Paul Newman net worth is $50 Million. Also know about Paul Newman bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

Paul Newman Wiki Biography

Paul Leonard Newman was born on 26 January 1925, in Shaker Heights, Ohio USA of Slovak (mother) and Jewish/Hungarian-Polish (father) descent. He is still a legendary actor, film director, entrepreneur, professional racing driver, auto racing team owner. Being a winner of various awards including Academy Award for the Best Actor and Performance, six Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Cannes Film Festival Award and Emmy Award added a lot to the total amount of Paul Newman’s wealth.

So just how rich was Paul Newman? Sources estimate that Paul’s net worth was $50 million, accumulated during his acting career spanning over 50 years, plus business interests.

Paul Newman was a wireless operator-air gunner in the US Navy during World War 2, after which he  graduated from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama and economics, then attending the Yale School of Drama and touring with the Woodstock theatre company. He settled in New York in 1951, performing in Broadway productions, and then on television. However, Newman’s net worth rose significantly from the early years of his career as an actor in films, because Paul won the Cinema Writers Circle Award for Best Foreign Actor  in 1956, for his Rocky Graziano role in ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ directed by Robert Wise. In 1958, Newman increased his net worth through his Best Actor Award in the Cannes Film Festival, for his Ben Quick role in ‘The Long, Hot Summer’ directed by Martin Ritt. In 1961, he received three Awards for his prominent role of Eddie Felson in the film ‘Hustler’ directed by Robert Rossen.

Paul’s net worth rose further after he showed up on TV, the most successful work being the winner of World TV Festival Awards, ‘Once Upon a Wheel’ television documentary on auto racing in which Paul Newman was the host, working with Mario Andretti, Hugh Downs, Dean Martin and Cesar Romero.

Other subsequent works which brought Awards to Paul Newman’s collection were his roles in ‘The Verdict’ directed by Sidney Lumet, ‘The Color of Money” directed by Martin Scorsese, ‘Nobody’s Fool’ directed by Robert Benton and co-starring with Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith, Dylan Walsh and Bruce Willis, ‘Road to Perdition’ by Sam Mendes, ‘Our Town’ directed by James Naughton, ‘Empire Falls’ directed by Fred Scheipisi co-starring with Helen Hunt, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joanne Woodward.

Paul Newman’s other outstanding performances included roles in ‘Exodus'(1960), “Hud”(1963), “Harper” (1966), “Hombre”(1967), “Cool Hand Luke”(1967), “The Towering Inferno”(1974), and “Slap Shot”(1977). He teamed with Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”(1969) and “The Sting”(1973). Paul Newman’s net worth indeed rose consistently.

However, Paul’s wealth increased not only through his career in cinema and television, but also through his car racing and the owner of racing team. Paul Newman himself won four national championships in Sports Car Club of America. Then he formed a professional auto team called ‘Newman Freeman Racing’.

In his personal life, Paul Newman was married to Jackie Witte(1949-58), and they had three children, one – Scott – dying after overdosing on drugs. Paul Newman established Newman Centre for drug abuse prevention in the memory of his son. In 1958 Paul Newman married actress Joanne Woodward, and they also had three children. Paul Newman died in 2008 from lung cancer.

IMDB Wikipedia $50 million 1925 2008 5 ft 9 in (1.77 m) Activist Actor American film directors Auto racing Businessperson Cannes Film Festival Cinema of the United States Connecticut Directors Emmy Award Entertainment Entrepreneur Film director Film producer Films Golden Globe Award Hot Summer Jackie Witte Jackie Witte (m. 1949–1958) January 26 Jewish people Joanne Woodward Joanne Woodward (m. 1958–2008) King Cool Ohio Once Upon a Wheel P.L. Neuman Paul Leonard Newman Paul Newman Paul Newman Net Worth. Academy Award Philanthropist PL Race car driver Scott Newman Screen Actors Guild Award September 26 Shaker Heights Slovak American Somebody Up There Likes Me Susan Kendall Newman The Color of Money The Long The Verdict United States United States of America Voice Actor Westport

Paul Newman Quick Info

Paul Newman Trademarks

1. Bright blue eyes
2. While he played similar system-bucking, troubled young men as such near contemporaries as Marlon Brando and James Dean, Newman’s characters were often more humorous, introspective and self-assured. Newman’s character’s conflicts were often ironic and (intentionally) borderline-absurd.
3. He was known for his wry, puckish sense of humor, mainly off-screen.
4. Often played detached yet charismatic anti-heroes and rebels
5. His movies often reflect his political views

