The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man Plot Summary

Introduction

Paul Newman was a man who defied easy categorization. With his piercing blue eyes and unmistakable screen presence, he rose to become one of Hollywood's most enduring icons, yet he consistently described himself as "an emotional Republican" and "an ordinary man with extraordinary luck." Born in 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Newman navigated a remarkable journey from a middle-class upbringing through military service, struggling actorhood, superstardom, racing career, and ultimately, transformative philanthropy. What made Newman truly extraordinary wasn't merely his acting achievements or his striking appearance, but rather the profound evolution of his character over time. His story reveals a man constantly at war with himself - torn between the "ornament" (his public persona) and the "orphan" (his authentic self). Through his journey, we witness his struggle with alcoholism, his complicated family relationships, his political activism, and ultimately his discovery of purpose through giving back. Newman's life offers profound insights into the nature of fame, the quest for meaning, and the possibility of personal redemption even for those seemingly blessed with everything.

Chapter 1: Early Life and Finding Direction (1925-1953)

Paul Newman was born in 1925 in Shaker Heights, an affluent suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. His father Arthur ran Newman-Stern, a successful sporting goods company, while his mother Teresa (known as Tress) was a homemaker with a flair for decoration and appearance. Their comfortable home on Brighton Road reflected the prosperity that many middle-class Americans enjoyed before the Great Depression hit when Paul was five years old. Though Jewish on his father's side, Paul's family did not observe religious traditions, and his mother had converted from Catholicism to Christian Science. The Newman household was marked by underlying tensions. While appearing picture-perfect from the outside, Paul recalled his childhood home as a battleground of silent conflict. "We'd sit there waiting for something to go wrong, for somebody to fall off the eggshells and run," he remembered. His relationship with his mother was particularly complex; she adored his beauty but, in his view, failed to connect with the person beneath. "If I had been an ugly child, my mother would not have given me the time of day," Newman reflected with characteristic bluntness. Young Paul found himself overshadowed by his more confident older brother Arthur Jr., who often physically dominated him. In what became a telling symbol of their childhood frustration, the brothers would secretly bang their heads against the dining room wall, taking turns leaving dents in the plaster. "This was not some tippy-toe banging; this was a serious whacking that took down the plaster behind the wall covering," Newman recalled. "We must have knocked our fucking brains out. It was our own Wailing Wall." Despite these difficulties, Newman enjoyed aspects of his childhood in Shaker Heights - riding bikes dangerously, playing hockey in winter, and exploring the neighborhood's many wooded areas and lakes. He displayed an entrepreneurial spirit early on, taking jobs delivering for florists and dry cleaners, working as a Fuller Brush salesman at age thirteen, and even delivering newspapers. However, adolescence brought painful self-consciousness. Newman remembered feeling "like a goddamn freak" at fourteen, when he weighed less than one hundred pounds and girls considered him "a joke, a happy buffoon." After graduating high school in 1942 with World War II underway, Newman briefly attended Ohio University before joining the Navy in 1943. Though initially aspiring to become a pilot, he failed the color-blindness test and instead served as a radioman/gunner on torpedo bomber aircraft in the Pacific theater. Military service didn't impact him as profoundly as it did many of his generation - "It was like going through a shower, that's all," he later claimed - but it did transform him physically. When discharged in 1946, the once-diminutive Newman had grown five inches taller. Post-war, Newman enrolled at Kenyon College in Ohio on the GI Bill, where he discovered acting. Though not an exceptional student academically, he excelled in campus productions and even wrote and directed a satirical revue. Graduating in 1949, he immediately headed to summer stock theater in Wisconsin, where he met aspiring actress Jackie Witte. Their whirlwind romance led to marriage within months, and soon their first child, Scott, was born. In 1951, seeking to advance his acting career, Newman enrolled at the Yale School of Drama, while supporting his growing family through various jobs, including selling encyclopedias.

