duckorgethit

Duck or Get Hit

Even if I wanted Paul Newman to “Get Hit” I couldn’t
J E Wilson

At forty something I have loved the classic movies and have my own favorite actors and actresses and Paul Newman was one of them. The movie “Hatari” (1962) and “Donovan’s Reef” (1963) with John Wayne are my favorites with “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “Catch 22” (1970), and the original “Mash” (1970) movie all in second.
I do not shine off any movies and even have a few more modern favorites. “The Goonies” (1985), “Harry Potter” (2001), and “Indiana Jones” (1981) movies are among movies that I have watched over and over. Some people may call my choices weird or me weird for watching such movies, but these are all classics and you can’t tell me that when your flipping through the channels for something to watch that “The Goonies” does not catch you eye or curiosity.
Paul Newman is at the top of my list of brilliant actors. A  list that includes Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lemmon, Walter Mathau, Eli Martini, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Alan Arkin, John Wayne, Jack Warden, Lee Marvin, and of course Emma Watson as Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” movie series.
To sit on top a list of actors and actresses so great says a lot about Newman and his career on and off the silver screen. Newman boasts movies from his debut in “The Silver Chalice” in 1954 to “Hud” in 1963 to “The Verdict” in 1982 and finished with he “Road to Perdition” in 2002.
The scene from “Cool Hand Luke” where Newman eats 50 hardboiled eggs is one of his most memorable scenes. “The Hustler”(1961) is as classic now as his recreation of the movie “The Color of Money” in 1986.
Newman seemingly had his own way of living and his 50-year second marriage to actress Joanne Woodward was a rarity for the Hollywood community. In the 1950’s to the celebrity community of 2008 divorce seems to be a regular and almost expected activity among the stars.
From salad dressing to popcorn and racecars Newman has jumped in with both feet and seems to always land firm on the ground. This blue eyed wonder was meant to be an actor from the start. He went from Yale in 1952 to the stage in his role as a attractive drifter in the Broadway play “Picnic.”
I can’t find a fact that would sway me the Newman getting “hit,” so he ducked. He has a career that is probably one of, if not the most, the greatest acting careers to date. On and off stage he has wowed America. Paul Newman will be missed, but never forgotten as arguably the best actor Hollywood has seen.
Mr. Paul Newman died September 27, 2008 in his home in Westport, Conn. at the age of 83 from lung cancer.
Below are some other movies and plays he played.
“The Death of Billy the Kid” (TV series), “The Battler” (1955), “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958), “Paris Blues”(1961), “The Outrage” (1964) “The Sting” (1973), “The Towering Inferno” (1974), “Exodus” (1960), “Torn Curtain” (1966), “Harper” (1966), and “Of Mice and Men” (2003).

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