Paul Newman Quotes

• [on his salad dressing franchise] I’ve had more fun doing this than anything else I’ve done in a long time. But remember: it’s really my way of telling Ronald Reagan that his salad days are over.
• Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own experiences.
• [on Marlon Brando] I’ve always envied Marlon’s talent, which was always so much greater than anybody else’s. I feel cheated he hasn’t made more films, but I understand his reason. I think he felt that acting was not a manly profession sometimes and sometimes I feel the same way. But with Marlon it’s more that he’s too good for any of this.
• We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.
• I felt guilty as hell about leaving my wife and children, and I will carry that guilt for the rest of my life. But the fact that Joanne and I are still together after all those years proves I took the right decision.
• I can say fairly safely that I didn’t really know much about acting until I got to be in my fifties.
• I have no natural gift to be anything – not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches – not anything. So I’ve worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.
• If anyone had ever told me 20 years ago I’d be sitting in a room with peach walls, I would have told them to take a nap in a urinal.
• [1994] I’m not mellower, I’m not less angry, I’m not less self-critical, I’m not less tenacious. Maybe the best part is that your liver can’t handle those beers at noon anymore.
• Once you’ve seen your face on a bottle of salad dressing, it’s hard to take yourself seriously.
• [2005] It’d be lunatic to try to get into politics at my age. I don’t think I’d have the stomach for it. I wish I felt a little more comfortable about the direction that we’re going. It does not seem to be of the people, by the people and for the people. It seems to be about something else completely different. I think part of it is the media’s fault for not being more aggressive and persistent and nasty and I think it’s the people’s fault for not paying attention. That’s not a good combination. It allows people in government to do pretty much what they want.
• [on Henry Fonda] If I can be like Henry Fonda, then I look forward to aging to sixty and beyond — and not just because Hank finally won the Oscar he deserved. He was a good character actor and a good actor in the American tradition of playing variations on oneself.
• [on Tom Cruise] He’s got a lot of actor’s courage. He doesn’t mind climbing up there and jumping off. It’s nice to watch that.
• [on Dame Julie Andrews] The last of the really great dames.
• [on a $10-million donation he made to his alma mater] I owe Kenyon College a great deal. I even started my first business, a laundry service, there, and I depended on the extra $60 a week.
• [2007] I have an extraordinary attention span. I manage to juggle two or three different ideas at the same time, and that’s probably, if I have a gift, that’s probably the best gift that’s given me.
• [asked why he thought he became so successful as an actor] I have a face that does not belong to a thief.
• I’m not able to work anymore as an actor and still at the level that I would want to. I’m just, you know, you start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So I think that’s pretty much a closed book for me.
• I wasn’t driven to acting by an inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business.
• Ever since Slap Shot (1977), I’ve been swearing more. I knew I had a problem one day when I turned to my daughter and said, “Would you please pass the fucking salt?”.
• You can’t stop being a citizen just because you have a Screen Actors’ Guild card.
• [Joanne Woodward] has always given me unconditional support in all my choices and endeavors, and that includes my race car driving, which she deplores. To me, that’s love.
• To be an actor, you have to be a child.
• The characters I have the least in common with are the ones I have the greatest success with. The further a role is from my own experience, the more I try to deepen it.
• Acting isn’t really a creative process, it’s an interpretative one.
• As long as my heart continues to beat, I think I will continue.
• Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.
• Men experience many passions in a lifetime. One passion drives away the one before it.
• A man with no enemies is a man with no character.
• I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried – who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn’t complacent, who doesn’t cop out.
• I don’t think there’s anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It’s the other attitude that confuses me.
• I would like it if people would think that beyond Newman, there’s a spirit that takes action, a heart, and a talent that doesn’t come from my blue eyes.
• Almost everything I learned about being an actor came from those early years at the Actor’s Studio.
• Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own experiences.
• A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs.
• In the early days of films, the movie star in this country replaced royalty. They’ve been demoted since then but they’re still treated as beings larger than life.
• I will continue to get behind the wheel of a racing car as long as I am able. But that could all end tomorrow…
• I’m always puzzled by this talk about star… image. I think there’s people who are writers or barbers or mechanics or race car drivers that have certain recognizable personalities, and I don’t think just because they happen to be on the screen that it makes them any more exceptional.
• [on his days as a member of the Actors Studio] I remember someone who helped me a lot in my early days. We were just rehearsing a scene and I remember she stopped me with an absolute rifle shot of a clap and grabbed my shirt and said, “You are not thinking, you are just thinking you are thinking.” And if you watch actors, you can tell those who don’t necessarily indicate in broad strokes what’s going on, but you can really see in their eyes that they are going through a process.
• [1970s] I think I get a very unfortunate view of the press. I think of what is written about me, about 5% of it is accurate. I’m not comfortable with them, they’re not comfortable with me. I certainly am not comfortable with photographers.
• I picture my epitaph: “Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.”
