Paul Newman's Luck

Anyone who ever lived fast and died young might have slowed down had they known what 80 can look like. Observe, for instance, the startlingly handsome gentleman standing quietly in the corner of an NBC-studio green room in Manhattan. He is minding his own business, oblivious to the female interns, assistants, and producers fluttering like moths around him. Unimpressed with himself, he sips coffee from a paper cup and avoids the glazed donuts no one else can resist. The legendary actor is silver-haired now, with a discreet hearing aid, but he still has the famous bright-blue eyes, smooth skin, and awell-defined single chin. His five-foot-nine frame is fit and firm beneath at weedy pullover, button-down shirt, and chocolate-brown slacks: a daily gym routine has helped him retain the trim abs men half his age can't rememberever having. If 50 is the new 30 for some women, 80—at least in the incarnation of Paul Leonard Newman—is the new 60. No, wait; make that 55.

Perversely, the sexiest-octogenarian-alive image is one that Newman delights in shredding to bits. Case in point: the elegant man waiting patiently to be interviewed by Jane Pauley bears no likeness to the scuzzy old man in a grimygray sweatshirt who could be seen skulking around Skowhegan, Maine, two summers ago. Back then, Newman took pride in the fact that local residents failed to recognize him on location shooting HBO's adaptation of Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Empire Falls. "He thinned his hairand rubbed food on his clothes and kept putting irritants in his eyes to make them look rheumy and red," recalls Fred Schepisi, who directed an ensemble cast that includes Ed Harris, Robin Wright Penn, Theresa Russell, EstelleParsons, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Helen Hunt, and Joanne Woodward, Newman'sreal-life leading lady for the past 47 years. "One day he came up to meand said, 'Look, I have a busted vein in my eye! I hope it lasts!'Another time he was happy he had a pimple: 'This is good!' "Schepisi laughs. "Playing Max gave Paul a chance to beflamboyant."

The story, set in a decaying mill town, revolves around Miles Roby (Harris),the proprietor of the Empire Falls diner; his father, Max, is an opportunisticrake. "The larceny of that character is so sweet," says Newman, whohired himself to play Max when he bought the rights to produce the film."It's nice to look absolutely wretched. I grew a beard—and Idon't have the most forceful beard you've ever seen."

So attached was he to the facial hair, in fact, that he was loathe to partwith it—despite some not-so-subtle encouragement from his wife. When thefilming was finished, Joanne asked her husband, "Are you gonna get rid ofthat thing?"

"Nah," he replied.

"Well," shot back Joanne, who plays the town's evil matriarchin the miniseries, "why don't you just shave off the homelesspart?"

It was Woodward's steel-trap intelligence that drew Newman to her in thefirst place. A Yale drama-school dropout who studied at the Actors Studio inNew York alongside James Dean and Marlon Brando, the then-aspiring actor methis future wife in 1953 when they were working on a Broadway production ofPicnic. (He had a part; she was an understudy.) The two bonded overtheir love of theater and literature. Newman eventually divorced his firstwife, the former Jackie Witte, with whom he had a son and two daughters, andmarried Woodward in Las Vegas in January 1958. As a wedding gift, he added toher collection of sherry glasses a silver cup inscribed, "So you wound upwith Apollo/If he's sometimes hard to swallow/Use this."

'One of my great regrets is that my father never got to see me be successful. He died when he was 57 years old, and he saw me as a ne’er-do-well.'

That same year they costarred in The Long, Hot Summer, and Woodwardwon an Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve. Newman, never shy about actingwith his shirt off, quickly became the quintessence of masculine magnetism infilms like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidyand the Sundance Kid, and The Sting.

"He's a great-looking man,but he's always been utterly unpretentious and sane," says his friendWarren Beatty. "It's hard to think of a bad word to say abouthim…. It's interesting. Maybe I don't know him wellenough." He's kidding, of course. Beatty was only 23 and a newcomer inHollywood when he attended Newman's 35th birthday party in the penthouse ofthe Chateau Marmont. "It was when Paul and Joanne were an item, beforethey were married," he recalls. "They were just sensible,intelligent, nice people. I'm making them sound boring, but theyweren't."

