NYT: Paul Newman, Enduring Film Star and Social Activist

[DeepModem Mom]

An Enduring Film Star and Social Activist: Paul Newman Dies at 83
By ALJEAN HARMETZ
Published: September 27, 2008


(Fred R. Conrad/NYT)

Paul Newman, one of the last of the great 20th-century movie stars, died Friday at his home in Westport, Conn. He was 83. The cause was cancer, said Jeff Sanderson of Chasen & Company, Mr. Newman’s publicist.

If Marlon Brando and James Dean defined the defiant American male as a sullen rebel, Paul Newman recreated him as a likable renegade, a strikingly handsome figure of animal high spirits and blue-eyed candor whose magnetism was almost impossible to resist, whether the character was Hud, Cool Hand Luke or Butch Cassidy.

He acted in more than 65 movies over more than 50 years, drawing on a physical grace, unassuming intelligence and good humor that made it all seem effortless. Yet he was also an ambitious, intellectual actor and a passionate student of his craft, and he achieved what most of his peers find impossible: remaining a major star into craggy, charismatic old age....

***

More than a movie star and a sometime stage actor, Mr. Newman was an entrepreneur, a philanthropist and, after he turned 75, a racecar driver. In 1995, as a 70th birthday present to himself, he raced at Daytona. When he won his event, he made the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest winner in his race class.

In 1982, as a lark, he decided to sell a salad dressing he had created and bottled for friends at Christmas. Thus was born the Newman’s Own brand, an enterprise he started with his friend A. E. Hotchner, the writer. More than 25 years later the brand has expanded to include, among other foods, lemonade, popcorn, spaghetti sauce, pretzels, organic Fig Newmans and wine. (His daughter Nell Newman runs the company’s organic arm.) All its profits, of more than $200 million, have been donated to charity, the company says....

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A politically active liberal Democrat, Mr. Newman was a Eugene McCarthy delegate to the 1968 Democratic convention and appointed by President Jimmy Carter to a United Nations General Assembly session on disarmament. He expressed pride at being on President Richard M. Nixon’s enemies list....

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“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.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/movies/28newman.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

[sandnsea]

1. Oh no

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[kestrel91316]

2. RIP. A sad day, and the world is a little less for its loss.

[Warpy]

3. Although we knew it was coming, its arrival wasn't made easier

and he will be sorely missed.

He wasn't just a great man, he was a good man.

That is much harder to achieve.