Chapter 2: Rise to Fame: Breaking into Hollywood

In 1953, Newman landed his first significant role on Broadway in William Inge's "Picnic," directed by Joshua Logan. Though cast initially in a minor part, he soon took over the role of Alan, the well-mannered college boy who loses his girlfriend to a sexy drifter. It was during this production that Newman met Joanne Woodward, who was understudying several female roles. Their attraction was immediate and powerful, though Newman was married with a young son and another child on the way. "I was nursing an ailing marriage and this thing I carried around in my trousers every time we danced backstage together," Newman later recalled with characteristic frankness. Despite his growing stage success, Newman's early film career began inauspiciously. Against the advice of theater director Joshua Logan, he accepted the lead in "The Silver Chalice," a biblical epic that Newman would later famously disown as "the worst movie produced in the fifties." When the film flopped, Newman returned to Broadway, appearing in "The Desperate Hours" and eventually Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" directed by Elia Kazan. These stage performances, along with television work including a breakthrough in "The Battler" (a role originally meant for James Dean before his fatal car crash), gradually built Newman's reputation as a serious actor. Newman's film career finally gained traction with "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956), in which he played boxer Rocky Graziano. Director Robert Wise recalled how Newman immersed himself in research: "Rocky took us to visit all his old haunts on the Lower East Side, the pigeon keepers on the roofs, his neighborhood candy store. Sometimes Rocky would walk on ahead of us, and Paul would study his gait, and just notice he had rounded heels on his shoes that gave him a certain shift." This dedication to character study became a hallmark of Newman's approach to acting. By 1957, Newman had divorced Jackie Witte and married Joanne Woodward. The couple soon co-starred in "The Long, Hot Summer," based on William Faulkner stories, with Newman playing a drifter who disrupts a wealthy Southern family. Director Martin Ritt observed, "For the first time, Joanne and I could do what we longed for years to do in public, as well as put on the screen what had already been discovered between us," Newman reflected. Their chemistry was palpable, both onscreen and off, beginning a personal and professional partnership that would last fifty years. In 1958, Newman solidified his star status playing Brick, Elizabeth Taylor's hard-drinking husband in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Though Tennessee Williams' original play had suggested Brick's homosexuality as the reason for marital abstinence, the film version obscured this aspect, focusing instead on Brick's alcoholism and grief. Newman brought emotional complexity to the character despite Hollywood's limitations. During filming, Elizabeth Taylor's husband, producer Mike Todd, died in a plane crash, and Newman awkwardly attempted to comfort her. "I should have just said, 'I love you and think you're a terrific lady,'" he later reflected, "and admitted I was obviously unable to provide answers to the terrible questions she was asking." By the decade's end, Newman had established himself as a leading man with both commercial appeal and acting credibility. As the 1960s began, he was poised to enter his most creatively fruitful period, though personal conflicts continued to shadow his professional success.

