Paul Newman 1925-2008

Robert Redford Remembers Paul Newman
Both of us were fundamentally American actors, with the qualities and virtues that characterize American actors: irreverence, playing on the other’s flaws for fun, one-upmanship — but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the core of our relationship off the screen.

Cinema’s everyman: Paul Newman
(The Independent) The secrets of Paul Newman’s 52-year career were an extraordinary gift for reinvention – and an ability to make even bad guys loveable, writes Geoffrey Macnab
Newman was grounded and level-headed in a way that the other famous Method actors of the 1950s never were. It was this that enabled him in the 1960s and 1970s to move further into the mainstream. Whereas once he had been compared to Brando and Dean, he was now seen alongside Robert Redford (with whom he co-starred in Butch Cassidy and The Sting) and Steve McQueen (his co-star in The Towering Inferno) as the biggest male star of the era. Newman, once the delinquent outsider, became seen as the genial American everyman – someone you trusted implicitly. He remained discerning about the roles he chose. He was never to be seen making pointless cameos in summer tentpole movies and unlike other great American actors, he wasn’t forced to come to Europe to work on spaghetti westerns or to take roles in films by big-name continental auteurs.
More from The Independent
Paul Newman: Actor, racing driver, activist and philanthropist who was a star for decades but spurned celebrity
Paul Newman was one of the most talented and popular screen actors of his generation. His athletic physique, sensual mouth and luminous blue eyes made him an uncommonly handsome figure on screen. Besides acting, he directed films occasionally, and he was also a successful entrepreneur who raised millions for charity through his salad dressings, a philanthropist who established a foundation for children, a racing driver and a political activist who was proud of the fact that he was placed 19th (“only 19th?” he quipped) on an official list of President Nixon’s “enemies”.
Of all the tributes, we like this from the home-town paper, Stamford (Connecticut) Advocate
Paul Newman: Businessman, philanthropist, driver, neighbor
Paul Newman, whose cool blue eyes gazed from silver screens and supermarket shelves for decades, will also be remembered in Connecticut as a family man, philanthropist, liberal political voice and neighbor.
World mourns “king of cool” Paul Newman
LONDON (Reuters) – Images of actor Paul Newman, who died late on Friday, adorned newspaper front pages around the world on Sunday, his piercing blue eyes vying for attention alongside headlines of the global financial crisis.
Underlining Newman’s international appeal, Britain’s Independent on Sunday featured his photograph across the whole of page one, relegating the latest news of the country’s banking woes to the inside pages.
Newman remembered as humanitarian, an actor of ‘selfless humility’
(CBC) The death of Hollywood legend Paul Newman has triggered a wave of reaction recalling the actor’s generosity and kindness.
Paul Newman’s Sun Youth connection
One of the charities he supported was Sun Youth, here in Montreal. The organization’s Sid Stevens says Newman donated about $150,000 to Sun Youth since Newman’s company was formed in 1982 — and although Newman never actually visited Sun Youth, Stevens said he would send notes to him.
Actor Paul Newman dies at age 83
Newman represented a coiled sexuality on screen and a humane decency off it
Jay Stone ,  Canwest News Service
He used to joke that his epitaph would read, “Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.”
It was self-deprecation with a hint of truth: an impossibly handsome, blue-eyed film god, Paul Newman carried his good looks like both a gift and a curse, and it was when he went beyond them – into roles as a callous womanizer or a self-involved failure or, later in his career, as an aging and rueful rebel – that he showed he was also a fine actor.
The irony was that those roles were the farthest from what he was in real life. When he was dying, film critic Shawn Levy, who was working on a biography of Newman, wrote of him, “Funny, upright, smart, brave, moral, talented, faithful, honest, manly, wise, humble.”
Paul Newman, a Magnetic Titan of Hollywood, Is Dead at 83
“We are such spendthrifts with our lives,” Mr. Newman once told a reporter. “The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”
(BBC) Paul Newman: Tributes
Iranians mourn Newman despite poor relations with the U.S.
The Newman Chronicles
Paul Newman saw his movie-stardom as a trap and worked to find his way around it—to keep fame from corroding his life. He succeeded beyond measure, as a distinguished actor, award-winning director, dedicated philanthropist, entrepreneur, political activist, racecar driver, and loving husband and father. As rumors swirl about the 83-year-old icon’s health, the author replays critical moments—some witnessed firsthand, others from Newman’s friends and colleagues—in a five-decade trajectory, gauging the unique impact of this remarkably private, deeply honorable man. Vanity Fair September 2008