• [explaining why he accepted The Silver Chalice (1954) for his film debut] After the success of “Picnic”, I had a lot of offers from Hollywood and I never accepted any of them. Finally, my agent said, “You know, they’re going to keep knocking on your door and knocking on your door and at some point they’re going to stop. So you better make sure you say ‘Yes’ before that stop occurs”. That was when somebody sent me a copy of “The Silver Chalice” and I got talked into it. I knew that was going to be a bomb.
• [on his long marriage to Joanne Woodward] We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger.
• I can remember in my high school days and I kept thinking to myself, “Now, why did those actors go out in public after a certain age?” I mean, why would they wanna blow this image they’d worked so hard and allow themselves to be photographed? They should have just stayed at home and stayed young and youthful. And now it’s there for everybody to look at – all our words, stuttering, and bad posture. All those things that should never happen, really. Well, times change. Yeah, it ain’t so bad!
• That I survived the first film I did [The Silver Chalice (1954)] was extraordinarily good fortune. I mean, I had dogs chasing me down the street. I was wearing this tiny little Greek cocktail dress – with MY legs! Good Lord, it was really bad. In fact, it was the worst film made in the 1950s. My first review said that “Mr. Newman delivers his lines with the emotional fervor of a Putnam stop conductor announcing local stop”.
• [on winning his first Oscar after so many losses] It’s like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, “I’m terribly sorry. I’m tired”.
• [on why he decided to stay in Connecticut] Better than Montana… and my wife and I found a nice cemetery here.
• I had no natural gift to be anything–not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches–not anything. So I’ve worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.
• The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud (1963) in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it’s flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they’re mixing me up with the roles I play – characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.
• [what wife Joanne Woodward thinks of his love for racing] She thinks competitive driving is the silliest thing in the world. It is also very scary for her, and she doesn’t much care for it.
• I’ve been accused of being aloof. I’m not. I’m just wary.
• Twenty-five years ago, I couldn’t walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don’t ask me about my movies and they don’t ask me about my salad dressing because they don’t know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.
• I’ve repeatedly said that for people as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an uncommonly good marriage. We are actors. We make pictures and that’s about all we have in common. Maybe that’s enough. Wives shouldn’t feel obligated to accompany their husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with the neighborhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other…You can’t spend a lifetime breathing down each other’s necks.
• [his advice to young actors just starting out] Study your craft and know who you are and what’s special about you. Find out what everyone does on a film set, ask questions and listen. Make sure you live life, which means don’t do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society.
• I never ask my wife [actress Joanne Woodward] about my flaws. Instead, I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don’t want any woman to look under the carpet, guys, because there’s lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990), comes closest to who I really am. I personally don’t think there’s one character who comes close… but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don’t have a solid opinion about.
• I started my career giving a clinic in bad acting in the film, The Silver Chalice (1954) and now I’m playing a crusty old man who’s an animated automobile [in Cars (2006)]. That’s a creative arc for you, isn’t it?
• Being on [President Richard Nixon’s] enemies list was the highest single honor I’ve ever received. Who knows who’s listening to me now and what government list I’m on?
• For those of you who like to scarf your popcorn in the sack, the good news is that Newman’s Own contains an aphrodisiac.
• Every time I get a script it’s a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It’s like falling in love. You can’t give a reason why.
• If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.
• I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.
• You can’t be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: “Holy Christ, whaddya know – I’m still around!” It’s absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.
• [on Alfred Hitchcock] I think Hitch and I could have really hit it off, but the script kept getting in the way.
• I’m a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter, either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being… by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.
• I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can’t give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a
• It’s all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now – my good Lord – look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd.
• When I realized I was going to have to be a whore, to put my face on the label, I decided that the only way I could do it was to give away all the money we make. Over the years, that ethical stance has given us a 30 per cent boost. One in three customers buys my products because all the profits go to good causes and the rest buy the stuff because it is good.
• If I ever feel like I’m doing something I’ve done before, I scrap it and start over again.
• I really just can’t watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts.
• [on philanthropy] You can only put away so much stuff in your closet.
• The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films.
• [1982] Acting is like letting your pants down – you’re exposed.
• [1974, on the success of his collaborations with wife Joanne Woodward] You should see us when we get back to the bedroom.
• [in response to radio interviewer who asked if he would co-star with Robert Redford in a sequel to Indecent Proposal (1993)] Like a rocket! I’d shack up with anyone for a million dollars. I’d shack up with a gorilla for a million, plus 10%.
• [responding to an interviewer’s question as to why he was never “tempted” by the many beautiful Hollywood actresses he worked with] Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?

