'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.' "- Paul Newman
(Just a nice Jewish boy, yum.)
It seems my favorite role of his will always be Hud (1963) - heartless, violent, tormented, cold, so
unlike the man he seemed to be in real life, yet qualities he frequently played onscreen, particularly in earlier films. Hud supported Newman's prodigious talent with great writing (adapted from a Larry McMurty novel), an incredible cinematographer (if you are unaware of James Wong Howe, whose career spanned the early silents to the mid 70s, school yourself), and authentic, if bleak, tones not found often enough in the frequent artifice of that period.
Despite the array of losers and assholes he portrayed, I always admired Newman for his wit, his big heart, and his eagerness to play against type. If there ever was a sexier or more physically beautiful man (right till the end), I've never seen him. He inspired one of the dirtiest things I am frequently known to say.
This one will really be missed.
5 comments:
Sad to hear it here and now.
Damn he was a good un.
My favorite was "Hombre", I had it on tape, wore it out, and went looking for it 2 months ago when he fell ill. Couldn't find it at any "Rent" places. Wound up with "Long Hot Summer" which always cracks me up.
I'll have to check that one out. I love Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler and Butch Cassidy. Not a fan of Long Hot Summer - too much of the melodrama school. I need to review Sometimes a Great Notion, soon. That was required reading back home in Oregon, as it was a Ken Kesey novel (along with Cuckoo's Nest, obviously). Did you ever see it? The Stamper family - loggers. "Never give an inch."
Get you some netflix, they have everything.
Oh please, what is this dirty thing you say!
Didn't see it, but I will be on a Netflix Newman kick for a while.
Hombre isn't a "Great" movie, but he has some great lines and I especially like the Redhaired lady, 'Jesse", that prods the Anti-hero into becoming a hero.
It took me a long time to find the fisrt part of the epitaph....
Yea, fill us all in on the dirty! That's a great epitaph. As an apostle of failure, I endorse it completely.
There's a movie version of Sometimes a Great Notion?
I'm there!
UF Mike
Ok, ok - I used to say (up until last week), that Paul Newman was the only man over 65 I'd still blow. And it's (was) true.
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