When a screen legend dies, the fawning tributes quickly follow. In death they somehow become not only brilliant thespians, but stellar human beings.
And so it was with the passing of Paul Newman at the weekend, with many describing him as having lived an “exemplary life”. The difference, however, is it’s hard to argue with that or any of the accolades that have been bestowed upon the owner of those sparkling blue eyes since the world learnt of his death from cancer at 83.
He was certainly more than memorable in many a flick – hustling the best in Cool Hand Luke and The Color of Money (for which he won an Oscar); knocking back booze and hurling insults in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; or as one half of a dynamic duo with Robert Redford in The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
But Newman also clocked up plenty of brownie points off-screen. Yes, there was his celebrated 50-year union with Joanne Woodward (“I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?”); his sense of humour and love of practical jokes (he once had a crushed car installed in Redford’s house) and car racing (one of his last screen credits is as the voice of Doc in the animated Cars); and the founding of the Scott Newman Center, set up to warn of the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse after he lost his son to a drug overdose.
He was also a passionate liberal who was thrilled to find himself on Richard Nixon’s list of enemies.
But it was in the unlikely realm of the kitchen where Newman had his greatest impact. He turned his homemade salad dressing into a global brand that dishes out all of the company’s profits to those most in need. Started in 1983 with his friend and writer A.E. Hotchner with the motto “shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good”, Newman’s Own has given away more than $250 million around the world, courtesy of that dressing and some other well-chosen ranges – all overseen by the man himself.
Newman has also been credited with helping to bring organic food into the mainstream, although he would have been the first to admit it was his daughter Nell who was the driving force. In order to convince her dad it was a good idea to launch an organic range, she prepared him an organic Thanksgiving dinner. It must have been delicious because it worked.
Bearing the slogan “great products that just happen to be organic”, Newman’s Own Organics came out at a time when organic was about as far from the mainstream as modelling is from world peace. The branch of the company, which is headed up by Nell, now has a product line of 55.
“He did a great job of endorsing the product and bringing it to a mainstream audience,” Viella Ship, director of marketing for the California Certified Organic Farmers, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He was an authentic guy, and that helped the product. Now if it were Donald Trump trying to sell organics, I don’t know if it’d work.”
Most definitely not. Unlike the bouffant one, Paul Newman was the genuine article. “I’m not running for sainthood,” he once said of the charitable work that gave him the most satisfaction. “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.”
The site dedicated to his charitable business was brought to a crashing halt by the flood of wellwishers, visitors temporarily having to make do with a well-worded tribute to the man who began it all. A modern message for a truly remarkable man who will be missed for more reasons than a star on Hollywood’s much vaunted Walk of Fame might suggest.
