the Golden Globes and Cannes for Joanne, but it wasn't as complete a movie as Rachel, Rachel. The last movie Paul directed was The Glass Menagerie (1987), again starring Joanne as well as John Malkovich and Karen Allen. It's a decent if straightforward adaptation of Tennessee Williams, and as Newman had famously made his mark in two Richard Brooks' adaptations of Williams, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) about thirty years before, there's nice closure there.

The other two flicks Newman directed were not very good. Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) is a big disappointment, ESPECIALLY if you know the novel. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is marvelous and immortal of course, but Sometimes a Great Notion is really Ken Kesey's literary masterpiece. Unlike Milos Forman's Oscar-winning take on that other book, this one is a pale, bastardized cousin of the source material. Given the cast of Newman, Henry Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Lee Remick and Richard Jaeckel (who was Oscar nominated for his role) you'd hope for a timeless masterpiece of a movie. But what they made ain't it. To be fair it's a very thick, dense book that would be difficult for anybody to adapt for the big screen and Newman replaced the original director at the last minute...but even so. The fifth movie Newman directed was Harry & Son (1984) starring himself and Robby Benson in the title roles with supporting parts for Joanne Woodward, Ossie Davis, Wilford Brimley and early roles for Ellen Barkin and Morgan Freeman. Paul co-wrote the screenplay as well (his only attempt). Its heart is in the right place but the tone is inconsistent and Robby Benson, trying to make the transition from teen star to more adult roles, is miscast and simply out of his depth. It's a watchable effort, especially with that cast headed by Newman, but overall a miss and plays too much like a substandard made-for-TV affair with an all-star cast slumming it in tepid material.

Paul Newman was an Oscar winner. He was nominated nine times as an actor by the Academy. Eight Best Actor noms for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Huster, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Absence of Malice, The Verdict, The Color of Money and Nobody's Fool as well as Best Supporting Actor for Road to Perdition. He also got a nomination as the producer of a Best Picture nominee for his directorial debut Rachel, Rachel. The only one of those competitive Oscars he won was for The Color of Money when he was sixty-two-years-old. I don't think anyone would argue Color of Money, where he reprised his role of pool hustler "Fast" Eddie Felson for director Martin Scorsese twenty-five years after the original film, is among his best work. I don't think most would even put it in the top five. It benefited partially from being a weaker year in the category (Jazz legend Dexter Gordon in 'Round Midnight, William Hurt in Children of a Lesser God, Bob Hoskins in Mona Lisa and James Woods in Salvador were the other nominees) but clearly got some embarrassed voters to remedy the fact that one of the most beloved stars of his era had somehow never managed to win before. His losing in the other years was mostly just a product of bad luck in that unlike the 1987 ceremony his previous years of contention were often overflowing with worthy performances. So if it was partially sentiment that finally got him his Oscar, so be it.



Paul also won a lifetime achievement type award the year before The Color of Money at the 1986 ceremony for "recognition of his many and memorable and compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft." Much more appropriately he was truly honored at the 1994 Oscar ceremony with the prestigious Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his decades of work as an activist and philanthropist. He's one of only thirty-one artists and producers in the film business to be given this honor since its inception in 1956.

His second wife, Joanne Woodward, was also an Oscar winner. She won Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve at the 1958 ceremony, the same year they wed. They remained married and apparently very happy together for the next four decades. Joanne has had three other nominations since then, including (as I said above) for Rachel, Rachel, which was directed by Paul and Mr. & Mrs. Bridge co-starring her husband. Newman and Woodward worked together often on screen and stage, with ten feature films including The Long Hot Summer, Paris Blues, Winning and The Drowning Pool as well as the HBO project "Empire Falls".