Good Morning Jane….. sad indeed…

Good morning.
RIP, Paul

RIP.

Truly one of the greats. In everything he did.

So long, Butch.

How very sad.

I can count on my fingers how many ‘famous’ people I would like to sincerely shake the hand of and tell them how much I’ve appreciated them and have respected them. Paul Newman has long been at the top of that short list.

Forever thankful to you, Mr. Newman.

“What we have here is … failure to communicate” one of my favorite lines from a Newman film and he didn’t even say it first just set up the situation to make it memorable. It’s a line that still resonates because it is about crass, heavyhanded use of power and authority, something we have seen a lot of these last 8 years.

Cool Hand Luke is one of my all time favorite movies.

He will be missed.
Rest in peace paul

My mother always loved his blue eyes.

I respected the “man” far more than even the fantastic actor that he truly was.

All of Tinseltown’s “fool’s gold” glamour never tarnished what and who Paul Newman really was.

Thanks Jane for posting this video. It reminds me of the funerals I’ve been to over the last year or so where the funeral home has the family put together pictures of their loved one’s life, but it’s so painful to watch, because the pictures show the calm parts of his or her life when you know it wasn’t like that at the end. However, it makes you forget about all the suffering.

Great man, actor, kind, generous, talented and made our lives better.

Good show Mr. Newman. You will not be forgotten.

Go CHIEFs!

and keep gettin up Luke

I love that all the tributes so far use “humanitarian” in defining his life

although, I am a little partial to this:

Newman was 19th on Richard Nixon’s enemies list.

It was quite a class of actors he started out with, Brando and Dean.

per Oscar Levant, Newman was initially hesitant to leave New York for Hollywood: “Too close to the cake”

And Steve Mc Queen.

He was a favorite. RIP.

RIP Paul

From “The Verdict”

“I cut myself shaving so bad this mornin’ my eyes cleared up.”

I loved “Hombre.”

Newman is an original. One of my favorite actors, a wonderful humanitarian and he came through for us. He will be missed by many…God bless him

Jane, thanks for your analysis of the debates…excellent read…I couldn’t watch all of the debates — it was too stressful/painful for me. I wanted to see OB lay a few punches on the old guy — so tired of McSame’s lies…

Great video, great Eva Cassidy also.

“Tom Horn”

“You son-of-a-bitch, you killed my horse.”

Hey Raven! Steve was great too. Cool is what they guys had by the bucketfull.

great Eva Cassidy also.

thanks – I was wondering…..

“…but it’s so painful to watch,…”

Yes it was! Bravo, Mr. Newman, Bravo!

Audra Favor: I can’t imagine eating a dog and not thinking anything of it.
John Russell: You even been hungry, lady? Not just ready for supper. Hungry enough so that your belly swells?
Audra Favor: I wouldn’t care how hungry I got. I know I wouldn’t eat one of those camp dogs.
John Russell: You’d eat it. You’d fight for the bones, too.
Audra Favor: Have you ever eaten a dog, Mr. Russell?
John Russell: Eaten one and lived like one.
Audra Favor: Dear me.

Every time I go to the grocery store and see Newman’s Own products, I’m amazed at how much money they have generated for worthy causes. He made it seem so easy and natural, just like his acting style. The first movie I really remember with him was Cool Hand Luke and the following exchange has played over and over in my head for the last eight years:

Boss: Sorry, Luke. I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.
Luke: Nah – calling it your job don’t make it right, Boss.

Are you listening Bush administration?

“I’ve never seen a bunch of pasty faced sheriffs in my life”

“You’d have to stand on a step ladder to kiss Geronimo’s ass”!

I knew and worked with Paul Newman.

I am devastated.

See my obituary here.

This is a sad day for both movie lovers and Progressives.

A great actor, humanitarian and an even greater American. Never made appologies for being a liberal and a defender of civil liberties. Condolences to his family and friends.

Bless Paul. A good hearted and decent man. He will be missed.

Now for a family anecdote involving Paul Newman.

In the 1972 my folks were politically active in the McGovern camp. Due to his involvement, my father was asked to be actor Dennis Weaver’s personal envoy/escort during Weaver’s swing through NH in support of McGovern.