With their careers taking off, the couple made an effort to stay grounded,settling away from Hollywood in a 1760 stone colonial with a barn convertedinto a guesthouse in the bucolic environs of Westport, Connecticut. It wasthere they raised their three daughters, Nell, Melissa, and Clea.

But Newman's life has not been the fairy tale some people imagine. Headmits that in his younger years he indulged in enough scotch and cigarettes tonearly kill him. (Today he drinks only Budweiser.) Then, in 1978, he lost hisson, Scott, to an overdose of drugs and alcohol at a time when father and sonwere estranged. "In the early part of my parenthood, I didn't pay theproper kind of attention," he says. "There were terrible, terriblemisjudgments."

His own father was strict and emotionally distant. Arthur Newman owned aprosperous sporting-goods store in Cleveland and raised his family in affluentShaker Heights. Second son Paul was smaller, less athletic, and less studiousthan his older brother, Art Jr. At Kenyon College, he immersed himself inacting after being thrown off the football team for drunken brawling, and helikes to say he graduated "magna cum lager" with a degree in speech.One gets the feeling that Newman has been trying ever since to compensate forhis misspent youth, when "I couldn't find a reason to respectmyself." The remorse he feels about his relationship with his dad helpsexplain why he has repeatedly been drawn to father-son relationships in hiswork. "One of my great regrets in life is that my father never had achance to see me be successful," Newman says. "He died when he was 57years old, and he saw me as a ne'er-do-well."

As the years have passed, Newman's great gift to his audience has beento share unflinchingly the sorrows and frayed edges of his twilight years. Hecould easily have coasted into old age as a leading man emeritus. Instead, hehas deepened his craft with vivid performances that keep getting him Oscarnominations (for The Verdict, Nobody's Fool, Road toPerdition) and his only best-actor Oscar, for reprising his role as TheHustler's Eddie Felson in 1986 for Martin Scorsese's The Color ofMoney. In the summer of 2003, Newman returned to Broadway after a 38-yearhiatus and earned a Tony nomination for his role as the stage manager in a hitrevival of Our Town.

Acting does not define his life, however. Indeed, the older he gets, themore multifaceted his life seems to become as he divides himself among hisroles as husband and father, activist, racecar driver, and entrepreneur."I keep trying to retire from everything, and I discover I've retiredfrom absolutely nothing," he says.

"Paul is an absolutely vital human being who spends his life pushingthe envelope," says Robert Benton, who directed him in Nobody'sFool. "Fortunately, that comes with discipline and responsibility andconscience. He lives boldly."

Too boldly, at times, for his wife. Newman has redirected some of hispassion into a second career as an amateur racecar driver and the owner ofNewman/Haas Racing, a team on the Champ car circuit (a type of Formula 1racing). Woodward, who has appeared opposite her husband in 11 films and beendirected by him in five, including Rachel, Rachel, for which shereceived an Oscar nomination, rues the day she costarred with him in theIndy-500 flick Winning (1969) and watched him fall in love with the roarof a V-8 engine and the stink of exhaust in the pits. "I was never good atsports," he says, "and I dance like an elephant. Racing was the firsttime I found grace." He holds a place in the Guinness World Recordsas the oldest driver to win a professionally sanctioned race.

With obvious relish, he can't resist telling a bedroom tale."Joanne fell out of bed the other night and broke her collarbone. As shelay on the ground, I said to her, 'I'm not going to listen to any morecomplaining about my racing!' " He'll quit driving competitively,he adds, "when I embarrass myself."

Despite their occasional differences of opinion, the Newman-Woodwardmarriage has lasted, Paul says, because of "great impatience tempered bypatience. When you have been together this long, sometimes you drive each othernuts, but underneath that is some core of affection and respect."