Paul Newman Important Facts

• $5,000,000
• $1,000,000 + 10% of gross
• $500,000 and profit participation
• $1,200,000
• $750,000
• $1,100,000
• $750,000 + 10% of gross
• $350,000 + percentage of profits
• $200,000
• $17,000
• With the change in zodiac signs he would now be a Capricorn instead of an Aquarius and Joanne is now an Aquarius instead of a Pisces.
• Became friends with future Prime Minister of Sweden, Olof Palme when they were students at Kenyon College in Ohio in 1940s.
• Separated from his wife during the filming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) due to his affair with journalist Nancy Bacon.
• He was a heavy smoker for thirty years.
• He later regretting making Exodus (1960).
• His and Joanne’s daughters are named after their moms the first Character she ever played on film and a Character in Lawrence Durrell’s novel the Alexandria Quartet during her last pregnancy they had hoped for a boy so when it was another girl they chose Claire “Clea” from the Durrell novel which Joanne had been reading in the weeks before she gave birth.
• Pictured on a USA ‘forever’ postage stamp issued 18 September 2015. Price on day of issue was 49¢.
• The births of his and Joanne’s daughters were announced in the Milestones columns of the Time magazine issues for 20 April 1959, 6 October 1961, and 30 April 1965 respectively; while his oldest grandson Peter’s birth was announced in the Passages column of People magazine’s 3 June 1996 issue.
• Did not start training to be an actor until he was age 26.
• This was little known that he was a skilled jazz and blue piano player, like Clint Eastwood. One photo was taken which appears to show him playing while Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin sing, while Robert Mitchum and James Garner look on.
• Had appeared in six films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Hustler (1961), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Verdict (1982). Only The Sting (1973) won in the category.
• The longest period he had gone without an Oscar nomination was 13 years between his Best Picture nomination for Rachel, Rachel (1968) and his Best Actor nomination for Absence of Malice (1981).
• He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7060 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 1, 1994.
• Attended the month long festivities at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in support of the Indianapolis 500. [May 2008]
• Often said that of all the films he had performed in, Slap Shot (1977) was the most fun and his personal favorite.
• He was never happy at signing autographs and stopped completely after a man asked him for one while he was stood at a urinal in a gents toilet at a restaurant.
• Presented with the Golden Turkey Award for the Most Embarrassing Movie Debut of All Time for his performance in The Silver Chalice (1954). His response was that he fully agreed with the award.
• Was announced as co-star with Spencer Tracy and Robert Mitchum in the Jerry Wald production of “The Enemy Within”, based on the book by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, which at 1962/63 was in preparation for 20th Century Fox.
• He was the only performer, to date, to receive an Oscar for a repeated role. He won as Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money (1986), having been previously nominated as the same character in The Hustler (1961).
• Newman was expelled from Ohio University for denting the college president’s car with a beer keg.
• Like his dear friend Robert Redford, both men had firstborn sons named Scott who predeceased their fathers.
• Directed three actors to Oscar nominations: Joanne Woodward (Best Actress, Rachel, Rachel (1968)), Estelle Parsons (Best Supporting Actress, Rachel, Rachel (1968)), and Richard Jaeckel (Best Supporting Actor, Sometimes a Great Notion (1970)).
• Inducted into the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Hall of Fame in 2009.
• Profiled in “American Classic Screen Interviews” (Scarecrow Press) (2010).
• Turned down the lead role of Jackie Scanlon in Sorcerer (1977), which eventually went to Roy Scheider.
• He was director William Friedkin’s first choice for the lead role of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971), but he was deemed too expensive. The role went to Newman’s good friend Gene Hackman.
• His first wife, Jacqueline “Jackie” Witte, was born in September 1929.
• Chosen by GQ magazine as one of the 50 Most Stylish Men in the Past 50 Years.
• Turned down Donald Sutherland’s role in A Time to Kill (1996) because he found the film’s justification of murder distasteful.
• The series episode The Simpsons: Lost Verizon (2008), was dedicated to his memory.
• The animated comedy Cars (2006), his last film, was the highest-grossing film of his career.
• Said in an interview that a film had never made any special impact on him until he saw On the Waterfront (1954).
• Did all of his own driving in films.
