Paul Newman

Born: January 26, 1925, Shaker Heights, Ohio
Died: September 26, 2008 (age 83), Westport, Connecticut

Paul Newman (Paul Leonard Newman) was an Academy Award winning and seven time Academy Award nominated American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film, The Color of Money, three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award, and many honorary awards.

He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.

Newman was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of May 2007, these donations had exceeded $220 million.

What do you know about Paul Newman? Try this quick quiz.

1. Newman served in the Navy in World War II in the Pacific theater. He qualified as a rear-seat radioman and gunner in torpedo bombers. He flew from aircraft carriers as a tail gunner in the Avenger torpedo bomber. As a radioman/gunner, he served aboard the USS Bunker Hill during the battle for Okinawa in the spring of 1945. He was ordered to the ship with a draft of replacements shortly before the attack but, by a fluke of war, was held back because his pilot had an ear infection. The rest of his detail died.

• True or False?

2. Newman made his Broadway theater debut in an original production of with Kim Stanley. What was the Broadway play?

• Picnic
• The Graduate
• Come Home Little One

3. His first movie was The Silver Chalice (1954). In 1955, Newman would co-star with Eva Marie Saint and Frank Sinatra in a live [and color] television broadcast of a stage play. What was the play?

4. The Left Handed Gun is a 1958 western film starring Paul Newman as Billy the Kid. The film was directed by Arthur Penn in his first work as film director and the screenplay was written by Leslie Stevens from a play by Gore Vidal. Who played Pat Garrett?

• John Dehner
• James Best
• Chuck Connors

5. Newman stars in Hud. It is a 1963 film which tells the story of a self-centered, modern-day cowboy. It is based on the novel Horseman, Pass By. Who wrote the novel?

• Louis L’Amour
• Zane Grey
• Larry McMurtry

6. Hombre is a 1967 Revisionist Western film directed by Martin Ritt, based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard. It stars Paul Newman in the title role. How many films had Martin Ritt directed with Paul Newman?

• 2
• 4
• 6

7. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film that tells the story of bank robbers Butch Cassidy (played by Paul Newman) and his partner The Sundance Kid (played by Robert Redford). The film is only loosely based on historical fact, but it popularized the legends of these Western icons. Who was originally picked to play with Newman in the movie?

• Robert Redford
• Warren Beatty
• Steve McQueen

8. What was the 1972 Western film written by John Milius, directed by John Huston, and starring Paul Newman?

9. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson is a 1976 revisionist Western directed by Robert Altman. It stars Paul Newman as Bill Cody. The film opens in 1885 with the arrival of an important new guest star in Cody’s grand illusion, Chief Crazy Horse (Frank Kaquitts) of Little Big Horn fame.

True or False?

10. What was the movie that Newman won his Academy Award for Best Actor Oscar?

11. Where is Paul Newman buried?

• Cremated, ashes given to family
• Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California
• Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California

Answers

1. True
2. Picnic
3. Our Town
4. John Dehner
5. Larry McMurtry
6. 6
7. Steve McQueen
8. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
9. False. It was Chief Sitting Bull.
10. The Color of Money
11. Cremated, ashes given to family