Blue Eyes

Consider this (partial) list:

• The Long, Hot Summer
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
• The Hustler
• Hud
• Sweet Bird of Youth
• Harper
• Cool Hand Luke
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• The Sting
• The Towering Inferno
• Slap Shot
• Absence of Malice
• The Verdict
• The Color of Money
• The Hudsucker Proxy
• Nobody's Fool
• The Road to Perdition

You could add half a dozen more films to that list and then perhaps begin to understand why the loss of Paul Newman is so great. And then factor in those blue eyes and that smooth chest, and you'll remember what a real sex symbol should look like. How odd that Cinemax was playing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid early this morning, and I taped it for The Oscar Project. It must have been on at almost the same time that the newspapers announcing Newman's death at age 83 were landing on the doorsteps of the residents of Los Angeles. (Yes, I know hardly anyone reads newspapers any more, but some of us still do.) I don't know now if I am quite ready to watch it yet.

How sad to wake up and discover that one of the best actors of his era is no longer with us. I know he hadn't really taken on many roles in recent years, save for the TV drama Empire Falls, but even hearing his voice in the animated film Cars made me feel nostalgic for the days when he could command your attention with just one of those sly smiles of his. I could sense him smiling almost all the way through that voice performance.

I have a couple of favorite performances of Paul Newman's. One of his best is in the film version of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Clad only in pajamas for much of the film and playing opposite Elizabeth Taylor in a slip, Newman manages to bring to the surface what the Production Code wouldn't allow: the repressed feelings his character Brick feels for his boyhood friend. It would certainly be a different film if it were made today, but Newman lets us all in on the secret. My other favorite is one that I've not seen in a long time. In The Verdict, Newman plays a lawyer who's obviously past his prime in the courtroom but who takes on what seems like an unwinnable malpractice case against the Catholic Church and its hospitals. It's a stunner of a performance, particularly when you see how Newman has changed over the years, older but still handsome.

Interestingly, both of those roles called for him to portray an alcoholic, but he gravitated toward portrayals of complicated men throughout his career. There's also the cowhand in Hud and the title convict in Cool Hand Luke and the architect of the title building of The Towering Inferno and the hockey player-turned-coach in Slap Shot and the con man (reunited with his buddy, Robert Redford) in The Sting and, of course, Fast Eddie in The Hustler and The Color of Money. Very few actors have brought so many indelible performances to life. Perhaps he was trying to keep the attention averted from his good looks by taking on so many "outsider" parts. By playing against the type that his features would have demanded--romantic leading man--instead he became anti-heroes, men you looked up to even though you shouldn't. It was through Newman's talent that we saw the good in these men. Today's generation should take a lesson. Learn your craft, and apply it well. That's the legacy Newman leaves behind him.