• Once, when he was handing out punch at a Westport charity event, a dowager asked him to stir her drink with his finger. “I’d be glad to,” Newman replied, “but I just took it out of a cyanide bottle.”.
• He and Frank Sinatra are the only people who were awarded a competitive Oscar, an Honorary Award and a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
• Known as an inveterate prankster, he and Robert Redford in particular played numerous pranks on each other. One time, Redford, who was also into car racing, had a beaten-up Porsche shell delivered to Newman’s porch for Newman’s 50th birthday. Newman never said anything, but not long after, Redford found a crate of the (now) molten metal delivered to the living room of a house Redford rented, which dented the floor. Not to be outdone, Redford then had the metal turned into an incredibly ugly sculpture and dropped into Newman’s garden.
• Father-in-law to Gary Irving (husband of Elinor “Nell” Newman), Raphael “Raphe” Elkind (husband of Melissa “Lissy” Newman) and Kurt Soderlund (husband of Claire “Clea” Newman).
• Grandfather of Peter (born May 1996) and Henry Elkind, the sons of his daughter Melissa “Lissy” Newman and her husband Raphael “Raphe” Elkind.
• Turned down the role of Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry (1971) because he thought the screenplay was too right-wing, and recommended Clint Eastwood for the role instead.
• As of 2007, he is one of six directors who has directed his wife to a Best Actress Oscar nomination (Joanne Woodward in Rachel, Rachel (1968)). The other five are Joel Coen directing Frances McDormand in Fargo (1996), John Cassavetes directing Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence (1974) & Gloria (1980), Blake Edwards directing Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria (1982), Paul Czinner directing Elisabeth Bergner in Escape Me Never (1935) and Richard Brooks directing Jean Simmons in The Happy Ending (1969). Jules Dassin also directed his future wife Melina Mercouri in an Oscar-nominated performance (Never on Sunday (1960)), but they weren’t married yet at the time of the nomination.
• Recorded a television advertisement for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. [June 2007]
• Attended the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1977.
• Donated $1 million to “The Nation” magazine in order to keep it going.
• Attended the main Democratic fundraiser for Senator John Kerry before the Democratic National Convention at Radio City Music Hall, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Bon Jovi, Meryl Streep, Sarah Jessica Parker, Mary J. Blige, Chevy Chase and Jessica Lange (August 13, 2004).
• Supported Al Franken’s campaign for election as United States Senator from Minnesota.
• In the 1970s, long before Brokeback Mountain (2005), he was thwarted by Hollywood in his desire to star in the movie version of the best-selling novel “The Front Runner”, about the love affair between a male coach and a male star runner. The project remains unmade.
• According to Joe McGinnis’ book about the advertising industry’s participation in Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign, the first telethon for the Eugene McCarthy Campaign, which was emceed by Newman, raised $125,000 (about $800,000 in 2008 money, when factored for inflation, a good sum for the time). Nixon’s advertising people attributed the success of the telethon to Newman’s participation.
• Supported anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy’s bid to win the Democratic nomination from incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and actively campaigned for George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election.
• Longtime supporter of gun control, and a member of Handgun Control Inc.
• Became a rear gunner of a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber when his color blindness disqualified him from being a pilot.
• Ranked #19 in Empire magazine’s 100 Sexiest Movie Stars of All Time (2007).
• Announced that his Champ Car team is merging with NASCAR team Robert Yates Racing. It is now called Yates/Newman/Haas/Lanigan racing. Newman said the deal “in no way lessens our commitment to open-wheel racing. We want to broaden our horizons.”. [July 2007]
• His father, Arthur Sigmund Newman, died in 1950 at age 55 and his mother, Theresa Newman, died in 1982 at age 86.
• The Eiger Sanction (1975) was originally intended as a vehicle for him.
• Got two roles which were first offered to Elvis Presley but which were turned down by Presley’s manager: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).
• Was offered the role of Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur (1959), which he turned down because he said he did not have the legs to wear a tunic.
• He was a vocal supporter of gay marriage.
• Opened a restaurant called “Dressing Room” with co-owner and chef Michael Nischan in Westport, Connecticut. It was originally opened to help subsidize the Westport Country Playhouse, which sits next to it (2006).
