Authors: Shawn Levy
It was a disconcerting sight, and Newman’s words didn’t offer much reassurance. At Indy he told a small press conference, “One thing we’re looking forward to is winning this race. There are other races, and God knows eight championships is nothing to be sneezed at, but we’ll be there one of these days. I may be someplace else watching from above, but we’re going to win this one way or the other.”
It would have been hard to put a shiny spin on such words emanating from such a gaunt fellow. And unfortunately no one was in a position
to do even that much. Cowan had himself been fighting cancer, and just as the worst fears for Newman’s health seemed to be confirmed, no reassuring responses were coming from his office. Just one week after Newman spoke at Indy, Cowan died. A week after that the Westport Country Playhouse announced that Newman would be unable to direct
Of Mice and Men
in the fall. And in early June Newman was photographed once again, standing beside Martha Stewart at a charity function at her Westport home and looking as frail as he had in Indianapolis.
Now the mainstream press picked up the story. The Associated Press got A. E. Hotchner on the phone, and he confirmed that Newman was battling cancer and that it was a back-and-forth struggle. “He’s doing all the right stuff,” he said. “Paul is a fighter. He seems to be going through a good period right now. Everybody is hopeful. That’s all we know.” Two other close associates were contacted: James Naughton told the wire service, “I think he’s feeling quite well,” and Michael Brockman agreed: “I think he’s doing better than he was. I think he looks great. I wish I looked that good.” An official statement from Cowan’s successor declared that Newman was “doing nicely”—a classic nondenial. The following day Hotchner tried to backpedal by denying he had used the word
cancer
when initially contacted. (The AP stood by its account.) But now the word was out, and no one doubted it: Newman was dying. It was just a matter of time.
He made calls to longtime friends and chatted, as if he had merely been curious about how they were doing and was taking a moment to check in. He was drinking milk shakes, trying to put on some weight. He was traveling back and forth between New York, where he was being treated by doctors, and Westport, where he was given ease. A very select few friends and associates came by to see him, including Robert Redford, who recalled, “He’d been in and out of the hospital. I knew what the deal was, and he knew what the deal was, and we didn’t talk about it. We talked about what was on our minds: the election, politics, what needed to be done. Ours was a relationship that didn’t need a lot of words.”
In August he was photographed leaving Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan in a wheelchair, and word surfaced that
he had told Joanne and his daughters and his doctors that he wanted no more chemotherapy, that he was prepared to go home to Westport and see out his illness and his life. On the thirteenth of that month Lime Rock Park was shut to the public for a few hours so that Newman could gun around it in the Corvette that his team had prepared for him that spring in hopes that he would be able to run a couple of races during the season. Joanne and the girls rode behind him in the Volvo station wagon with the V-8 under the hood.
Later that month he visited the original Hole in the Wall Camp in Ashford one last time. He and Joanne toured the grounds in a golf cart and then ate sandwiches at a table beside the pond. “All of a sudden,” remembered Ray Lamontagne, the camp director, “Paul looked up with this look of joy on his face. He said, ‘I can still hear the laughter of the children!’”
Back in Westport in the coming weeks, Joanne kept up her scheduled tasks with the Playhouse and the daily chores of the household. And in a crucial way, their lives together changed. He used to joke about being driven around by her—“When we start out together and I’m driving, she always says, ‘Now, we’re not in a hurry, are we?’ When we start out together and she’s driving, I always say, ‘Now, we’re not in a hurry.’ They’re for different reasons.” But now she was the one driving him, and he would sit in the car while she ran errands around town or bought corn from a roadside vegetable stand. In September she attended a fund-raising gala at the Playhouse in the company of such notables as Angela Lansbury, Julia Roberts, James Earl Jones, and Bernadette Peters. A few days later she attended an antiquecar show at a nearby country club. Newman had been meant to accompany her to both events, but he stayed home.
And it was at home, on the afternoon of Friday, September 26, that he died.
