Paul Newman is gone
Hollywood has lost another giant of cinema in 2008, the great Paul Newman died on Friday, loosing his battle with lung cancer aged 83. It was only a few weeks ago that Newman told his family, "I want to die at home" as his condition worsened in hospital. On Friday, he got his wish, passing away at his home in Connecticut. The one time Academy Award Winner (THE COLOR OF MONEY) and the nine time runner up, not to mention Honorary Award winner in 1986, was one of the biggest Hollywood leading men icons of the 20th Century. With a legacy as rich as Newman's, it's difficult to look at one particular role that defined the cultural icon's career because there simply isn't one, his whole career defines him. He left an outstanding body of work, much like his great friend and collaborator Robert Redford, he was a leading man for decades and was able to adapt to the ever changing world of movie-making. The great example of this was his amazing Oscar nominated performance as Fast "Eddie" Felson, a small time pool player in THE HUSTLER in 1961 and then 23 years later following that up with an Academy Award winning performance playing the same character in THE COLOR OF MONEY for Martin Scorsese. How many actors can say they were able to make that kind of impact playing the same character so many years apart in two very different era's of Hollywood? 
Newman set a new kind of standard for handsome, I'm positive that if he couldn't act he would have made it as a successful actor, he had a face you just wanted to see on screen. The fact that he could act and could act to a level that very few men could accomplish, made him a gold mine for studio's for so many years. He made three movies with Redford in all. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, possibly one of the greatest movies about friendship I've ever witnessed... despite being a glitzy and amazingly fun Western. No Hollywood movie has ever quite managed to capture the bond Newman and Redford had in this movie... 
They managed to follow it up with an even more incredible film in THE STING, in keeping the friendship and fun theme, one of the most commercially accessible gangster films in history. Both were directed by George Roy Hill, who Newman would work with again in the sports movie SLAP SHOT. However it was before any of those Redford team-ups that Newman became a star. A leading role in Robert Wise's biopic of Rocky Graziano titled SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME in 1956 burst Newman onto the scene with a massive critical acclaim with an early Brando kind of performance...
It's often said Newman had the bluest eyes in cinema and despite having a likeable charm with a charismatic style and personality, it will be his tough man roles that he will be remembered for. In the early 60's, HUD, HARPER (and then later in it's sequel THE DROWNING POOL) and the revisionist Western HOMBRE saw Newman star in hit after hit, becoming one of the most popular actors of the decade. That would be cemented in 1967's COOL HAND LUKE, the anti-establishment post-CUCKOO'S NEST movie where Newman alongside Brando and Steve McQueen, dominated Hollywood. His fifty year marriage to actress Joanne Woodward was one of the strongest relationships in the industry and they collobrated with each other on no less than 14 movies, first with electric chemistry in 1958's THE LONG, HOT SUMMER and for the last time in 1990's MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE. Newman directed his wife in RACHEL, RACHEL (where she won an Oscar nom). Although voicing Doc Hudson in the Pixar animated CARS, his last on screen role will be rembered as his Hollywood bow and what a performance it was. Playing a age weary gangster in Sam Mendes' epic ROAD TO PERDITION, he got the outing that so many of cinema's greatest actors never achieve. In a few slow motion moments, those piercing blue eyes make a comeback as he almost stares down at his whole past filmography, the great roles, the one's that got away, the one's that should have gotten away. He is staring down at us for the last time. What a wonderful scene...
His other Academy Award nominated roles that we haven't spoke about came for NOBODY'S FOOL, the 1994 melodrama from Robert Benton. The early 80's Sydney Pollack drama ABSENCE OF MALICE and his breathtaking performance in Sidney Lumet's under-rated thriller THE VERDICT in 1982.
Newman would say many times, those were his three favourite movies of his career and his proudest achievements. Maybe it was because he did it without his looks, without the Hollywood glitz roles, without the youthful exuberance. Maybe because he showcased how a star of the 60's could still hang with the new crowd of a very different kind of generation.
"There is a point where feelings go beyond words. I have lost a real friend. My life -- and this country -- is better for his being in it." - ROBERT REDFORD
"It's a great loss, in so many ways...The history of movies without Paul Newman? It's unthinkable. . . . His powerful eloquence, his consummate sense of craft, so consummate that you didn't see any sense of effort up there on the screen, set a new standard." - MARTIN SCORSESE
"He used his success to help others and did it without wanting a lot of credit... He should be an example to everyone in the acting profession because he seemed to have had his ego surgically removed." - KEVIN SPACEY
"He set the bar too high for the rest of us. Not just actors, but all of us." - GEORGE CLOONEY
"He's a majestic figure in the world of acting," said director Arthur Penn, who worked with him in his early career. "He did everything and did it well." - ARTHUR PENNCHANNEL 4 NEWS STORY ABOUT HIS PASSING PAUL NEWMAN & JAMES DEAN SCREEN TEST FOR EAST OF EDEN (a movie which Dean was cast in but Newman was not. Some have said Newman's career is an indicator of the great things Dean could have achieved if he had lived)... PAUL NEWMAN ON ROAD TO PERDITION CHARLIE ROSE SPECIAL IN 2002...