• Announced that he was retiring from acting. He had previously announced his retirement in 1995, but came back to make four more movies. [May 2007]
• Turned down the role of Bernie White in The Paper (1994), which went to Robert Duvall.
• In 2007, his auto racing team, known as Newman-Haas, became Newman/Haas/Lanigan due to Chicago businessman Michael Lanigan becoming a partner.
• Supported Senator Ted Kennedy’s campaign to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980.
• During the 1950s and 1960s, he was close friends with fellow Democrat and civil rights activist Charlton Heston. In 1983, after Heston’s political beliefs had moved to the Right, both actors took opposing sides in a television debate on President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars defense missile program. Heston, much better briefed and prepared than Newman, was judged to have won the debate easily. Some years later, when Newman learned that Heston was supposed to introduce him at an awards ceremony, Newman insisted that his one-time friend be replaced by the liberal Donald Sutherland.
• A film poster of him in Hud (1963) appears in Midnight Cowboy (1969).
• One of the most sought after and valuable collectible Rolex watches, the early “Daytona” model, from the 1960s, is known unofficially and passionately worldwide, as the Rolex “Paul Newman”. “Paul Newmans” in steel fetch as much as $100,000 in auctions. This nickname was adopted as he sported one in film.
• After being asked so many times what the secret was to being married so long to Joanne Woodward, he was asked yet again and simply responded, “I don’t know what she puts in my food.”.
• When Newman failed to receive an Oscar nomination for his performance in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), producer Charles Schnee and director Robert Wise gave him what they called a “Noscar”. The engraving says, “The Schnee-Wise Noscar award to Paul Newman for best portraying a terrible no-good, for turning him into a charming and lovable sprite, and for thereby doing what Lincoln said should never be done, i.e. fooling all of the people all of the time.”.
• Prior to filming The Hustler (1961), Newman lacked talent at playing pool. But after brushing up on it for the role, he felt very confident in his ability. So he bet co-star Jackie Gleason $50 on a game of pool. Being the excellent pool player he was, Gleason beat Newman. Instead of paying him in dollar bills, Newman dumped $50 worth of pennies on the table for Gleason to take.
• While campaigning for the Democrats in the 1968 U.S. Presidential election, Newman would rent a Jaguar on the weekends. When he found out that opponent Richard Nixon, who was known to his naysayers as “Tricky Dick”, was renting the same car during the week, Newman left a note in it saying “This clutch is tricky, so you won’t have any trouble with it.”.
• Great admirer of Jim Carrey.
• Godfather of Jake Gyllenhaal.
• Said he did not want his epitaph to say two things: “Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown” and “Here lies the old man who wasn’t a part of his time.” (1960s).
• For a Mother’s Day gift, he gave wife Joanne Woodward two hours of uninterrupted driving around the roads of Westport, Connecticut that they had never seen before.
• The GI Bill got him through his first three months at Yale University. To pay tuition for the rest of his time there, he sold Encyclopedia Britannica. He claims he was very good at it.
• Ranked the #1 Box Office star of 1969 and 1970 by Quigley Publications’ annual poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars. He was ranked #2 in 1968 and at #3 in 1967, 1971 and 1974. In all, he made the Top Ten list 14 times from 1963, when he entered it at #9, and 1986, when he bowed out of the Top 10 at #10. He was ranked in the Top Ten for 10 straight years from 1966-1975, peaking in the Top Three from 1967 to 1971.
• His performance as Luke Jackson in Cool Hand Luke (1967) is ranked #30 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Heroes & Villains.
• His performance as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) is ranked #20 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Heroes & Villains. This is a ranking which he shares with Robert Redford, who played the Sundance Kid.
• Turned down the role of the shark hunter Quint in Jaws (1975), which went to Robert Shaw.
• Was director Robert Wise’s first pick for the lead in The Sand Pebbles (1966), eventually played by Steve McQueen, who won his only Oscar nomination for the role. Wise had earlier directed Newman in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and Until They Sail (1957).
• His performance as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) is ranked #64 on Premiere magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
