PAUL NEWMAN

 

Paul Leonard Newman was born in January 26, 1925 and died in September 26, 2008. He was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards for his interpretation in many films. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing.

Newman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Newman’s father was Jewish, and ran a sport shop.

Newman showed an early interest in the theater, which his mother encouraged. At the age of seven, he made his acting debut, playing.

His first movie for Hollywood was The Silver Chalice (1954). In February 1954, Newman appeared in a screen test with James Dean, directed by Gjon Mili, for East of Eden (1955). Newman was testing for the role of Aron Trask; Dean was testing for the role of Aron’s fraternal twin brother, Cal Trask. Dean won the part of Cal, while the role Newman was up for went to Richard Davalos. The same year Newman would co-star with Eva Marie Saint and Frank Sinatra in a live and color television broadcast of the Thornton Wilder stage play Our Town. In 2003 Newman would act in a remake of Our Town, taking on Sinatra’s role as the stage manager.

In 2003, he appeared in a Broadway theatre revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, receiving his first Tony Award nomination for his performance. PBS and the cable network Showtime aired a taping of the production, and Newman was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie.

His last screen appearance was as a conflicted mob boss in the 2002 film Road to Perdition opposite Tom Hanks, although he continued to provide voice work for films. In keeping with his strong interest in car racing, he provided the voice of Doc Hudson, a retired race car in Disney/Pixar’s Cars. Similarly, he served as narrator for the 2007 film Dale, about the life of the legendary NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, which turned out to be Newman’s final film performance in any form.

Newman announced that he would entirely retire from acting on May 25, 2007. He told US broadcaster ABC that he did not feel he could continue acting on the level that he would want to. "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."

maria ballester E1E