Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newmanwas an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, professional racing driver and team owner, environmentalist, activist and philanthropist. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for his performance in the 1986 film The Color of Money, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy Award, and many honorary awards. Newman's other films include The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, and The...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth26 January 1925
CityShaker Heights, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I'd done some acting in high school. Then I went to Kenyon College and got thrown in jail and kicked off the football team. Since I was determined not to study very much, I majored in theater the last two years. Got my degree in speech; they didn't actually have a degree in theater. I graduated at two o'clock in the afternoon, and at three-thirty I was on the train for Williams Bay, Wisconsin, for summer stock, and then I did winter stock.
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.
It seems to me that the older I get, the more running around I do with less satisfaction, just spinning my wheels.
It's born of sheer laziness. My signature dishes are salads, hamburgers and popcorn. That's not the kind of stuff that gets you an entry in the distinguished book of culinary records. Being known for great soufflé is one thing but a good hamburger? What would they say? "Yeah, he really knew how to put the cheese on."
Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.
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.
The only way we can give our children the best education in the world and prepare them for the next century is by funding the programs that serve them.
The spaghetti sauce is a good thing to think about. Morning, noon, and night, think about the spaghetti sauce. Think about hustling other people to buy the spaghetti sauce.
There are many ingredients that go into making a film. It baffles me, what works and what doesn't.
You can't stop being a citizen just because you have a Screen Actors' Guild card.
You discover a lot of things on your feet and if you don't have any rehearsal, then anything that happens on the screen is by accident.
I have taken roads that I wished I had not traveled on. And I'm traveling on some pretty exciting ones, too. Just hope when you get to that great racetrack in the sky, that the balance will tip slightly into those things that you'd be proud of.
Almost everything I learned about being an actor came from those early years at the Actor's Studio.
You got to have two things to win. You got to have brains and you got to have balls. Now you've got too much of one and not enough of the other.