My dad was approached by operatives who were arranging a similar campaigning trip for Paul Newman. He was asked if his wife, my dear mother, would be willing to serve as Paul Newman’s personal envoy during his stay in NH.

Dear old Dad declined on Mom’s behalf, stating that she’d be rather busy with the family.

In hindsight, seeing how dashing and young Newman was back then, I’d have made the same call.

It’s still a sore point with Mom though.

-G

Hud Bannon: Give me a clean white shirt.
Alma Brown: Boy, you’re real big with the “please” and “thank you,” aren’t you?
Hud Bannon: Please get up off your lazy butt and get me a clean white shirt. Thank you.

It’s certainly sad but the man knew how to live.

Nicely done.

When my father died May 12, I went through so many pictures to pull out pictures for the wake.

As hard as it was, I couldn’t not do it. It was part of my process of trying to put my own pieces together, and trying to come to grips with the fullness of the man, his whole life, his many parts. It was part of my mourning and part of my need to put, however haltingly, what he was about and who he was into words for the funeral.

And of course, he was more than just the fading, suffering shell he was there at the end. That was important to recapture, after so much time with him in the hospital.

My mother loved him to bits, but she always maintained that she would never go for him because she respected Joanne Woodward too much.

Ave atque vale, Paul! May the good you do long outlive you.

Thank you and I am sad for you.

Saw him at the Greyhound track in Tucson back in the 60s. I was down in the cheap seats, he was up behind glass in the clubhouse area.
Hombre was the film he was working on at the time. One of my favorites.

And he was damned proud to be there.

He was one of The Nation’s biggest financial angels.

I met mister Newman in the early eighties, he came to Montreal to participate in some ice racing. Because I was fluent in english, and being involved in the scene, I ended up being his passenger, the rules permitted it, and I was the right weight. We talked about racing, he was so curious about that scene in this province. Quite a day, we ate snowbanks left and right, and mostly laughed our asses off. He made sense, he was thinking of others, always.

This is hitting me real hard.

Rest in peace, Paul, you sure could race.

“You may consider that my last word on this matter.”

Loved that long barreled Winchester.

This IS just like losing a parents. My old man loved movies and some of my greatest memories with him are related to film. I remember The other night I tried to watch “Requiem for a Heavyweight” and couldn’t make it through the first half hour. I was partly because of Quinn’s great performance but partly because of my remembering my pop. I suspect it would be the same with Ben-Hur.

films I remember.

PW Upstairs

Yeah I have a hard time watching films I loved with my parents without tearing up — many of them starring Paul Newman.

“A Tribute to a Life Well Lived” is very true.

thank you

‘Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you. Oh shit…’

sigh

Left a comment at your blog. I was once employed by the Newmans.
Even knowing this was coming, am feeling devastated. The world was a better
place with P.L. in it.

Same here.

I saw Paul Newman on a program just recently wherein he said, ‘I used to wonder why actresses and actors would go in public and expose themselves when they’re old after haven put so much into presenting themselves as youthful in their heyday. Now I know, being old is not so bad after all. I no longer care about that and laugh at myself for being concerned’.

That’s a paraphrase. Sorry if I misrepresented anything he said, but I’m pretty sure that that was the essence of what he said.

Paul was my second cousin but by the time I was old enough for him to notice me he was in college. We saw eachother seldom thereafter. The last time I saw and spoke to him was at the Beacon Theatre enjoying Rirky Jay. During the intermission I found myself standing next to him and said, “I bet you’re Georges cousin.” He looked at me and said, “I bet you’re Ruths son.” We then spoke about family and relatives we both were close to. I congratulated him on the “Hole in the Wall Gang” and “Newman’s Own”. That was it until it was , a couple of weeks later, that he wrote saying that it was terrific that after the years we could meet ant I was able to separate the noteriety from the family. I wish I still had the note.

His performance in “Hud” is my favorite, the sexual tension between Newman and Patricia Neal was simmering.

I know he would have loved to see Barack Obama be sworn in.

I think it was in 1969 or ‘70 that my friend George McAlmon, a wealthy lawyer and board member of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Santa Barbara, sent me to attend a discussion of the population problem.

The panel was led by Prof. Garret Harding, and Paul Newman was a panelist. The discussion was lively and at times heated.