Of all his endeavors, Newman takes the greatest pride in the huge success ofNewman's Own, the salad dressing-popcorn-spaghetti sauce empire heestablished with his friend, writer A. E. Hotchner, in 1982. The company nowboasts 80 products, and Newman has donated $175 million in profits to charity.It embarrasses him to see his face on the bottles, but it has been worth it tofinance the Hole In The Wall Gang summer camps for children withlife-threatening diseases. Every year celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg performat an annual fundraiser at the Connecticut camp. Somewhere in the archives aretapes of Newman vamping it up in drag with big artificial breasts and pigtails,more outrageous than his film fans could ever imagine the way-cool star."The kids get a chance to reawaken their childhoods and raise a littlehell," he says. "I hope that the camps last longer than the legacy ofmy films."

That's why he's agreed to appear today on The Jane PauleyShow—to discuss the Hole In The Wall Gang camps with some of the kidswho are eager to share their experiences. On camera, Newman is reserved andpolite, with a dry wit and an unhurried sense of timing. He describes howNewman's Own was born of his own finicky tastes. At restaurants he used totake his salad into the bathroom, wash off the dressing, and ask for olive oil,red-wine vinegar, and mustard to make his own. He personally makes sure thatall the products are made with fresh ingredients, that they tastegood—"I have a sensitive palate"—and that they'remarketed with a sense of humor. "Once you've seen your face on abottle of salad dressing, it's hard to take yourself seriously," hesays.

Pauley tells Newman that he's a great man—a remark that causes himto look down at the floor uncomfortably. As is his habit, he dismisses praisefor his accomplishments and good works by chalking them up to"Newman's luck"; his oft-stated conviction is that his manyblessings emanate from his genetic good fortune. "Genes allow us to havegood inductive reasoning, to look a certain way and grow a certain way, to havestrong bones. I think that 98 percent of that is luck, and to take any creditfor that is difficult and hard to support."

Offstage later, the interns and NBC staffers in the green room tell Newmanthe show was a big hit. "I always feel like such a monosyllabicslug," he says. As he boards the elevator, he's joined by a youngdisabled girl in a motorized chair and her mother. The mom looks startled whenshe looks up and realizes who is standing next to her. She appears to musterher courage, then says, her voice quavering with emotion, "I have to takethis opportunity to thank you. You have no idea how great the camps are, notonly for the kids but the families."

Newman smiles kindly. "You bet," he says softly.

As small as the moment is, it's weighted with feeling. Newman is a manof few words, and he chooses them carefully. "Coming from the Midwest, heembodies an American quality of the last half of the 20th century," saysRobert Benton. "Paul is a very morally strong, decisive man. He does notequivocate."

He has worked to strengthen the ties that bind, and these days holds hisdaughters close. "He's a better listener now, even though he'spartially deaf," laughs Nell, who runs the organic division ofNewman's Own, when asked how her father has changed with age."He's now forced to listen."

He also adores his role as Pop-Pop to his two grandsons, the children of hisfourth daughter, Melissa. The family lives just a couple hundred yards from theNewman-Woodward homestead. "We've shrunk the umbilical cord to about400 feet," says Newman. "It's hard with Joanneworking"—he's proud of his wife's great success as theartistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse—"but we arelucky in that we see much more of them than most grandparents."

There it is again, the luck thing. "My health is good, my knees aregood"—he does a couple of deep knee bends to proveit—"and I've got a good lady," Newman says. "So I havenothing to complain about." He pauses, considering whether to amend thisthought. "At my age, I ought to be able to complain aboutsomething."

In January he invited his whole clan and close friends to Westport to markhis 80th birthday at a classical concert by the Emerson String Quartet, whichhe had booked two years in advance. The evening's printed program bore thisquotation: "Happiness is good health and a bad memory." Theafter-party in the Newmans' guesthouse was warm and affectionate, althoughthe self-effacing birthday boy could have lived without the laudatory toasts.Nell chose to celebrate her father's long life by reading this passage fromWalt Whitman:

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people…and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

Nell smiles. "Sounds like Pop, doesn't it?"

Veteran Hollywood writer Nancy Griffin is West Coast editor for themagazine.