W
ORD TRICKLED
out in the way it did in the age of instant media: in a bunch of disparate places seemingly at once and from no single source.
Awards Daily, an inside-showbiz blog, was first with an uncredited report stating simply, “Paul Newman has died,” citing a confidential
but supposedly reliable tipster; the notice was live on the site only for a few hours late Friday night before disappearing, as if it had been another false alarm. A few hours later the director of the Hole in the Wall camp in Italy declared to a staff meeting that he had received an e-mail telling him, “Paul Newman is no longer with us.” News of these words was published on the websites of several Italian newspapers and then echoed similarly in Spain and France.
At approximately nine a.m. Connecticut time on Saturday morning, a press release was issued by Newman’s Own Foundation; Newman’s passing wasn’t explicitly acknowledged, but he was referred to in the past tense. The notice declared, “Paul Newman’s craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.”
Similar press releases from the Hole in the Wall Gang camps and the Westport Country Playhouse followed. Late in the day an official obituary was released. And then there was a statement from his five daughters, which said, in part, “Paul Newman played many unforgettable roles. But the ones for which he was proudest never had top billing on the marquee. Devoted husband. Loving father. Adoring grandfather. Dedicated philanthropist… He will be profoundly missed by those whose lives he touched, but he leaves us with extraordinary inspiration to draw upon.”
The response was overwhelming. The many reports of his ill health meant that news agencies all over the world had prepared full obituaries in advance of the inevitable. Within twenty-four hours more than five thousand news stories about Newman appeared online in the English language alone. On Sunday’s front pages almost every major newspaper in the United States marked his passing with a lengthy, biography-size account of his days and works. There were appreciations of his film and stage performances; there were reminiscences of his decades of racing; there were stories about his food businesses and the charitable largesse that flowed from them. The newspapers of little towns where Newman had made films or driven in races or helped build camps for ailing children seemed all to run articles filled with anecdotes about his visits. In the towns in which he’d lived—Cleveland,
New York, Los Angeles, Westport—neighbors spoke to newspapers of his desire to remain an ordinary man despite his extraordinary fame and deeds. State news agencies around the world, including those in such unlikely places as Iran and Cuba, marked his passing.
There was an official statement from Art Newman, who described himself and his wife as “devastated,” adding “Paul was my loyal and supportive brother for the past eighty-three years. Although he was a year younger, for the time we were boys I always considered him my role model and mentor…He was just about the best human being I have ever known.”
Tributes poured in from Hollywood. “Sometimes God makes perfect people, and Paul Newman was one of them,” said Sally Field. “I loved that man with all my heart,” declared Elizabeth Taylor. “Everything about Paul Newman was real,” Gene Hackman said. “He was always a hero of mine both as an actor and as a man,” offered Tim Robbins. And George Clooney suggested, “He set the bar too high for the rest of us. Not just actors, but all of us.”
Throughout the world of auto racing, his teammates, colleagues, and competitors offered heartfelt condolences and fond memories. “His pure joy at winning a pole position or winning a race exemplified the spirit he brought to his life and to all those that knew him,” said Carl Haas. “He was a man of class,” remarked Bobby Rahal, “and he was also deservedly very highly regarded for his driving skills.” “He could not only talk the talk on film,” added Jack Roush, “but, more important, he could walk the walk as a private citizen.”
A. E. Hotchner, who knew him longer and better than almost anybody, said, “Paul was an unadorned man. He was simple and direct and honest and off-center and mischievous and romantic and very handsome… He was the same man in 2008 that he was in 1956—unchanged, despite all the honors and the movie stardom.” Tom Cruise wrote a tribute to his costar and mentor in an issue of
People
magazine that had Newman’s face on its cover. Robert Redford did the same in an issue of
Time.
