Paul Newman

Actors

Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, director, race car driver, and entrepreneur. He made his feature film debut with Victor Saville’s The Silver Chalice (1954), with Virginia Mayo, Pier Angeli, and Jack Palance; despite being nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance, Newman later called it “the worst motion picture produced during the 1950s.” He received widespread attention and acclaim for his performance in Richard Brooks‘ adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), with Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, Jack Carson and Madeline Sherwood.

Other early films include Robert Wise’s Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), with Angeli and Everett Sloane; The Rack (1956) Wendell Corey, Lee Marvin, and Walter Pidgeon; Michael Curtiz‘s The Helen Morgan Story (1957), with Ann Blyth and Richard Carlson; Until They Sail (1957), with Jean Simmons, Joan Fontaine, Piper Laurie, and Sandra Dee; Martin Ritt‘s The Long, Hot Summer (1958), with Joanne Woodward and Orson Welles; The Left Handed Gun (1958), with Lita Milan and John Dehner; Leo McCarey‘s Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), with Woodward and Joan Collins; Vincent Sherman’s The Young Philadelphians (1959), with Barbara Rush, Robert Vaughn, and Alexis Smith.

Roles in the 60s include Otto Preminger‘s Exodus (1960), with Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford, Sal Mineo, Jill Haworth, Lee J. Cobb, and John Derek; Robert Rosen‘s The Hustler (1961), with Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, and George C. Scott; Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (1962), with Diane Baker, Jessica Tandy, Ricardo Montalbán, Eli Wallach, and Arthur Kennedy; Martin Ritt’s Hud (1963), with Melvyn Douglas, Brandon deWilde, and Patricia Neal; The Prize (1963), with Elke Sommer and Edward G. Robinson; What a Way to Go! (1964), with Shirley MacLaine, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Bob Cummings, and Dick Van Dyke; Martin Ritt‘s The Outrage (1964), with Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Robinson, and William Shatner; Peter Ustinov’s Lady L (1965), with Sophia Loren, David Niven, and Cecil Parker; Jack Smight’z Harper (1966), with Lauren Bacall, Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, and Arthur Hill; Alfred Hitchcock‘s Torn Curtain (1966), with Julie Andrews; Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke (1967), with George Kennedy; and George Roy Hill‘s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), with Robert Redford and Katharine Ross.

Films in the 70s include John Huston‘s The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), with Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, and Victoria Principle; Hill’s The Sting (1973), with Redford, Robert Shaw, Eileen Brennan, Charles Durning, and Robert Earl Jones; The Towering Inferno (1974), with Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman, Jennifer Jones; Robert Altman‘s Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976), with Geraldine Chaplin, Will Sampson, Joel Grey, Harvey Keitel, and Burt Lancaster; Slap Shot (1977), with Strother Martin, Michael Ontkean, and Jennifer Warren; and Altman’s Quintet (1979), with Brigitte Fossey, Bibi Andersson, Fernando Rey, Vittorio Gassman, and Nina Van Pallandt.

Films in the 80s include When Time Ran Out (1980), with Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden, James Franciscus, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Burgess Meredith, Valentina Cortese, Veronica Hamel, Pat Morita, Edward Albert, and Barbara Carrera; Fort Apache: The Bronx (1981), with with Ed Asner, Ken Wahl, Danny Aiello, Rachel Ticotin, Pam Grier, and Kathleen Beller; Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice (1981), with Sally Field, Wilford Brimley, Melinda Dillon and Bob Balaban; Sidney Lumet’z The Verdict (1982), with Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Milo O’Shea, and Lindsay Crouse; Fat Man and Little Boy (1989), with Dwight Schultz, Bonnie Bedelia, John Cusack, Laura Dern, and John C. McGinley; and Blaze (1989), with Lolita Davidovich.

Films in the 90s include James Ivory’s Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990), with Woodward, Blythe Danner, Simon Callow, Kyra Sedgwick, and Robert Sean Leonard; Joel & Ethan Coen‘s The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), with Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh; Nobody’s Fool (1994), with Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Dylan Walsh, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Gene Saks, Josef Sommer, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Philip Bosco; Twilight (1998), with Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Reese Witherspoon, Stockard Channing, and James Garner; and Message in a Bottle (1999), with Kevin Costner, Robin Wright, John Savage, Illeana Douglas, and Robbie Coltrane.

Films in the 2000s include Where the Money Is (2000), with Linda Fiorentino and Dermot Mulroney; Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition (2002), with Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Daniel Craig, and Stanley Tucci; and was part of the main voice cast of Pixar’s Cars (2006), with Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Guido Quaroni, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond, John Ratzenberger, and Richard Petty. Archival voice recordings were used again in Cars 3 (2017), nine years after his death. 

Newman also directed the films Rachel, Rachel (1968), with Woodward, James Olson, Estelle Parsons, and Geraldine Fitzgerald; Sometimes a Great Nation (1970), with Henry Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, and Lee Remick; The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), with Woodward; Harry & Son (1984), with Robby Benson, Woodward, Ellen Barkin, Ossie Davis, Brimley, and Judith Ivey; and The Glass Menagerie (1987), with Woodward, John Malkovich, and Karen Allen.

