life in movies

"I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

"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."

"I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter, either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being, by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant." The center photo shows Paul having drinks with his friend, co-star and LGBTQ+ ally and activist Elizabeth Taylor and gay actor Roddy McDowall in New York on May 30th, 1964.

"I'm half Protestant, half Jewish. But I've always thought of myself as a Jew because it's more of a challenge." Newman recounted in his posthumous memoir that he grew up feeling "a strong sense of otherness. If you were Jewish, some avenues were shut to you. That hurt me and my brother a great deal." Paul was prevented from joining a high school fraternity because of his heritage, and he got into "a bloody fight" while serving in the Navy when a fellow sailor used an anti-Semitic slur. When he first arrived in Hollywood during the 1950s, he was advised by film producer Sam Spiegel (who was Jewish) to change his name and "get rid of 'Paul Newman'", thus losing his Jewish identity. Knowing that Spiegel had used the screen credit "S.P. Eagle" in the past, Paul cleverly retorted: "What do you want me to change it to, 'S.P. Ewman'?"

"We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger. Every time we get into an argument about cooking or laundering shirts, she shakes her Oscar at me, and I'm dead in the water. Joanne has always given me unconditional support in all my choices and endeavors, and that includes my race car driving, which she deplores. To me, that's love." -Paul Newman on his fifty year marriage to Joanne Woodward. Joanne won a Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in The Three Faces of Eve, 1957. Though he was nominated for Best Actor six times starting in 1959, he didn't win an Oscar until 1987 for his performance in The Color of Money. Newman also received an Honorary Academy Award in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft" and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994 for his charitable work via Newman's Own.

"I have no natural gift to be anything - not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches - not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me. I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried - who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out." The center photo depicts Paul at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in support of the Civil Rights Movement on August 28th, 1963.

"Once you've seen your face on a bottle of salad dressing. it's hard to take yourself seriously. I'm the star of oil and vinegar and the oil and vinegar of the stars. The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films." -Paul Newman on his Newman's Own line of salad dressing, pasta sauce, lemonade, popcorn, salsa, and wine. Launched in 1982, the profits go to charities around the world, as Paul intended, with over $600 million donated since the company's inception. "When I realized I was going to have to be a whore, to put my face on the label, I decided that the only way I could do it was to give away all the money we make. Over the years, that ethical stance has given us a 30 per cent boost. One in three customers buys my products because all the profits go to good causes and the rest buy the stuff because it is good. I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me."

"You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: 'Holy Christ, whaddya know - I'm still around!' It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career. I picture my epitaph: 'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.' I would like it if people would think that beyond Newman, there's a spirit that takes action, a heart, and a talent that doesn't come from my blue eyes. A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs."

In appreciation of Paul Newman. Born on January 26th, 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio Died on September 26th, 2008 (age 83) in Westport, Connecticut ❤

My parents were inexorable, they were forever. They chose each other over and over, sometimes in spite of, sometimes because of. It wasn't always a fairy tale, but I wanted to remember the best, dreamiest, most sublime part, and that part just happens to be true. - MELISSA NEWMAN

REST IN PEACE DONALD SUTHERLAND (1935–2024)