Chapter 3: The Reluctant Sex Symbol and Screen Legend

Throughout the 1960s, Paul Newman emerged as one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, delivering a remarkable string of memorable performances. His roles in "The Hustler" (1961), "Hud" (1963), and "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) each earned him Academy Award nominations and cemented his cultural impact. As Fast Eddie Felson in "The Hustler," Newman portrayed a pool shark whose arrogance masks profound vulnerability. The part felt uniquely natural to him - the only script in his life where "he read the first five pages and knew it was dead right for him." Despite his growing fame, Newman maintained an ambivalent relationship with his sex symbol status. "Newman as a sexual image is something invented and is in the mind of the writer, which I simply interpret," he insisted. After playing the amoral rancher Hud Bannon, Newman was startled by the character's popularity. Director Martin Ritt recalled, "When we made Hud, Paul wasn't aware of his impact. He still looked at himself as Little Paul Newman from Shaker Heights. After Hud opened, Paul became this incredible sex object; it hit him like a ton of bricks." The disconnect between his self-perception and public image troubled Newman throughout his career. In "Cool Hand Luke," Newman delivered perhaps his most iconic performance as a rebellious prisoner who refuses to conform to the prison system. The film's director, Stuart Rosenberg, noted that Newman's appeal came from a deep internal struggle: "Paul is an exceedingly inhibited person, and painfully shy. When he'd walk away from a spot on the soundstage, it was wet. I've never seen anyone perspire so much. He fights all the time, fights all of his nervous qualities. But a strange thing happens when you fight like that and win. There's an intensity that comes out." Newman's professional breakthrough reached its apex with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969), where he starred opposite Robert Redford. Though initially signed to play the Sundance Kid, Newman ultimately took the role of the charismatic, quip-slinging Butch. Director George Roy Hill recalled Newman's initial nervousness about comedy: "Paul was very, very nervous when we started shooting. The very first day, we did the scene where the train was stopped by Paul and Redford's gang, and Paul was supposed to cajole the Wells Fargo agent out of the mail car before they blew up the safe. Paul called out the character's name a couple of times and suddenly—I don't know whether he lost confidence in me or himself or in the script—but Paul was trying to make it funny." The film's enormous success established the Newman-Redford partnership that would continue in "The Sting" (1973), another box-office triumph. Throughout this period, Newman developed his distinctive, understated acting style. Director George Roy Hill observed, "Beginning with Butch, Paul finally learned to relax. He didn't have to push anymore and that role really eased him into what he was able to become for the remainder of his career—the easygoing actor he was in the very beginning. He settled down and came into a style of his own." Behind his professional success, Newman struggled with alcoholism, a problem that had begun early in his career and intensified through the 1960s. He often used alcohol to unlock creativity and ease social anxiety. "Alcohol seemed to focus my mind a lot better—when I didn't take it to really extraordinary excess," he reflected. "With people who were otherwise impossible to communicate with, the first four beers would open a window for me—for about twenty minutes." By the early 1970s, his drinking had reached dangerous levels, and during the filming of "Sometimes a Great Notion" (1971), which he also directed, Joanne Woodward nearly reached her breaking point: "I found him on the floor with his head bleeding, and I came as close as I ever had to saying, 'This is it, I just can't stand it.'"

Chapter 4: Beyond Acting: Racing, Philanthropy and Family

In 1969, while filming "Winning," a movie about race car drivers, Newman discovered his second great passion: auto racing. What began as preparation for a role developed into a lifelong pursuit that brought him both exhilaration and focus. "It takes me away from people in film, takes me outside that fictional experience into something real and quite primitive," Newman explained. "And it speaks to whatever competitive feeling I have that I can't afford as an actor." Newman approached racing with characteristic dedication, earning his first professional license in his late forties and going on to win four national championships in the Sports Car Club of America. Racing provided Newman with an escape from the artifice of Hollywood and a genuine test of skill rather than appearance. Fellow racer Michael Brockman observed, "I watched him with the girls now, with Lissy and Clea and Nell, and I remember when I first met them at the race track years ago when they were still little girls, how he seemed to really enjoy and get a great deal out of watching them do what they did and play and be themselves." In racing, as in his family life, Newman could step away from the expectations of celebrity and find authentic connection. By the mid-1970s, Newman had begun to direct films, starting with "Rachel, Rachel" (1968), which starred Joanne Woodward as a lonely schoolteacher approaching middle age. Film editor Dede Allen remembered, "A picture like Rachel, Rachel would never have been made by anyone—a movie about a lonely thirty-seven-year-old woman who has never slept with a man? The studio let Paul make the film because they'd get an acting commitment out of him." The film earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and revealed Newman's sensitivity as a director. In 1978, tragedy struck when Newman's only son, Scott, died from a drug overdose at age 28. Newman was directing a production at his alma mater, Kenyon College, when he received the news. Though devastated, he initially continued working, returning to Los Angeles days later. "He went straight to the mortuary and he said it was a totally complete experience," Joanne recalled. "He said he really just had to go and be there with him, and he said, 'I suddenly knew him, and was able to weep and look at him and love him.'" Scott's death haunted Newman, who wondered if his own fame and frequent absences had contributed to his son's struggles. In the 1980s, Newman channeled his grief into philanthropy, launching Newman's Own food company almost accidentally. What began as homemade salad dressing bottled for friends evolved into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with a unique business model: all profits would go to charity. "That the salad-dressing money goes to charity isn't really that interesting; it goes there because it would have been tacky to do anything else with it," Newman claimed with characteristic understatement. But the company's success allowed him to establish the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for seriously ill children in 1988, inspired by his friend Bruce Falconer who had died of cancer. Newman approached philanthropy with the same intensity he brought to acting and racing. "I did quite a lot of asking on behalf of the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp," he recalled. "You go out and do fourteen benefits. You have your picture snapped six thousand times. You host dinners in Boston and Hartford and New Haven and Stamford—you just raise the money. It was worth it." His charitable work provided a sense of purpose that acting alone had never fully satisfied, allowing him to transform his celebrity into tangible good.

