A Great Actor and Philanthropist Passes OnPaul Newman, the great actor and philanthropist, died at the age of 83 after a battle with cancer. Anyone who loves films has to regard Paul Newman’s passing with more than a twinge of sadness. He was truly one of those greats whom we shall never see the like of again.In his youth, Paul Newman had the face and body of a Greek statue, but a subtle acting style the belied any pretty boy looks he had. The names of films that he made his own are the stuff of legend.
RIP Paul Newman In The Hustler, Paul Newman played an up and coming pool shark eager to make his name by playing a high stakes game against the reigning champion, played by Jackie Gleason. The great aspect of The Hustler is that it is as much about character as it is about a game. Paul Newman’s Fast Eddie is a self destructive man who may lose everything on the brink of gaining it. Paul Newman reprised the character of Fast Eddie decades later in The Color of Money, this time opposite Tom Cruise, in a story about comebacks and handing over the torch to a younger protégé. The Color of Money garnered Paul Newman his one acting Oscar. In Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman played a rebellious inmate in a prison chain gang. A man whose body may well be imprisoned, but whose soul is in every way still free. Paul Newman’s impish depiction of Luke was enhanced by a solid supporting cast, including George Kennedy as a fellow inmate and Strother Martin as the prison captain.Almost everyone’s favorite Paul Newman movie is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which also starred a then young screen idol named Robert Redford. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was an early “anti western”, which turned the western mythos on its head by depicting a pair of bandits, ordinarily the heavies, as the good guys. Newman played Butch Cassidy with a kind of ironic brilliance, whether it was being chased by a posse “who are those guys?”, fighting one of his own gang for supremacy, or, hurt, scared, and alone, getting ready with Redford’s Sundance Kid to make a last stand against the Bolivian Army.
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