In the pages of the
New York Times
, artistic and charitable organizations wishing to memorialize Newman bought so many classified obituaries that new ones appeared for four days. On the Internet
Newman-Haas-Lanigan, Newman’s Own, the Hole in the Wall Camps Association, and Kenyon College all published memorials that included pictures, video clips, and official statements. (On the Kenyon campus itself flags were lowered to half-staff, and the chapel bells were rung forty-nine times in commemoration of the year of Newman’s graduation.) National broadcast and cable networks prepared tributes, including expanded versions of a biographical documentary on the Biography Channel and an all-day festival of representative films on Turner Classic Movies. Video store shelves were emptied by renters eager to see
The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, Slap Shot, The Verdict
, and
Nobody’s Fool
while the memory of their star was still vivid. Broadway theater owners made plans to dim their marquee lights for three minutes on an upcoming evening in Newman’s memory. An auction was held on eBay for a special helmet worn during the summer by Graham Rahal, then racing for Newman-Haas; decorated with images of Newman’s movie posters, it fetched $40,900 for one of the Hole in the Wall camps.
In Syracuse, New York, a minor-league hockey team made plans to retire the number 7 jersey of the fictional Reggie Dunlop, whom Newman had portrayed on the team’s ice three decades earlier. In San Francisco a benefit performance for a Hole in the Wall Camp—passages of Ernest Hemingway read by the likes of Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, and Warren Beatty—was turned into a memorial tribute. In Westport the production of
Of Mice and Men
that he was to have directed was dedicated to him, and the announcement of his name was greeted with standing ovations at each performance. At Lime Rock Park officials considered a monument in his honor, or perhaps naming a stretch of the track for him, although there was, one admitted, “no corner that he always went off of.” In March 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution honoring his “humanitarian works and incomparable talents.”
On the day of his passing, as the news spread, members of the public wishing to pay respects left flowers on Newman’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but people who tried to leave similar remembrances at the Westport Country Playhouse were met with a sign asking them to make donations to the Hole in the Wall Camps instead. Elsewhere in
town a remembrance book
—Our Town Remembers Paul Newman—
was made available to Westporters who wished to inscribe their memories and good thoughts. Reporters gathered near the Newmans’ house but kept a respectful distance; a pair of police cars stood by to keep order, needlessly.
Inside, the family made plans according with Newman’s wishes: cremation and a private memorial service, followed by a gathering at the Dressing Room, and then eventually the scattering of ashes, perhaps on the pond at the first Hole in the Wall Camp. On Saturday afternoon Lissy Newman, wearing one of her father’s “Old Guys Rule” caps, emerged to speak to TV cameras on what was her own forty-seventh birthday. “He was just incredible,” she said of his final days. “We’re really blessed and very, very lucky. We had awesome people helping us and—it was as beautiful as it could be.” Like others, she summed up her father’s life not by his film work or his racing career or his entrepreneurism but by his charitable deeds. “Just look out for each other,” she said. “That’s what he was all about …So many of his ideas were reaching out. I think that’s what he’d like people to remember.”
Lissy’s call to charitable action underscored the overriding theme of the coverage of Newman’s death. As much as they noted the passing of the gorgeous man, the devoted husband, the accomplished performer, the iconic movie star, the steely driver, and the puckish food entrepreneur, the obituaries took special note of the man of charity and philanthropy who had done so much for so many, particularly the ailing children who attended the Hole in the Wall camps.
At his passing the world stopped, despite a presidential election season and an economic crisis, to pay due homage to a fine and rare individual. The sheer volume of death notices, and their universal sentiment of respect and tribute, made it evident that the world had lost more than an actor. Indeed, the tone of reverence would surely have made Newman uncomfortable if he’d heard it.
During those long months of sickness, he had come, in fact, to see himself not as a major artist or a great man but rather as someone who had simply given back the least bit of what had been granted him. He believed that his legacy would not be found in films or photographs or racing trophies or salad dressings or even the stack of heartfelt obituaries
and memorials. Rather, he felt, it was those camps, and the affirmation, comfort, hope, rebirth, and freedom they afforded all those endangered children, that were his greatest accomplishment. And for the opportunity to help those children he felt not so much pride as gratitude.