During a break, I went to the restroom and while I was doing my business, Mr. Newman came in and stood next to me. I acted, I thought, quite nonchalant and cool.

As I was washing ny hands, he came up to wash his, and said, “my name is Paul Newman.”

I answered, I know, sir, and I admire your and Mrs. Newman’s work. He said, “drop the sir: asked where I was from, told me not to be bashful and to join in the discussion, and invited me for a glass of wine after the thing was done. We chatted a bit, he told me to raise my kids to be good liberal democrats which he understood to be tough in a state like Texas.

He really made my day.

If he had never made a movie in his life, Paul Newman, somehow, would have been one of mankind’s brightest shining stars.

Your story captures him so well. Thank you.

I recently left a comment that if you want to know what is really going on with the White House, go to Bradblog.com and watch the Sibel Edmunds videos.

Sibel is a former FBI whistleblower who was gagged by John Ashcroft. Sibel founded the National Whistleblowers Coalition in 2004.

Paul Newman awarded her his PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award in 2006.

Youtube has lots of videos..Sibel Edmunds State Secrets Privilege Gallery will show pictures of the really bad actors in the White House.

Nobody here has any reason to believe me..but those of you who know that Paul Newman was politically astute..think about the fact that he gave her his award.

To Miss Jane Hamsher:

I know you have some pull. Please ask Robert Redford to comment on your blog about Paul Newman’s passing.

I can’t tell you how much I would appreciate that. Thanks in advance.

I interviewed Paul Newman once, 20 years ago.

I was stringing for the New York Times weekend Connecticut section and wanted to talk with him about the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp up in Ashford, Conn.

His press agent decided that if the Times was going to talk to him about it, everyone ought to get in on the story. So we had a big press tour of the camp shortly before it was set to open — about 20 papers, TV stations, radio, etc.

And Mr. Newman helicoptered in late in the day. He had been in court in Bridgeport, fighting against some guy who wanted a share of the Newman’s Own profits because he told Mr. Newman that he should bottle his salad dressing and sell it.

You could see what a relief it was to him to come up to the Camp where so much good was about to be done.

I got a couple minutes to talk with him alone so that I would have a few quotes in my story that no one else would have.

“Whimsy plays such a big role in what life gives to you,” he said. He thought it was terribly whimsical of life to give him so much success while it gave the kids who would enjoy the camp so little.

One of earliest memories … The year: 1967. The movie: “Cool Hand Luke” at that classic venue in Baltimore, MD, The Senator movie theater. Let me tell you, as an 11 year old it was quite the rite of passage. The first of many memories of a truly gifted human being. My thoughts and prayers to his family and to his memory from those of us who have been fortunate enough to have experianced his many works …”Thanks for the memories”.
SJR

Long ago I read an interview where Newman was asked to account for the success of his career and personal life.

“I make the big decisions and Joanne makes the smaller decisions.
For instance, she’ll tell me what roles to accept or where we’ll live, things like that.
And I decide that we (the USA) won’t get into a nuclear war with Russia today.”

One of the great greats on the screen, and one of the greatest off the screen. thanks for it all Paul.

I met Paul Newman in the late 70’s. I was cross-country camping with the BF in our VW microbus and it threw a rod in Connecticut. We wound up parking it in the backyard of an acquaintance in Fairfield and fixing it ourselves (no $$). I had hitch hiked to a foreign car parts place for parts and met him there. I was greasy and grubby and mortified but starstruck; he was funny and charming. We laughed about my vacation from hell (though he told me that rebuilding an engine on vacation was right up his alley), and he gave me a ride back, in the 1967 VW Bug with a Porsche engine that he owned. He told me that he dearly loved pulling up to a light next to a teen, and seeing the instant of reognition, combined with the “knowledge” that they could actually blow off the great race driver actor from the light…followed by the open mouthed wonder when he shot away at damned near the speed of light. He was delightful and funny and terribly kind to a starstruck kid trying so hard to be sophisticated (with dirty nails).

I heard a couple weeks ago that they shut down Limerock race track in western CT for half a day so he could bomb around the track, and knew that his time wss getting close.

Thank you. Mr. Newman. What a class act you were.

Condolences to Nell and all his family and friends.