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Chosen by Empire magazine in 1995 as #12 in the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history.
Said that he burned his tuxedo on his 75th birthday because he is through with formality. Says the sound he loves most is that of a V-8 engine. Owns The Hole In The Wall Gang Camp, a summer camp for children with cancer and other blood-related diesases (and their siblings) in Ashford, Connecticut, and also runs a fall "Discovery" program for inner city kids, also in Ashford. Ranked #19 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in October of 1997. Lives in Connecticut; has been known to race at The Lime Rock Road Circuit. Has his own line of food products, "Newman's Own", featuring mainly spaghetti sauces and salad dressings. The company has made more than $100 million in profits over the years, all of which he has donated to various charities. Owns half of the Champ Car (auto racing) team Newman-Haas. Awarded an honorary Oscar in 1994 in recognition of his charity work. Father, with Joanne Woodward, of actress Melissa Newman, Nell Potts, and Claire Newman. A son and two girls with first wife Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte. His only son, Scott Newman, died of a drug overdose in 1978. Daughter, Susan Kendall Newman, is well known for stage acting and her philanthropic activities. His other daughter from his first marriage is named Stephanie and was born in 1954. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio. Chosen by People magazine in 1990 as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world. He was the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of superhero Green Lantern/Hal Jordan. Finished second in the 1979 Le Mans 24-hour race in a Porsche 935. Returned to live theater for first time in 35 years in June of 2002 in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" at the Westport Country Playhouse near his home in Westport, CT. He directed and starred as the Stage Manager. Wife Joanne Woodward is the playhouse's Artistic Director. He was among the celebrities on the famous "Enemies List" kept by President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Was training to be a pilot while in the Navy, but was discovered to be color-blind, ending his flying aspirations. Nominated for a 2003 Tony Award for Best Actor in the Revival of a Play, for "Our Town". Was mentioned in Dolce vita, La (1960), in a discussion about salaries paid to film stars. Within a space of five months in 2003, he was nominated for an Oscar (for Road to Perdition (2002)), a Tony (for "Our Town") and an Emmy (for Our Town (2003) (TV)). Although he played the lead male roles in the original productions of three Broadway classics near the beginning of his career - "The Desperate Hours", "Picnic" and "Sweet Bird of Youth" - Newman did not receive a Tony Award nomination until 2003, when at the age of 78 he was nominated as Best Actor for his performance in the 2002 revival of the "Our Town". Was so ashamed of his debut in the failed costume drama The Silver Chalice (1954), that he took out an ad in Variety apologizing for his performance. His father was of Hungarian and Polish heritage and his mother was of Hungarian heritage. He was voted the 13th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. The 4th nomination on Empire Magazine's "Gods Among Us" series along with Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, and Jack Nicholson. Students at Princeton University have named 24 April Newman's Day. Students try to drink 24 beers over the 24 hours of the day. The tradition stems from a comment that Newman is alleged to have made; "24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not." The event is not officially sponsored by the university, and Newman has commented that he would "like to bring an end to the tradition". He and Frank Sinatra are the only actors to win an Actor Academy Award, an Humanitarian Academy Award and a Special Honorary Academy Award. Sinatra won the Best Supporting Actor Award (1953), Humanitarian Award (1970) and a Special Award (1945, Best Short Subject The House I Live In (1945)). Newman won the Best Actor Award (1986), the Humanitarian Award (1993) and a Special Award (1985, Lifetime Achievement Award). Lee Strasberg, who trained Newman at the Actor's Studio, said that he would have been as great an actor as Marlon Brando if he hadn't been so handsome. According to Strasberg, Newman had the talent, but he too often relied on his good looks to coast through a role. Stumped the U.S. for Eugene McCarthy during his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1968. Newman made the cover of LIFE Magazine with a McCarthy pin on his jacket on the May 10th, 1968 issue. Appeared on Quigley Publications' annual poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars 14 times from 1963 to 1986, which ranks him #7 for all-time in appearances in the top 10. He trails Bing Crosby, who made the list 15 times, Clark Gable (16 appearances on the list), Gary Cooper and Tom Cruise (18 times each), Clint Eastwood (21 times) and John Wayne (25 times). Was named the #1 Box Office Star by Quigley Publications in its annual Top Ten Money Making Stars poll of movie exhibitors two years in a row, 1969 and 1970. Newman had been #2 in 1968 and #3 in '67 and would rank #3 in both 1971 and '74. Newman, who entered the list for the first time in 1963 at #9 and the last time in 1986 at #10, has made the list 17 times. Early in his acting career, he was often mistaken for Marlon Brando. He claims to have signed around 500 autographs reading, "Best wishes, Marlon Brando." In 2005 Premiere Magazine ranked him as the #6 Greatest Movie Star of All Time in their Stars in Our Constellation feature. Otto Preminger, a Jew himself, cast him in Exodus (1960) because he wanted someone of Jewish heritage who didn't "look Jewish". Brother of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity He was nominated for nine acting Academy Awards in five different decades - the 1950s (Best Lead Actor for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)), 1960s (Best Lead Actor for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967)), the 1980s (Best Lead Actor for