Paul Newman

Heard about the great actor’s death Sunday morning and was a bit saddened. I was not a big fan nor am I knowledgeable about his career or his roles, but a couple of things about the man struck me as uncommonly honorable. First, the amount – in money and physical effort – he contributed to charity. Second, the fact that he remained married to the same woman for over fifty years (yes, I know it was a second marriage, but still …) I admired that he was successful in branching out into other fields, and I’m thinking of his involvement in auto racing as well as his entrepreneurial efforts for his charities. And, of course, his three years of service in the Navy during World War II, anathema to just about all Hollywood stars today.

I only saw a handful of movies, and only the most popular ones. Cool Hand Luke and The Hustler did not impress me, nor did the couple of disaster flicks he did in the 70s. I did not see the couple of courtroom dramas he did in the early 80s which are highly regard; I’ll seek them out on TMC. But the best movie I did see him in was Nobody’s Fool, one of his last roles where he plays a quite endearing, warts and all, handyman-gadfly in a small upstate New York town. It was one of those movies where you wished it never ended, and you wanted to hang out with those characters in real life.