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Paul Newman, Hollywood's anti-hero, dies at 83
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-28 07:58 "Paul and I have been partners for 26 years and I have come to know his passion, humor and, above all, his generosity," Haas said. "Not just economic generosity, but generosity of spirit. His support of the team's drivers, crew and the racing industry is legendary. His pure joy at winning a pole position or winning a race exemplified the spirit he brought to his life and to all those that knew him." Despite his love of race cars, Newman continued to make movies and continued to pile up Oscar nominations, his looks remarkably intact, his acting becoming more subtle, nothing like the mannered method performances of his early years, when he was sometimes dismissed as a Brando imitator. Off the screen, Newman was beloved in Westport, the upscale community about an hour north of New York. One of his favorite haunts was Mario's Place, an eatery that Newman frequented with pals actor James Naughton or writer A.E. Hotchner. He preferred medium-rare hamburgers, with an occasional Heineken. "He's such a great human being," owner Frank DeMace said. "I can't say enough about him." Former patrolman John Anastasia says Newman regularly played the annual softball game between local celebrities and the town police department. Newman played on the police department's team. "He was very much into it, very athletic," Anastasia said. "He didn't play the part of a celebrity, he played the part of a ballplayer. He was not just there for his good looks." In 1982, Newman and Hotchner started a company to market Newman's original oil-and-vinegar dressing. Newman's Own, which began as a joke, grew into a multimillion-dollar business selling popcorn, salad dressing, spaghetti sauce and other foods. All of the company's profits are donated to charities. The company had donated more than $250 million, according to its website. "We will miss our friend Paul Newman, but are lucky ourselves to have known such a remarkable person," Robert Forrester, vice chairman of Newman's Own Foundation, said in a statement. Hotchner said Newman should have "everybody's admiration." "For me it's the loss of an adventurous friendship over the past 50 years and it's the loss of a great American citizen," Hotchner said. In 1988, Newman founded a camp in northeastern Connecticut for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. He went on to establish similar camps in several other states and in Europe. He and Woodward bought an 18th century farmhouse in Westport, where they raised their three daughters, Elinor "Nell," Melissa and Clea. Newman had two daughters, Susan and Stephanie, and a son, Scott, from a previous marriage to Jacqueline Witte. Scott died in 1978 of an accidental overdose of alcohol and Valium. After his only son's death, Newman established the Scott Newman Foundation to finance the production of anti-drug films for children. Newman was born in Cleveland, the second of two boys of Arthur S. Newman, a partner in a sporting goods store, and Theresa Fetzer Newman. Following World War II service in the Navy, he enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he got a degree in English and was active in student productions. He later studied at Yale University's School of Drama, then headed to work in theater and television in New York, where his classmates at the famed Actor's Studio included Brando, James Dean and Karl Malden. Newman's breakthrough was enabled by tragedy: Dean, scheduled to star as the disfigured boxer in a television adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's "The Battler," died in a car crash in 1955. His role was taken by Newman, then a little-known performer. Newman started in movies the year before, in "The Silver Chalice," a costume film he so despised that he took out an ad in Variety to apologize. By 1958, he had won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for the shiftless Ben Quick in "The Long Hot Summer." In December 1994, about a month before his 70th birthday, he told Newsweek magazine he had changed little with age. "I'm not mellower, I'm not less angry, I'm not less self-critical, I'm not less tenacious," he said. "Maybe the best part is that your liver can't handle those beers at noon anymore," he said. Newman is survived by his wife, five children, two grandsons and his older brother Arthur.
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