REMEMBERING PAUL NEWMAN

If you grew up in the 70’s, Paul Newman was the definition of movie star. He was cool as a man they called Luke and he could fool you like Henry Gondorff; a Chicago con-man who could play the Big Con better than anyone.
Newman started making movies in the 50’s and by the time of Watergate/Bell bottoms, and Disco he was the embodiment of Hollywood style and glamour and whether his movies were good or bad they were movies you had to see.
“Did you see the Paul Newman movie?” This was what moviegoers often found themselves asking. Not if you had seen a movie you would describe by its title or by the name of its director. A Paul Newman movie was a Paul Newman movie. It was simple as that.

My dad took me to see “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” on a day when it was just he and I.
It was a father-and-son outing with my Mom at home doing something with my sisters.
My Dad was a Paul Newman fan as were all fathers of that era. They were fans because they saw themselves in him the way my generation of men see themselves in the roles played by the likes of Sean Penn, Tom Hanks, and Tom Cruise.
Newman came from that generation which grew up in the shadow of the Depression and which came of age in the post-war years.
He cared about humanity and like a lot of our parents he stayed married to his wife for fifty years.
Paul Newman was also a race car driver and you believed that he loved auto racing not because it was “hip” and “cool” but because he simply loved it in a sincere and genuine fashion.
Our fathers saw this and so did their sons.

Paul Newman came from a generation which gave us Marlon Brando and James Dean. But unlike Brando he didn’t become eccentric in his old age and unlike Dean he didn’t have the desire to test the Gods of fate in a fashion which almost insured his own demise.
Paul Newman was the little guy who became a movie star. He was your average Joe who after all was said and done did what a lot of average Joe’s would at least try to do if given the chance.
He tried to do good work and a long the way he tried to make this a better place.
He more than succeeded on both accounts.

PAUL LEONARD NEWMAN
1925 to 2008