Saturday, September 27, 2008
RIP Paul Newman
“What a sweet, decent guy Paul was,” [a friend of Paul Newman] remembers. “Yes, he was ambitious, but you got the feeling he’d never tolerate cruelty. And that he’d stand up for you if you needed protection.”
If ever an individual seemed born under a lucky star it was Paul Newman. The luck which followed him his entire life was appreciated: “It’s allowed me to take chances, to take risks. To get close to a lot of edges without falling off.” He always seemed to keep his perspective, some sense of context.
It's rare and telling of their character when people know where they stop and the Fates take a hand. It would have been so easy for him to believe his press clippings and drift like most celebrities in a sea of sycophants.
Newman appreciated his circumstance, did not flaunt it, use it to preach or squeeze more profit, but rather he managed to do so much good. A celebrity who, if we can trust his public self, seemed shy, a gentle soul, whose first instinct was modesty and generosity. A rare celebrity — one for whom you felt glad for their success.
Written just before his death , this Vanity Fair piece makes the point well,
There has never been anyone in show business like Paul Newman. He is as famous as Oprah but doesn’t flaunt his celebrity. He has changed the lives of literally thousands of people (among them more than 100,000 children) with his generosity, and he’s entertained us and moved us with his films. He is an honorable man—“a man of conscience,” his friend Gore Vidal said. If Newman doesn’t want to tell us about his cancer (if he has cancer), why should he? As he has said so often about his private life, “It’s nobody’s business.”