Natural-born world-shaker.

Open thread to remember Paul Newman, who died yesterday.

Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand:

Posted at 4:20 pm in Movies |
 

29 responses to “Natural-born world-shaker.”

  1. beb said on September 27, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    Haven’t a lot of his movies. I was also impressed by his gracious nature and dedication to good works.

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  2. john c said on September 27, 2008 at 5:01 pm

    I grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, a stone’s throw from Westport, where Newman and Woodward lived for the last 30-odd years. It was always a thrill to see him around town, which probably happened a half-dozen times. Seemed pretty down to earth. The Sting was always a favorite, especially the poker game scene. And despite the presence of Tom Cruise, I liked Color of Money. It came out right about when I moved to Chicago, and at the height of my pool-playing days. I’ve played in many of the locations that are in the movie. The Hustler’s better, of course. But George C. Scott has the best line: “You owe me MONEY!”

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  3. brian stouder said on September 27, 2008 at 5:14 pm

    I’ve been an open-wheel racing fan for years, and Paul Newman and Carl Haas (along with the Andrettis) were fixtures on the CART circuit for years and years. You could be wandering in the paddock or near the pits, and see him, and exchange a nod and go on.

    As for the movies – he was an old fashioned star, to me. There are artists, who make movies that you ‘should see’, and then there are actors who make movies that you can’t wait to see….and THEN – there are stars who do both.

    To my way of thinking, Leonardo DiCaprio (sic?) is like a latter-day Newman; he’s got the sex symbol cred, plus he’s an artist.

    (did that make any sense?)

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  4. moe99 said on September 27, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    Last summer my youngest son and I went on a Newman fest and watched a bunch of his movies. He was a class act, saying about why he didn’t stray from his marriage: “Why go for hamburger when I can have steak at home?” or wtte (words to that effect).

    I saw Penn and Teller in NYC years ago and Newman was in the audience. Penn picked me to do a magic trick with him so, I guess I could say, Paul Newman saw me once (g).

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  5. coozledad said on September 27, 2008 at 8:32 pm

    There’s a small formula 1 racetrack near our place, and briefly, there were rumors that Paul would purchase some property down here, and inflate property values. I just wanted to see him at the grocery store.

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  6. Dexter said on September 27, 2008 at 9:10 pm

    I probably saw him in Armstrong Circle Theater shows on TV starting in 1954, and he also played in Goodyear Theater shows then, too, live shows they were.
    Parents took me to see “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'” at the old Jefferson Theater in FWA…wow was I impressed! Of course all the young fellas thought “Fast Eddie Felson” was cool as could be in “The Hustler”.
    It seems everybody loved “Cool Hand Luke”. Paul really struck a chord with people with that film; my parents drove to Detroit just to see it first-run, a couple weeks before it got to the FWA theaters.
    SO I have observed his entire public career and now he’s gone. My sympathies are extended to his family.

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  7. moe99 said on September 27, 2008 at 9:22 pm

    OT, but this to my mind, is great, riveting journalism:

    http://tinyurl.com/5yagoh

    Explains maybe why McCain was so pissed last night.

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  8. Gasman said on September 28, 2008 at 12:17 am

    deb,
    For some reason, I could not post this on the TEOTWAWKI thread, even though that is where it belongs. It kept saying that I already had posted it, though I couldn’t see it.

    I stand corrected. Begala said that both parties view Bush as a “high functioning moron.” I’ll grant that Bush is a relevant high functioning moron. It was on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN yesterday and it occurs about 55 seconds in.

    http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/26/cooper.rollins.mccain.cnn

    Sorry that I didn’t see your post earlier.

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  9. Dexter said on September 28, 2008 at 1:06 am

    Mike Thompson sez bye-bye to Kwame Kilpatrick…
    http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080918/BLOG2401/80917007

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  10. Catherine said on September 28, 2008 at 2:22 am

    The Sting was one of the first grown-up movies I ever saw and it’s probably still my gold standard for entertainment value. Butch Cassidy, right up there too. If there was ever anyone cooler, it might have been Steve McQueen. But Newman outlasted and out-legacied him. Leaving aside all the other fantastic, definitive movie roles, I love that his last movie role was as Hudson Hawk in Cars, a great movie if you haven’t seen it.

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  11. DiamondDave said on September 28, 2008 at 3:05 am

    I don’t know if others can relate to this or not, but for me, Newman always had a mischievous-ness to his charismatic, silver screen presence. With that twinkle in his eyes, and that boyish grin, he always gave me the impression that he knew something that the rest of us didn’t know. To me, that was his appeal, I wanted to know the secret he was keeping to himself. He had what McQueen, Brando, Marvin, Eastwood, Redford, and Reynolds didn’t have. He had “IT”, and “IT” was his alone, and he took that secret to his grave, where it shall forever stay, for there was only one Paul Newman. He was indeed a natural born world shaker.

