Paul Newman (1925-2008)

Sad day, yesterday. It was raining buckets in Baltimore, too, which seemed especially appropriate.
Paul Newman was the first crush I had on an actor from the past.

(Actually, that's a lie.  He was the second.  Gene Kelly was the first, in this movie, which was my favorite from age 4 to 7, approximately).

I'd say, however, that Paul Newman was the first serious crush I had on an actor from the past, and it brought up all sorts of new ideas in my thirteen-year-old head about the randomness of when people are born, and into which generation (i.e., why was I not born Joanne Woodward?).

While he’s wonderful and charming in nearly all his movies, my favorites remain:

-       Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – (1969) if only for his priceless face in the weirdish photo montage scene where Robert Redford is dancing with Katherine Ross, and Newman is sitting at his table, alone.  You just want to hug him.

-       The Long, Hot Summer – (1958, based on the short story by William Faulkner) because it kills me, the sweaty romantic tension between Newman and Joanne Woodward, his widow.  They met on set, and were married for fifty years.  In our voyeuristic world of momentary celebrity marriages, they were a low profile couple of class.

My family saw him at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, when Japan played South Korea in badminton.  Apparently, he was known to be quite a fan of the sport.  Badminton!  I mean, he would.

Someone told me he was actually extremely short—a fact I try to ignore, because in my mind he was larger than life.