A ten-time Oscar nominee, Newman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Martin Scorsese‘s The Color of Money (1986), with Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Helen Shaver, and John Turturro. He also received the Academy Honorary Award, and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. His other Oscar nominations were for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Absence of Malice (1981), The Verdict (1982), Nobody’s Fool (1994), and Road to Perdition (2002). He was the recipient of numerous other awards, including a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

In 1988, he founded the SeriousFun Children’s Network, a global family of summer camps and programs for children with serious illness which has served 290,076 children since its inception. In 2006, he also co-founded Safe Water Network with John Whitehead, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Josh Weston, former chairman of ADP, to improve access to safe water to underserved communities around the world. He was the husband of Oscar winning actress Joanne Woodward, co-starring together in numerous films together.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

  • The Silver Chalice (1954) – directed by Victor Saville
  • Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) – directed by Robert Wise
  • The Rack (1956) – directed by Arnold Laven
  • The Helen Morgan Story (1957) – directed by Michael Curtiz
  • Until They Sail (1957) – directed by Robert Wise
  • The Long, Hot Summer (1958) – directed by Martin Ritt
  • The Left Handed Gun (1958) – directed by Arthur Penn
  • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) – directed by Richard Brooks
  • Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1958) – directed by Leo McCarey
  • The Young Philadelphians (1959) – directed by Vincent Sherman
  • From the Terrace (1960) – directed by Mark Robson
  • Exodus (1960) – directed by Otto Preminger
  • The Hustler (1961) – directed by Robert Rossen
  • Paris Blues (1961) – directed by Martin Ritt
  • Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) – directed by Richard Brooks
  • Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (1962) – directed by Martin Ritt
  • Hud (1963) – directed by Martin Ritt
  • A New Kind of Love (1963) – directed by Melville Shavelson
  • The Prize (1963) – directed by Mark Robson
  • What a Way to Go! (1964) – directed by J. Lee Thompson
  • The Outrage (1964) – directed by Martin Ritt
  • Lady L (1965) – directed by Peter Ustinov
  • Harper (1966) – directed by Jack Smight – aka The Moving Target
  • Torn Curtain (1966) – directed by Alfred Hitchcock
  • Hombre (1967) – directed by Martin Ritt
  • Cool Hand Luke (1967) – directed by Stuart Rosenberg
  • The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968) – directed by Jack Smight
  • Rachel, Rachel (1968) – director only
  • Winning (1969) – directed by James Goldstone
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – directed by George Roy Hill
  • WUSA (1970) – directed by Stuart Rosenberg
  • King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis (1970) – directed by by Sidney Lumet & Joseph L. Mankiewicz – documentary
  • Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) – also director
  • Once Upon a Wheel (1971) – directed by David Winters – TV documentary
  • Pocket Money (1972) – directed by Stuart Rosenberg
  • The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972) – director only
  • The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) – directed by John Huston
  • The Mackintosh Man (1973) – directed by John Huston
  • The Towering Inferno (1974) – directed by John Guillermin
  • The Drowning Pool (1975) – directed by Stuart Rosenberg
  • Silent Movie (1976) – directed by Mel Brooks – cameo as himself
  • Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976) – directed by Robert Altman
  • Slap Shot (1977) – directed by George Roy Hill
  • Quintet (1979) – directed by Robert Altman
  • When Time Ran Out… (1980) – directed by John Goldstone
  • The Shadow Box (1980) – director only – TV movie
  • Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981) – directed by Daniel Petrie
  • Absence of Malice (1981) – directed by Sydney Pollack
  • Come Along with Me (1982) – directed by Joanne Woodward – TV movie
  • The Verdict (1982) – directed by Sidney Lumet
  • Harry & Son (1984) – also director, co-writer, co-producer
  • The Color of Money (1986) – directed by Martin Scorsese
  • The Glass Menagerie (1987) – director only
  • Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) – directed by Roland Joffé
  • Blaze (1989) – directed by Ron Shelton
  • Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) – directed by James Ivory
  • The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen
  • Nobody’s Fool (1994) – directed by Robert Benton
  • Twilight (1998) – directed by Robert Benton
  • Message in a Bottle (1999) – directed by Luis Mandoki
  • Where the Money Is (2000) – directed by Marek Kanievska
  • Road to Perdition (2002) – directed by Sam Mendes
  • Our Town (2003) – directed by James Naughton
  • Empire Falls (2005) – directed by Fred Schepisi – miniseries
  • Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005) – directed by Mark Cowen – documentary short – narrator
  • Cars (2006) – directed by John Lasseter
  • Mater and the Ghostlight (2006) – directed by John Lasseter – short
  • Dale (2007) – directed by Rory Karpf & Mike Viney – documentary – narrator
  • The Meerkats (2008) – directed by James Honeyborne – documentary – narrator – posthumous release
  • Cars 3 (2017) – directed by Brian Fee – archive audio