Chapter 5: Personal Demons and Reconciliations

Throughout his life, Newman struggled with what he called his "emotional anesthesia," a profound sense of detachment that affected his relationships. "I have a sense of watching something, but not of living something," he confessed. "It's like looking at a photograph that's out of focus, because the camera was shaken and the head is blurry." This disconnect between his outward persona and inner experience created what Newman described as two separate selves: "the ornament" (the celebrity with the famous blue eyes) and "the orphan" (his authentic core). Newman's relationship with his parents, particularly his mother, shaped this divided sense of self. He described himself as "my mother's Pinocchio, the one that went wrong." Teresa Newman doted on her handsome son but, in his view, never saw beyond his appearance. "I was a decoration for her mother, a decoration for her house, admired for his decorative nature," Newman recalled bitterly. "If he had been an ugly child, his mother would not have given him the time of day." This dynamic created a lifelong pattern of emotional guardedness. With his first wife, Jackie Witte, Newman acknowledged his failures as a husband and father. "Looking back on it now, from a more sophisticated vantage point, I ask myself how I could have been so irresponsible as to take the first girl with whom I had a speaking relationship, marry her, and impregnate her right away," he reflected. His affair with Joanne Woodward during his first marriage left him torn between desire and duty. "I was leaving our house for the theater, the kids were carrying on, there was food all over the floor. I just wanted to drop down on my knees and tell Joanne that I really loved her, and I had to get out of this mess that I was in. Then, all of a sudden, I realized I couldn't do that; I didn't have enough money and just couldn't desert Jackie—God, it was horrible." After divorcing Jackie and marrying Joanne in 1958, Newman found a more balanced partnership, though not without challenges. "Joanne and I still drive each other crazy in different ways," he admitted. "There is a wonderful kind of balance. Like the arms race. Asymmetrical but equal." Their relationship weathered Newman's alcoholism, which reached crisis levels in the early 1970s. After a particularly frightening incident during the filming of "Sometimes a Great Notion," Newman began to cut back on hard liquor, though not immediately giving up alcohol entirely. The greatest personal blow came with his son Scott's death from drug and alcohol overdose in 1978. The loss provoked deep self-examination about his parenting. "I feel like a person who has been doing prison time and is suddenly let out. He realizes he has only five or six or eight years left in his lifetime, and there's no way that'll be enough time to make amends," Newman reflected. "Many are the times I have gotten down on my knees and asked for Scott's forgiveness. I ask for forgiveness for that part of me which provided the impetus for his own destruction." In later years, Newman worked to repair other damaged relationships. After fifteen years of estrangement from his mother, he reconciled with her shortly before her death, though the reunion was awkward and tense. More successfully, he developed closer bonds with his five daughters and became a devoted grandfather. Newman's evolution continued into his sixties, when these interviews were conducted, and beyond. "I don't know why I'm changing," he reflected. "I don't think it has to do with the imminence of death; I don't understand the impetus." As Newman approached his later years, his self-awareness deepened. He recognized his lifelong pattern of keeping people at a distance and worked to overcome it. "I'm still wondering. And I dread the terror of discovering that the emotional anesthetic I've lived with will never be able to let the orphan get out front and have a life of its own," he admitted. This quest for authenticity and connection defined the final chapters of his remarkable journey.

