September 27, 2008


Paul Newman dies at 83

Rest in peace.

With his strong, classically handsome face and piercing blue eyes, Newman was a heartthrob just as likely to play against his looks, becoming a favorite with critics for his convincing portrayals of rebels, tough guys and losers. “I was always a character actor,” he once said. “I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.”

Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon’s “enemies list,” one of the actor’s proudest achievements, he liked to say.

posted by Deron Bauman in history, humans, movies 

comments

11 Responses to “Paul Newman dies at 83”

  1. chris on September 27th, 2008 at 10:21 am

    Sorry for my ignorance: where is this picture from?

    what a sad loss… nytimes has a great obituary, though:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/movies/28newman.html?hp

  2. alek on September 27th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    o fuck
    its a year for it

  3. Sheila Ryan on September 27th, 2008 at 10:31 am

    Oh, hell. We saw it coming, but still . . .

    I coulda beat that guy — coulda beat ‘im cold, he never woulda known. But I just hadda show ‘im. Just hadda show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it’s great, when it’s really great. You know, like anything can be great, anything can be great. I don’t care, bricklaying can be great if a guy knows. If he knows what he’s doing and why and if he can make it come off.

    When I’m goin’, I mean, when I’m really goin’, I feel like a . . . like a jockey must feel. He’s sittin’ on his horse, he’s got all that speed and that power underneath him . . . he’s comin’ into the stretch, the pressure’s on ‘im, and he knows . . . just feels . . . when to let it go and how much. ‘Cause he’s got everything workin’ for ‘im: timing, touch. It’s a great feeling — boy, it’s a real great feeling when you’re right and you know you’re right. It’s like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm. The pool cue’s part of me. You know, it’s — a pool cue, it’s got nerves in it. It’s a piece of wood, it’s got nerves in it. Feel the roll of those balls, you don’t have to look, you just know. You make shots that nobody’s ever made before.

    I can play that game the way . . . nobody’s ever played it before.

  4. Phil Bebbington on September 27th, 2008 at 10:35 am

    It’s odd, even when you know it’s coming and you see it coming it still knocks the breath right out of you.

  5. Sheila Ryan on September 27th, 2008 at 10:42 am

    . . . and prompts you to think (metaphorically, if not literally) that

    This world is gradually becoming a place
    where I do not care to be any more.

    (John Berryman. From “Dream Song 149″)

  6. alek on September 27th, 2008 at 10:42 am

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand

  7. Rick Neece on September 27th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    Such a gorgeous man. Such a gorgeous soul. What little bits we came to see. Such a legacy. We can only aspire to leave so much when we go.

  8. Sheila Ryan on September 27th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    Indeed, Rick.

    “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.”

    (From the NYT obituary to which Chris linked [above].)

  9. Rick Neece on September 27th, 2008 at 9:35 pm

    Sheila Ryan, yes.

    So, so, so.

  10. Lucy on September 28th, 2008 at 8:39 am

    That is such a gorgeous photograph. I have gazed at it a couple of dozen times since you posted it. His wife is slightly fuzzy, but he is perfectly in focus, and the dog clearly knows he is Jesus.

    What I love about Newman is the way his face moves. And then there is that intelligent, kind sexiness. Sheer intelligent masculine sexiness.

  11. Doc on September 28th, 2008 at 9:09 am

    since Friday any time anyone says something i’ve been mumblin’ back “small town, not much to do in the evenin’.”

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