Absence of Malice (1981), The Verdict (1982) and The Color of Money (1986) winning for this last film), the 1990s (Best Lead Actor for Nobody's Fool (1994)) and finally in 2002's Road to Perdition (2002) for Best Supporting Actor. He and his daughter Nell Potts were supposed to be in Paper Moon (1973) in the leading roles, but this changed when original director John Huston bowed out and was replaced by Peter Bogdanovich. The role of Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) was originally awarded to James Dean, who died before filming began. Due to Dean's death, Newman was cast in the role. Dean also was signed to play Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun (1958), but that role was also inherited by Newman after Dean's death. Dean and Newman had shot their last screen tests for East of Eden (1955) together; the six-years-younger Dean got the part and Newman went on to star in The Silver Chalice (1954), a notorious turkey. He is only one of five performers to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films. He played as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986), Peter O'Toole as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Al Pacino as Michael Corleone for The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) and Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). He has one brother, Arthur S. Newman Jr., who was named after their father, Arthur S. Newman, a successful sporting goods store owner. Ethnically, Newman is one-quarter Polish and three-quarters Hungarian. His mother, the former Theresa Fetzko, was born in Hungary. His father, Arthur S. Newman, was the U.S.-born offspring of a Hungarian father, Simon Newman, and a Polish mother, Hannah Cohn. Michelle Pfeiffer wanted Newman to play her father, patriarch Larry Cook, in the 1997 movie A Thousand Acres (1997), which she produced. Newman turned down the part, which went to Jason Robards. When Premiere Magazine does a list of 24 Great Performances from each year, they often ask the actors who their idols are. Newman has been the most frequently cited idol so far. Was nominated 10 times for the Academy Award, including eight times as Best Actor, once as Best Supporting Actor, and once for Best Picture (the latter coming the same year he famously did not receive a Best Director nomination despite having won the then-equally prestigious New York Critics Award as Best Director for Rachel, Rachel (1968). In the acting field, the only actors with more nominations are Jack Nicholson with 12 nominations (8 Best Actor and 4 Best Supporting Actor nominations) and Laurence Olivier (nine Best Actor nominations and 1 Best Supporting Actor nod). On the distaff side, Bette Davis, who was nominated 10 times for an Academy Award, all of them Best Actress nods. Katharine Hepburn, with 12 nods (all in the Best Actress category) and Meryl Streep, with 13 nods (11 in the Best Actress category) have more acting nominations than Newman. Is one of only five actors to be nominated for acting honors by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences over five decades (1950s, 1960s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s). Laurence Olivier (1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s), Katharine Hepburn (1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1980s),Jack Nicholson (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s) and Michael Caine (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s) are the others who have turned the trick. Has donated between $150 million-$175 million to charity since the 1980s. His performance as Frank Galvin in The Verdict (1982) is ranked #19 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006). His performance as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) is ranked #64 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006). Was director Robert Wise's first pick for the lead in The Sand Pebbles (1966), eventually played by Steve McQueen, who won his only Oscar nomination for the role. Wise had earlier directed Newman in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and Until They Sail (1957). Turned down the role of Quint in Jaws (1975). His performance as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) is ranked #20 on the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes & Villains. This is a ranking which he shares with Robert Redford, who played the Sundance Kid. His performance as Luke Jackson in Cool Hand Luke (1967) is ranked #30 on the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes & Villains. Ranked the #1 Box Office star of 1969 and 1970 by Quigley Publications' annual poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars. He was ranked #2 in 1968 and at #3 in 1967, 1971 and 1974. In all, he made the Top Ten list 14 times from 1963, when he entered it at #9, and 1986, when he bowed out of the Top 10 at #10. He was ranked in the Top Ten for 10 straight years from 1966-1975, peaking in the Top Three from 1967 to 1971. The GI Bill got him through his first 3 months at Yale. To pay tuition for the rest of his time there, he sold Encyclopedia Britannica. He claims he was very good at it. For a Mother's Day gift, he gave wife Joanne Woodward 2 hours of uninterrupted driving around the roads of Westport, Connecticut that they had never seen before. Has said he did not want his epitaph to say two things: "Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown" and "Here lies the old man who wasn't a part of his time." -1960's. Godfather of Jake Gyllenhaal. Great admirer of Jim Carrey. While campaigning for the Democrats in the 1968 U.S. Presidential election, Newman would rent a Jaguar on the weekends. When he found out that opponent Richard Nixon , who was known to his naysayers as "Tricky Dick", was renting the same car during the week, Newman left a note in it saying "This clutch is tricky, so you won't have any trouble with it.". Prior to filming The Hustler (1961) , Newman lacked talent at playing pool. But after brushing up on it for the role, he felt very confident in his ability. So he bet co-star Jackie Gleason $50 on a game of pool. Being the excellent pool player he was, Gleason beat Newman. Instead of paying him in dollar bills, Newman dumped $50 worth of pennies on the table for Gleason to take. When Newman failed to receive an Oscar nomination for his performance in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), producer Charles Schnee and director Robert Wise gave him what they called a "Noscar." The engraving says, "The Schnee-Wise Noscar award to Paul Newman for best portraying a terrible no-good, for turning him into a charming and lovable sprite, and for thereby doing what Lincoln said should never be done, i.e. fooling all of the people all of the time". After being asked so many times what the secret was to being married so long to Joanne Woodward, he was asked yet again and simply responded, "I don't know what she puts in my food". One of the most sought after and valuable collectible Rolex watches, the early "Daytona" model, from the 1960's, is known unofficially and passionately world wide, as the Rolex "Paul Newman." "Paul Newmans" in steel fetch as much as $100,000 in auctions. This nickname was adopted as he sported one in film. A film poster of him in Hud (1963) appears in Midnight Cowboy (1969). During the 1950s and 1960s he was a close friend of fellow Democrat and civil rights activist Charlton Heston. Later, in 1983, after Heston's political beliefs had moved to the Right, both actors took opposing sides in a television debate on President Ronald Reagan's Star Wars defense missile program. Heston, much better briefed and prepared than Newman, was judged to have won the debate easily. Some years later, when Newman learned that Heston was supposed to introduce him at an awards ceremony, Newman insisted that his one-time friend be replaced by the liberal Donald Sutherland. Supported Sen. Ted Kennedy's campaign to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980. In 2007, his auto racing team, known as Newman-Haas, became Newman/Haas/Lanigan due to Chicago businessman Michael Lanigan becoming a partner. Turned down the part taken by Robert Duvall in The Paper (1994). Announced in May 2007 that he is retiring from acting. He had previously announced his retirement in 1995, but came back to make four more movies. Opened a restaurant in 2006 called "Dressing Room" with co-owner and chef Michael Nischan in Westport, Connecticut. It was originally opened to help subsidize the Westport Country Playhouse, which sits next to it. He is a vocal supporter of gay marriage. Was offered the role of "Judah Ben-Hur" in Ben-Hur (1959) but turned it down because he said he didn't have the legs to wear a tunic. Got two roles which were first offered to Elvis Presley but which were turned down by Presley's manager: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). The Eiger Sanction (1975) was originally intended as a vehicle for him. His father, Arthur, died in 1950 at the age of 55 and his mother, Theresa, died in 1982 at the age of 86. Announced in July 2007 that his Champ Car team is merging with NASCAR team Robert Yates Racing. It is now called Yates/Newman/Haas/Lanigan racing. Newman said the deal "in no way lessens our commitment to open-wheel racing. We want to broaden our horizons.". Ranked #19 in Empire Magazine's 2007 100 Sexiest Movie Stars of all time. Became a rear gunner of a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber when his color blindness disqualified him from being a pilot. Longtime supporter of gun control, and a member of Handgun Control Inc. Supported anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy's bid to win the Democratic nomination from incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and actively campaigned for George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election. According to Joe McGinnis' book about the advertising industry's participation in Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign, the first telethon for the Eugene McCarthy Campaign, which was emceed by Newman, raised $125,000 (about $800,000 in 2008 money, when factored for inflation, a good sum for the time). Nixon's advertising people attributed the success of the telethon to Newman's participation. In the 1970s, long before Brokeback Mountain (2005), he was thwarted by Hollywood in his desire to star in the movie version of the best-selling novel "The Front Runner", about the love affair between a male coach and a male star runner. The project remains unmade. Supported Al Franken's campaign for election as US Senator from Minnesota. Attended the main Democratic fund raiser for Senator John Kerry before the Democratic National Convention at Radio City Music Hall, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Bon Jovi, Meryl Streep, Sarah Jessica Parker, Mary J. Blige, Chevy Chase and Jessica Lange. (13 August 2004). Donated $1 million to "The Nation" magazine in order to keep it going. Attended the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter on 20 January 1977. Recorded a television advertisement for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in June 2007. As of 2007, he is one of six directors who has directed his wife to a Best Actress Oscar nomination (Joanne Woodward in Rachel, Rachel (1968)). The other five are Joel Coen directing Frances McDormand in Fargo (1996), John Cassavetes directing Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence (1974) & Gloria (1980), Blake Edwards directing Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria (1982), Paul Czinner directing Elisabeth Bergner in Escape Me Never (1935) and Richard Brooks directing Jean Simmons in The Happy Ending (1969). Jules Dassin also directed his future wife Melina Mercouri in an Oscar-nominated performance (Pote tin Kyriaki (1960)), but they weren't married yet at the time of the nomination. Turned down the role of Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry (1971) because he thought the screenplay was too right-wing, and recommended Clint Eastwood for the part instead. Grandfather of Peter (born in May 1996) and Henry Elkind, the sons of his daughter Melissa "Lissy" Newman and her husband Raphael "Raphe" Elkind. Father-in-law to Gary Irving (husband of Elinor "Nell" Newman), Raphael "Raphe" Elkind (husband of Melissa "Lissy" Newman) and Kurt Soderlund (husband of Claire "Clea" Newman).
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