Paul Newman
On receiving the Academy Award for Best Actor, Paul Newman joined the short list of performers recognized by Hollywood's highest honor — a distinction that came after decades of work across stage, screen, and television. Born on January 26, 1925, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Newman died on September 26, 2008, in Westport, Connecticut, leaving behind a career that touched nearly every corner of the entertainment industry and extended well beyond it.
Newman's formal education took him from Shaker Heights High School to Ohio University, then to Kenyon College, and finally to the Yale School of Drama, where he trained for the stage. His career encompassed work as a stage actor, a television actor, and a film actor, and he also took on roles as a director, a film director, a producer, a film producer, a screenwriter, and a writer. His work as a voice actor further extended his range. Before his career in the arts took hold, he served as military personnel and a military officer, a period that preceded his transition into the professional world of performance.
Beyond acting and directing, Newman pursued entrepreneurship and became a racing automobile driver — a pursuit serious enough to earn him induction into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. He was also an activist. The breadth of his public life was reflected in the range of honors he accumulated: in addition to the Academy Award for Best Actor, he received an Academy Honorary Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, the Theatre World Award, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Four Freedoms Award — Freedom from Want. France recognized him as a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, and he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, specifically acknowledged Newman's humanitarian efforts — a concrete marker of the dimension of his public life that extended beyond his roles as performer and entrepreneur.
Quotes by Paul Newman
Paul Newman's insights on:
The Sixties - I had to have my foot in everything then. I'm doing the same thing now but through an intermediary. You know. The food company. Maybe that's the way to go about it. You go right straight into the inferno, and when you get older, you pull back.
The nice thing about animation, you don't even really have to account for yourself. All of the physical stuff that you work on as an actor, you just throw away.
What is the difference between a truly creative artist and an interpretive artist? I have not concluded anything about that, but it's fair to ask the question.
I'm not able to work anymore as an actor and still at the level I would want to... you start to lose your memory. You start to lose your confidence. You start to lose your invention. So, that's pretty much a closed book for me.
I have an extraordinary attention span. I manage to juggle two or three different ideas at the same time, and that's probably - if I have a gift, that's probably the best gift that's given me.
Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.
George Roy Hill, Redford, and I have been looking for a script to do together for 13 years. We haven't been able to find one that we liked enough for the three of us to be in it together.