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  12. moe99 said on September 28, 2008 at 3:49 am

    Just when you thought it could not get worse:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220382.php

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  13. brian stouder said on September 28, 2008 at 11:20 am

    moe – that was indeed a riveting article on the deal/no deal gyrations and wipeouts as this week slid to an end.

    I have heard (and endured) many half-truths and outright untruths from people who are avid to shine apples for the moribund McCain candidacy – and the article you linked goes a long way toward clarifying the sequence of events

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  14. Jolene said on September 28, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    Brian: ThinkProgress has some additional links to stories about who was where when, including info re the critical question of whether John McCain was “phoning it in”.

    http://thinkprogress.org/

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  15. Jolene said on September 28, 2008 at 3:13 pm

    McCain displays some of the same contemptuousness for Obama that he showed in the debate in this interview w/ George Stephanopoulos interview. He seems pretty uncomfortable throughout. Can’t be fun to have to defend the basic competence of your running mate.

    http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5902937

    Kinda funny: Apparently Sarah Palin has claimed to have gay friends, but none have been found. So now people are auditioning.

    http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/who_wants_to_be_sarah_palins_gay_friend_1

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  16. moe99 said on September 28, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    Breaking news on Bullwinkle J. Moose:

    http://tinyurl.com/4betd2

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  17. Mindy said on September 28, 2008 at 4:48 pm

    What Catherine said about The Sting. Great, great movie. I’m fortunate to have first seen it the week it came out, and the memory of that is a sweet one. Of Newman’s later films, though, my favorite is Nobody’s Fool. What a priceless gem. Since it’s been too long since I’ve seen it last, it happened to be at the top of my Netflix queue when I heard that Paul Newman passed away. It should arrive this week. Maybe dinner will feature Newman’s Own spaghetti sauce with Fig Newmans for dessert.

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  18. Jolene said on September 28, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    Stephen Hunter has a nice remembrance of Paul Newman on the WaPo web site.

    I hadn’t realized how old he was. I’d always thought of him as part of the cohort not quite old enough for WWII–people born in the late 1930s. But, of course, all the news notice point out that he was 83, and Hunter’s piece notes that he was a WWII vet.

    I always love watching “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. I didn’t see it until many years after it was made, so it was always fascinating to see him and Elizabeth Taylor when they were so young. Also loved the phrase “no-necked monsters”. What a great put-down for a pack of bratty kids.

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  19. Dexter said on September 28, 2008 at 8:14 pm

    Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was the vehicle that afforded us the look into what a truly great actor Newman was.

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  20. basset said on September 28, 2008 at 9:39 pm

    gotta love that Kwame cartoon.

    are they REALLY thinking about running Dave Bing for mayor up there? surely not.

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  21. basset said on September 28, 2008 at 9:58 pm

    gotta love that Kwame cartoon.

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  22. LA Mary said on September 28, 2008 at 10:11 pm

    I have a sister in law, about 11 years older than I, and she was a huge Paul Newman fan. Around 1967 I ordered an 18X24 poster for her of Paul Newman, I think from his Cool Hand Luke phase, and she put it on the inside of her pantry door. My dear older brother, her husband, told her that Paul Newman was Jewish, so she took down the poster and threw it away. That’s what I always think of when I think of Paul Newman.
    Harper is my favorite Paul Newman movie. Great scene with Shelley Winters.

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  23. Catherine said on September 29, 2008 at 12:23 am

    Mary: Oy!

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  24. Dexter said on September 29, 2008 at 3:02 am

    Rachel Maddow is a smash hit!

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-maddow29-2008sep29,0,670433.story

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  25. Jen said on September 29, 2008 at 7:10 am

    I haven’t seen a ton of Paul Newman’s movies, sadly, but I still remember seeing him in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in English class in high school and being impressed with his acting ability. Also, I couldn’t help but melt every time I saw those gorgeous blue eyes. Sigh.

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  26. Dorothy said on September 29, 2008 at 8:52 am

    Kenyon’s website (kenyon.edu) has a great tribute to Mr. Newman. Some really neat pictures of his college days here in the late 40’s.

    Mary for the record, his dad was Jewish but his mother was Catholic.

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  27. John said on September 29, 2008 at 9:18 am

    The Hustler was one of the greatest movies ever made. And for side-splitting mind-numbing laughter, Slap Shot worked wonders.

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  28. brian stouder said on September 29, 2008 at 9:55 am

    So, speaking of movies, we should have a Zombie update today, eh?

    (and, surely – at least one scene of the picture should utilize the Obama/Biden visit to D-town this past weekend, yes? It might be passe’, but GOP zombies wandering about, oblivious to the signs of the times right in front of them would have been irresistable to ME…)

    (….and of course, this may well illuminate why I ain’t an artist!)

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  29. ROgirl said on September 30, 2008 at 5:03 am

    The man was a mensch.

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