Paul Newman
Sep. 27th, 2008 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumIt took me a while to warm to him as an actor. First thing I saw him in was The Sting.
But I did, and finally came to understand the fascination with his eyes. It didn't work for me in stills (which is where I kept seeing the paeans), but in a mobile face... incredible.
Not that one can know a celebrity, but he always struck me as a fairly level-headed guy; someone who had managed to come to grips with being filthy rich, without thinking it was because of some incredible merit.
The obit in the Washington Post makes me think this was a good take on it.
Newman continued to act in recent years, notably as the stage manager in a 2002 Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," but he was certain acting was not his whole life. He said that over the toilet bowl in his office bathroom he hung a letter from a fan -- of his tomato sauce. The letter ends: "My girlfriend mentioned that you were a movie star and I would be interested to know what you have made. If you act as well as you cook, your movies should be worth watching."
Even if the letter writer was pulling his chain... hanging it up, and taking it as read, shows a sense of self I'd hope to have in his shoes.
But I did, and finally came to understand the fascination with his eyes. It didn't work for me in stills (which is where I kept seeing the paeans), but in a mobile face... incredible.
Not that one can know a celebrity, but he always struck me as a fairly level-headed guy; someone who had managed to come to grips with being filthy rich, without thinking it was because of some incredible merit.
The obit in the Washington Post makes me think this was a good take on it.
Newman continued to act in recent years, notably as the stage manager in a 2002 Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," but he was certain acting was not his whole life. He said that over the toilet bowl in his office bathroom he hung a letter from a fan -- of his tomato sauce. The letter ends: "My girlfriend mentioned that you were a movie star and I would be interested to know what you have made. If you act as well as you cook, your movies should be worth watching."
Even if the letter writer was pulling his chain... hanging it up, and taking it as read, shows a sense of self I'd hope to have in his shoes.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 01:15 am (UTC)Whenever it was just Penn and Costner on screen my eyes would just wander away again, to scenery or book or what have you. But when Newman was on - it was actually interesting! Here was a person, thoughts, feelings, a life. He acted with his whole body, rather than just saying the lines. Instructive.
I also really liked the fake cease-and-desist letter he wrote to the Office of Housing and Urban Development, claiming prior use of the name Hud.