• His performance as Frank Galvin in The Verdict (1982) is ranked #19 on Premiere magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
• Has donated between $150 million-$175 million to charity since the 1980s.
• Is one of only six actors to be nominated for acting honors by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences over five decades (1950s, 1960s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s). Laurence Olivier (1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s), Katharine Hepburn (1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1980s), Jack Nicholson (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s) and Michael Caine (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s) Meryl Streep (1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s) are the others who have turned the trick.
• Was nominated 10 times for the Academy Award, including eight times as Best Actor, once as Best Supporting Actor, and once for Best Picture (the latter coming the same year he famously did not receive a Best Director nomination despite having won the then-equally prestigious New York Critics Award as Best Director for Rachel, Rachel (1968). In the acting field, the only actors with more nominations are Jack Nicholson with 12 nominations (8 Best Actor and 4 Best Supporting Actor nominations) and Laurence Olivier (nine Best Actor nominations and 1 Best Supporting Actor nod). On the distaff side, Bette Davis, who was nominated 10 times for an Academy Award, all of them Best Actress nods. Katharine Hepburn, with 12 nods (all in the Best Actress category) and Meryl Streep, with 20 nods have more acting nominations than Newman.
• When Premiere magazine does a list of 24 Great Performances from each year, they often ask the actors who their idols are. Newman has been the most frequently cited idol so far.
• Michelle Pfeiffer wanted Newman to play her father, patriarch Larry Cook, in the drama A Thousand Acres (1997), which she produced. Newman turned down the role, which went to Jason Robards.
• He had one brother, Arthur S. Newman Jr., who was named after their father, Arthur S. Newman, a successful sporting goods store owner.
• He is only one of six performers to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films. He was nominated as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986). The other five are Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), Peter O’Toole as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), and Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) and Creed (2015).
• The role of Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) was originally awarded to James Dean, who died before filming began. Due to Dean’s untimely death, Newman was cast in the role. Dean also was signed to play Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun (1958), but that role was also inherited by Newman after Dean’s death. Dean and Newman had shot their last screen tests for East of Eden (1955) together; the six-years-younger Dean got the role and Newman went on to star in The Silver Chalice (1954), a notorious turkey.
• He and his daughter Nell Potts were supposed to be in Paper Moon (1973) in the leading roles, but this changed when original director John Huston bowed out and was replaced by Peter Bogdanovich.
• He was nominated for nine acting Academy Awards in five different decades – the 1950s (Best Lead Actor for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)), 1960s (Best Lead Actor for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967)), the 1980s (Best Lead Actor for Absence of Malice (1981), The Verdict (1982) and The Color of Money (1986) winning for this last film), the 1990s (Best Lead Actor for Nobody’s Fool (1994)) and finally in Road to Perdition (2002) for Best Supporting Actor.
• Was a Brother of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity at Ohio University.
• Otto Preminger, Jewish himself, cast him in Exodus (1960) because he wanted someone of Jewish heritage who did not “look Jewish”.
• Premiere magazine ranked him as the #6 Greatest Movie Star of All Time in their Stars in Our Constellation feature (2005).
• Early in his acting career, he was often mistaken for Marlon Brando. He claims to have signed around 500 autographs reading, “Best wishes, Marlon Brando”.
• Was named the #1 Box Office Star by Quigley Publications in its annual Top Ten Money Making Stars poll of movie exhibitors two years in a row, 1969 and 1970. Newman had been #2 in 1968 and #3 in ’67 and would rank #3 in both 1971 and 1974. Newman, who entered the list for the first time in 1963 at #9 and the last time in 1986 at #10, has made the list 17 times.
• Appeared on Quigley Publications’ annual poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars 14 times from 1963 to 1986, which ranks him #7 for all-time in appearances in the top 10. He trails Bing Crosby, who made the list 15 times, Clark Gable (16 appearances on the list), Gary Cooper and Tom Cruise (18 times each), Clint Eastwood (21 times) and John Wayne (25 times).
