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Paul Newman, actor, director, and racing driver, was born so good-looking that people said it was a shame to waste such beauty on a boу. Не was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925, and did some acting in high school but never seriously considered making it his future career. However, after graduating he immediately started working in the theatre. He met his first wife, Jackie Witte, while they were acting together, and they got married in 1949. They had three children, a boy and two girls. He found work in the theatre and on several TV shows in New York. When he was thirty, he went to Los Angeles and made his first film. It was what Newman called an "uncomfortable" start in the movies, in the role of a Greek slave. The experience was so bad that he went back to the theatre, and didn't accept another film role for two years. The film he chose was his big break. He played the boxer, Rocky Graziano, in the film Someone up There Likes Me. Newman is a method actor who believes in living the part before beginning the film. He spent days - from morning till night - with Graziano. He studied the fighter's speech and watched him box, and they talked endlessly about Graziano's childhood. The picture brought Newman stardom overnight.
He was living in Los Angeles away from his family when he met Joanne Woodward, an actress who he had first met in New York. They worked together in The Long Hot Summer. His wife, Jackie, and Paul recognized that their marriage wasn't working, and got divorced. Newman and Miss Woodward were married in Las Vegas in 1958.
Newman went on to make films such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and Towering inferno. He has made over forty-five films, and has won many awards, but he has never won an Oscar.
His marriage to Woodward is one of the longest and strongest in Hollywood. They have three daughters, and they have co-starred in six films. Ever since the film Winning, Newman has been passionately interested in car racing, and in 1979 he came second in the twenty-four hour Le Mans race. But the end of the 1970s was not all good news for him. In 1978 his only son, Scott, died of a drug overdose, and as a result Newman created the Scott Newman.
Foundation to inform young people on drug abuse. He has a strong social conscience, and has supported causes such as the anti-nuclear movement, the environment, and driver education. All the money from 'Newman's Own' salad dressing, popcorn, and spaghetti sauce, now, a multi-million dollar business, goes to charity. He is more than Just a movie star.
"I would like to be remembered as a man who has tried to help people to communicate with each other" says Newman, "and who has tried to do something good with his life. You have to keep trying. That's the most important thing."
