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Paul Newman
By Daniel O'Brien
Faber and Faber
362 Pages
£17.99
Now about to celebrate his 80th birthday, Paul Newman had a tremendous
advantage in pursuing a life in films. He was according to David Mamet
"the most beautiful man ever to grace the screen". Newman
expressed it slightly differently: "I was always a character actor.
I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood".
Like big rivals and look-alike, Marlon Brando and James Dean, Newman's
training was in the Method, at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio.
After a brief marriage and three children, Newman was hooked by another
Actors Studio graduate. She was the almost equally beautiful Dixie Duse,
Joanne Woodward, and together they shared one of Hollywood's happiest
and most enduring relationships.
Despite dreams of being actors in a real way (on stage), there was
an inevitability about the handsome couple's drift west from Broadway
to Hollywood.
Newman's body of work is massive, including a surprising number of
flops, and the wide variety ensures that the book rattles along. He
has worked with so many big names over a period in excess of fifty years.
In the early days, Tennessee Williams was a main collaborator, Gore
Vidal a friend and he shared the silver screen with the likes of Orson
Welles, Sofia Loren and, amongst a surprising number of Hollywood Brits,
Elizabeth Taylor.
The hits include arguably some of the best films of the period including
The Hustler and two partnerships with Robert Redford under George
Roy Hill's direction, The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid.
In addition to his status as acting superstar, Newman has taken on
several other roles in movies and beyond. He has produced and directed
many films, commencing with Rachel, a vehicle for Miss Woodward.
In other fields, he became a racing driver ("I get stoned on automobiles")
and has been active in liberal politics, from early days when he supported
Martin Luther King's Civil Rights movement. More recently, he has set
up his food business, including the famous sauces, and set up a charity
to spend the profits.
It took Newman seven nominations and almost thirty years longer than
his wife, to win an Oscar. He broke the duck with The Color of Money,
reprising his role from The Hustler, alongside a heart-throb
from another generation, Tom Cruise. He got on exceptionally well with
the young star, to the extent that it was suggested that Cruise had
become a surrogate for Newman's son Scott, who died of a drugs overdose.
Even in the last few years, Newman has kept busy with a most varied
repertoire. Men decades younger would not have mixed a Broadway stage
return after almost forty years, an appearance on The Simpsons
and a really classy performance as the patriarch in Sam Mendes' Road
to Perdition.
The book contains numerous photos, oddly printed on text pages throughout
rather than glossy paper in the centre.
Daniel O'Brien is a thorough researcher and as a consequence almost
every piece of Newman's work and aspect of his life is set into context.
This makes the book far more than a typical shallow hagiography and
in some ways, it gets close to becoming a history of American film in
the second half of the Twentieth Century.
Newman is a non-confrontational and silent man. A friend, writer A.E.
Hotchner, called him "The most private man I've ever known".
For a biographer, who may never have met his subject, his paucity of
words must have been less than ideal.
As a result, there are gaps in the private life that a more forthcoming
subject would have filled. Matters such as his first marriage, drinking
problems and practical joking are covered but often with qualifications
as to authenticity. Regardless of this, this book is a very informative
and enjoyable look at the life of a screen great.
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