Chapter 6: Legacy and Reflections: More Than Just Blue Eyes

When examining Paul Newman's extraordinary legacy, it becomes clear that his impact transcended his career as an actor. Though he starred in over sixty films, earned ten Academy Award nominations (finally winning for "The Color of Money" in 1987), and created indelible characters like Fast Eddie Felson, Hud Bannon, and Butch Cassidy, Newman's most significant contributions emerged beyond the screen. As he aged, he evolved from a reluctant movie star into a humanitarian whose philanthropy reshaped how celebrities could leverage their fame for social good. Newman's founding of Newman's Own in 1982 revolutionized cause-related marketing before the term existed. What began as homemade salad dressing bottled as gifts became a food empire that has generated over $570 million for charity since its inception. Unlike many celebrity-endorsed products, Newman insisted on quality and authenticity, and most importantly, directed all profits to charitable causes. This business model was unprecedented at the time and has since inspired numerous similar ventures. The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which Newman established in 1988 for children with serious illnesses, expanded into a global network of camps serving hundreds of thousands of children and families, all free of charge. Beyond his philanthropy, Newman left an indelible mark on American cinema. His naturalistic acting style, honed at the Actors Studio, helped define a new masculine ideal in the 1960s and 70s - one that combined traditional toughness with vulnerability and moral complexity. Newman's characters often embodied a particular strain of American individualism: men who stood against corrupt systems yet harbored their own flaws and demons. From the defiant prisoner Luke Jackson to the morally compromised lawyer Frank Galvin, Newman portrayed men struggling with their own nature while aspiring to something better. Newman's successful racing career further distinguished him from typical celebrities. Beginning in his forties, he competed professionally until his eighties, winning championships and even setting a record as the oldest driver to win a major professional race as part of a team at the 24 Hours of Daytona. This pursuit wasn't a dilettante's hobby but a serious passion that earned the respect of professional drivers. As racer Michael Brockman observed, "Paul has a racer's heart. He doesn't act like a movie star at the track; he acts like a racer." In his personal life, Newman's fifty-year marriage to Joanne Woodward provided a rare example of enduring partnership in Hollywood. Though he acknowledged their relationship began as an affair during his first marriage, their subsequent decades together showed remarkable resilience and mutual support. "She was always so vulnerable, and she seemed to have no ego, and yet there is a towering ego there," Newman said of Woodward. "We had that in common." Their professional collaborations in sixteen films, including those Newman directed for her, demonstrated their creative symbiosis. As Newman aged, he demonstrated a remarkable capacity for growth and self-reflection. The man who once described himself as "emotionally anesthetized" developed greater awareness of his limitations and worked to overcome them. His increasing commitment to philanthropy reflected this evolution, as did his willingness to confront painful aspects of his past, particularly regarding his son Scott's death and his first marriage. "I'm still wondering," Newman reflected in his sixties. "And I dread the terror of discovering that the emotional anesthetic I've lived with will never be able to let the orphan get out front and have a life of its own."

Summary

Paul Newman's journey embodies the potential for continual growth and reinvention throughout life. From the emotionally guarded young man of Shaker Heights to the philanthropist who transformed celebrity into meaningful social impact, Newman demonstrated that personal evolution is always possible. His greatest achievement wasn't his acting accolades or racing victories, but rather his ultimate reconciliation of what he called "the ornament and the orphan" - finding authenticity beneath the famous blue eyes that both blessed and burdened him. Newman's life offers a compelling lesson in the redemptive power of purpose. When asked about his philanthropy, he typically downplayed his motivations with characteristic self-deprecation: "The easiest thing I can do, frankly, is to give away money. It does not represent the kind of sacrifice that, it seems to me, might enhance the magnificence of the gift." Yet his actions spoke louder than his words. By channeling his fame, fortune, and entrepreneurial instincts toward helping others, particularly children facing serious illness, Newman found meaning that had eluded him in the artifice of Hollywood. His evolution reminds us that it's never too late to redefine success or to transform personal struggles into compassionate action for others.

About Author

Loading...

Paul Newman

Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award, and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.Newman was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all profits and royalties to charity. As of May 2007, these donations had exceeded US$220 million.On September 26, 2008, Newman died at his long-time home in Westport, Connecticut, of complications arising from cancer.

Read more