wow...i'm shocked.He was truly a class act.'cat on a hot tin roof' was one of my fav films.

best wishes to his family...

In a strange way I'm starting to feel kinda "lonely" with all these celebs I've grown up with passing on.

Paul Newman's life/career is a rarity.

One of the most respectable filmographies in cinema history,
a marriage that exceeded typical Hollywood standards,
& a charitable nature that never stopped giving.



My top 5 fave Paul Newman flix:

5. The Sting - I always felt that scripting a movie that focuses on a successful elaborate con-job really requires an exercizing of creativity from the writer. Bringing in all the elements of the characters & acts to pull off a scheme that is both credible in it's enactment & at the same time fascinating in it's grand unfolding is a balancing act on a extremely narrow margin.
This was one of the 1st. ones I watched as a kid. The chemistry between Newman & Robert Redford was evident even to me, as young as I was. They acted cool, they looked cool & particpated in a scheme that, in my mind, was cool. This was the movie that began my affection for quality heist/confidence movies.

4. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid - The first example of the lightning captured in a bottle that is the Newman & Redford combo. I like Newman's character more though in this movie than in the Sting. We get to see more of him as Butch Cassidy & the relationship with his fellow bank robber, Harry Longabaugh. A really unique western that is both lotsa of fun & tragic at the same time.

3. Cool Hand Luke - How cool is Cool Hand Luke?
He's so cool that he's willing to eat 50 hardboiled eggs within an hour just to win a bet. This, in a prison where he has to share his immediate space with a
bunch of hardcore criminal chain-gang types, who are well within his ratio of flatulenciated influence. And if you can't understand that,
well then,
what we've got here
is a failure to communicate.

2. Nobody's Fool - Definitely, one of my top favorite holiday movies. Along with Paul's seasoned acting abilities, there are a bunch of reasons why I like this movie so much. However, I'll concentrate on the one scene that sold me over to this story of a father-son-grandson relationship. When Newman's character, a broken down old small-towner who still needs to grow up, attempts to make some amends for his neglective years as a father, by giving to his grandson a stopwatch, which, he claims will help in aiding to delay his fears for a full 60 seconds, every time the kid needs to enter a situation that requires him to be brave.

1. The Verdict - Probably my favorite court drama of all time. With almost a seasoned ease, Paul portrays a disheveled, aging, never-has-been, malpractice lawyer who finds within himself the humanity which never really had a chance to surface due to the layered weight of his chronic alcoholism. The movie & Newman's performance sets up very well the desolation & loneliness that the main character moves his life thru as he goes up against the legal system that giganticly favors the "big guys" over the "little guys". One can really get the sense that Newman knows that he stands no chance of winning the case, but continues moving on forward because he is, for the 1st. time in his barely neglible career, fueled by the honesty & goodness of what is right. A feeling that is so new to this character, that, combined with the realizaton that a human life is totally dependent him for justice, it becomes emotionally exhilirating enough to keep an almost broken old man to keep fighting on, no matter how high the price.
One of those rare times when the performance comes thru real enough to make us ( oh, what am I'm talkin' about this "us" bullsh#t? What I really mean is "me" ) almost believe that even under the most insurmountable odds, there is always some kind of hope.



R.I.P.
[Edited 9/28/08 4:47am]