Was he the last of the true greats?

[fpb]

God knows. But find me one actor around today worth Paul Newman. Positively the most beautiful man ever to act in Hollywood, he was also an astounding actor, and he could direct on top of it. God, how he will be missed.

Comments

[becomethesea.livejournal.com]

I am just a young'un, but he moved me, too. I will miss his artistry.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Check my answer to soavezefiretto, below.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

An excellent example of how it is never too late to be better. As an artist he was good, but as a man he really achieved greatness.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Check my answer to soavezefiretto, below.

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

Amen to all of that.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

An interesting angle on his life, which I found in another blog.

In a prior lifetime I worked in grocery retail. I remember when the Newman's own brand was presented. I was initially unconvinced at his name's ability to sell but sell it did. Well, his punim could sell pasta sauce and salad dressing! Mine couldn't then and still can't!

What people do not know is the complexities of navigating the retail supplier business and the difficulty in breaking into shelf space; most actors are dumb as a bag of hammers and too stoned to do the mental exercises necessary to run a successful business. Newman broke all the rules to succeed- he took on better funded national brands and outsold them, he did it on a shoestring budget and he did it faster than anyone believed possible. I specifically recall a rep for his brand telling me the story of Newman getting into the business. He got the right people into the room and did not take no for an answer; when told it would take years to get to his goals, he told his people he wanted it done in less than two years. What he wanted to do with the proceeds from the brand was too important to him to wait.

He called in every favor ever owed him to get the PR and exposure that most products only dream of; his own people could not believe how fast the brand took off.

And in case anyone wondered about Newman's hurry, it was because EVERY PENNY of profit on his own-brand dressings went on his vast charities. As did millions of dollars of the money he made on movies. And he never bothered to say much about it.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

Personal side note - when I was in school, the kids discovered an interview where Paul Newman said when he was in college, he drank a case of beer a day. Being idiots, lots of kids decided to mimic the stunt. Paul Newman heard about them, and wrote the school a personal letter. His son had died from drug and alcohol abuse. It hurt him to have his name associated with that behavior, and he asked the students who chose to celebrate his birthday that way to stop and engage in some healthy competition instead. No one would have blamed him for ignoring a bunch of kids in a tiny school in a small town. He put himself on the line to make preserve his good name when a bunch of kids he never met abused it.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And quite possibly to save a life or two, and the future of a number of young men. This is consistent with everything I heard about the man.

"You can only measure the size of an oak after it has fallen".

[darkthirty.livejournal.com]

I also loved how Paul so vocally supported McCarthy, in McCarthy's glory days.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I just found out what has to be the ultimate irony. The man with the brightest and most beautiful blue eyes in Hollywood was - get this - colour-blind!