• Stumped the United States for Eugene McCarthy during his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1968. Newman made the cover of Life magazine with a McCarthy pin on his jacket on the May 10, 1968 issue.
• Lee Strasberg, who trained Newman at the Actors Studio, said that he would have been as great an actor as Marlon Brando if he had not been so handsome. According to Strasberg, Newman had the talent, but he too often relied on his good looks to coast through a role.
• He and Frank Sinatra are the only actors to win an acting Academy Award, a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Special/Honorary Academy Award. Sinatra won the Best Supporting Actor Award (1953), the Humanitarian Award (1970) and a Special Award (1945, Best Short Subject The House I Live In (1945)). Newman won the Best Actor Award (1986), the Humanitarian Award (1993) and an Honorary Award (1985) for lifetime achievement.
• Students at Princeton University have named 24 April Newman’s Day. Students try to drink 24 beers over the 24 hours of the day. The tradition stems from a comment that Newman is alleged to have made; “24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.” The event is not officially sponsored by the university, and Newman has commented that he would “like to bring an end to the tradition”.
• The fourth nomination on Empire magazine’s “Gods Among Us” series along with Al Pacino, Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson.
• He was voted the 13th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
• His father was Ashkenazi Jewish (the son of immigrants from Hungary and Poland). His mother was from an ethnic Slovak family in Hungary.
• Was so ashamed of his debut in the failed costume drama The Silver Chalice (1954), that he took out an ad in Variety apologizing for his performance.
• Although he played the lead male roles in the original productions of three Broadway classics near the beginning of his career – “The Desperate Hours”, “Picnic” and “Sweet Bird of Youth” – Newman did not receive a Tony Award nomination until 2003, when at age 78, he was nominated as Best Actor for his performance in the 2002 revival of the “Our Town”.
• Within a space of five months in 2003, he was nominated for an Oscar (for Road to Perdition (2002)), a Tony (for “Our Town”) and an Emmy (for Our Town (2003)).
• Was mentioned in La Dolce Vita (1960), in a discussion about salaries paid to film stars.
• Nominated for a 2003 Tony Award for Best Actor in the Revival of a Play, for “Our Town”.
• Was training to be a pilot while in the United States Navy, but was discovered to be colorblind, ending his flying aspirations.
• He was among the celebrities on the famous “Enemies List” kept by President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
• Returned to live theater for the first time in 35 years in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” at the Westport Country Playhouse near his home in Westport, Connecticut. He directed and starred as the Stage Manager. Wife Joanne Woodward is the playhouse’s Artistic Director. [June 2002]
• Finished second in the 1979 Le Mans 24-hour race in a Porsche 935.
• He was the visual inspiration for the illustrations of superhero Green Lantern/Hal Jordan (when the character was reintroduced in 1959). Newman was 34 years old at the time.
• Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World (1990).
• Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
• Had a son and two girls with his first wife Jacqueline “Jackie” Witte. His only son, Scott Newman, died of a drug overdose in 1978. Daughter, Susan Kendall Newman, is well known for stage acting and her philanthropic activities. His other daughter from his first marriage is named Stephanie and was born in 1954.
• Had three children with Joanne Woodward: actress Melissa Newman, Nell Potts and Claire Newman.
• Owned half of the Champ Car (auto racing) team Newman-Haas.
• Had his own line of food products, “Newman’s Own”, featuring mainly spaghetti sauces and salad dressings. The company made more than $100 million in profits over the years, all of which he donated to various charities.
• Lived in Westport, Connecticut and was known to race at the Lime Rock Road Circuit.
• Ranked #19 in Empire (UK) magazine’s “The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time” list. [October 1997]
• Owned the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a summer camp for children with cancer and other blood-related diseases (and their siblings) in Ashford, Connecticut, and also ran a fall “Discovery” program for inner city kids, also in Ashford.
• Said the sound he loved most is that of a V-8 engine.
• Said that he burned his tuxedo on his 75th birthday because he is through with formality.
• Chosen by Empire magazine as #12 in the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (1995).

Paul Newman Filmography

Paul Newman Awards