It was in the script, filmed; and then completely edited out.
Please share with an actor that you know. Thanks much.
Best,
;~Dana
In case you need catching up, see these past Hollywood Actor Prep Posts about film set ettiquette, and why it’s important, especially for actors.
Over time, I will continue to talk about “the actor’s process“, and “directors-and-actors“; so this will come up again.
I’ll just reprint this part of an article, from UPI, London…(Does it seem like I am saying: ‘I told you so!’??)
Film Director Darren Aronofsky
Speaking at Wednesday night’s London Film Critics’ Circle Awards, Aronofsky, who has never worked with Bale before, defended Bale in the wake of his well-publicized outburst.
“I think he was right. I don’t think he was out of line,” the BBC quoted Aronofsky as saying. “It is a sacred time between action and cut. If it was the first time it was excusable, but a second time, that ruins it.”
Aronofsky, whose movie “The Wrestler” was named film of the year at the Critics’ Circle Awards, added that he didn’t think the language Bale used had been “abusive beyond call,” noting he has seen worse behavior on film sets.
“Sets are very, very high-powered places where things go awry all the time and emotions are high. People are out there working really hard and exposing themselves, especially actors, and they need to be protected,” Aronofsky explained. “Although it’s never good to lose your temper that bad for obvious reasons, we don’t know what scene he was doing. He could have been doing a deeply, deeply intense emotional scene.”
Please share with your friends, especially those interested in acting, directing, producing…And post on your Facebook or MySpace.
Thanks for sharing, and please keep-on-keeping-on…tell everyone you know. That would be great. The little widget that makes it easy is below, it says “SHARE/SAVE”. That creates the energy that keeps me doing this…
And…
Keep Faith In Your Ability,
;-Dana
WARNING-NOT FOR THOSE UNDER 18
It contains, what some consider, offensive language. If you are under 18, don’t watch. (This is a family-usable site!)
**************************************************************************************************************
Now … all my readers…ESPECIALLY ACTORS…
I am not sure why the Director-of-Photography was doing what he was, when he was; on the film set where Christian Bale had such a spectacular meltdown.
Because, for anyone who has ever worked on a film, uh. What the DP did is just not common, on-the-set, behavior. As established, and carried out, on any movie or television set, that I’ve ever been.
….For more about common on-set rules and ettiquette, go to the following Hollywood Actor Prep post, The Best Way An Actor Can Act…(link)….
Now. I know that Christian Bale’s rant is being passed around the globe; and everyone and their mama, is commenting, and judging.
I will only say that if you don’t know the rules and ettiquette that are followed on a film set, then it is good that you read this blog.
Because I have talked about it here, and will continue to post about it.
It’s very important, because these unspoken rules are followed by all professionals…
If you break them, it’s not bad because you may cause a leading man to curse you out.
No.
The “rules of a film set” exist so that the movie can get made. Period.
And, so that everybody can do their job. And do it well. Without interference, distraction, or interruption.
Expect, for example, long hours (sometimes 16 or 17 hour days)
There’s stuff that the public can’t understand. And, you will only know about it, when you work and experience it.
For example, for scenes that are shot at night: the whole schedule gets suddenly changed. Flipped. You may work that week, each and every night, from 5PM to 5AM. This happens when the prior week was all-day-shooting. With overtime.
Movie schedules, in general, are exhausting. No matter what the budget. There are often problems with “fitting everything in” to the time allotted.
You’ve heard the phrase: “Time is money”?? Well, time, on a film set, it costs a fortune.
…So, let’s just say that you are suddenly doing night shooting, after some time of working a daytime schedule.
(BTW, everyone on the set, is struggling through this flipped around schedule.)
And then, all together, you all…”go into overtime”. (Yes, thanks to SAG, everyone gets paid more for the “overtime…but, that doesn’t help the strain, at the time)
As the hours go by, it gets more and more exhausting.
Now, you are working 17 hour nights, shooting until, past dawn…
And, perhaps, during the daytime, you have a hard time getting a full eight hours of sleep…
Maybe this night shoot is outdoors, and it’s freezing cold. But, in the scene, it’s not supposed to be…so there’s no jackets.
Or it’s really humid and hot, and the mosquitoes are biting at your ankle, in the middle of your love scene.
Or your co-star may be drunk. Or keeps changing the lines and, therefore, changing the scenes…
This is one of the most important things I can share with you.
No matter how you feel or what is going on around you…
(…your personal relationships, your relationships on-set with the cast and crew, your relationships off-set with the cast and crew, or your trainer, or your agent, or whomever or whatever…)
That stuff will all disappear into your memory—but what goes on that film will last forever.
You need to make sure, as all kinds of things go on around you, before during and after each shoot, on set and off-set…
…that…what goes on that film is done to the best of your ability.
And that you are totally present, aware, and not distracted. No matter what.
Not only is your career, your future, and your professional reputation, dependent on that; but so is the success of the film.
…And the effectiveness of the story in the script.
…The other actors’ performances are depending on yours, as well. It’s all teamwork.
Everyone must do their part to make sure they are doing everything they can to their own personal and professional best; as well as doing eveything possible to support the synergistic cast, and crew, in doing theirs.
That’s how trust is built. The amount of trust on a movie set, is in direct correlation to how successful the finish product appears. It’s holistic.
A set…where there’s war, or chaos…makes a stinker movie, in the end.
It’s all just too hard, like that. There are 100’s of people that make a movie. It’s all gotta work together.
All actors do.
I don’t know if you follow me on Twitter (and if you don’t, you are missing out, because I post a lot of little news items and pertinent stuff in my twitter tweets, so here’s a link) …but if you do, you’ll know that I pass around questions. One question I asked was if anyone knows what a producer does?? I’ll post the answers in the next few days…(even have a funny response, from Michael Bay, a-hem)
Producers, directors, they may accept the Oscars, when their movie wins a “Best Picture” award…
But it’s the actors that get the public blame when a movie tanks.
And, it’s the films’ lead actors, the stars of the movie, that take the career hit. Because the movie stunk.
The acting might be good, but if the movie doesn’t sell tickets, the stars’ careers get affected.
Sometimes, stars lose their careers, soon after a bad movie opens. Completely.
(I’m not big on ‘judging’.)
I do know that anger is a normal human emotion.
As actors, we need to be comfortable with all authentic emotion, the gamut.
Even the uncomfortable ones, the less socially acceptable ones.
Anger is something that you must be sure you are comfortable with. Hearing, and expressing.
Because as an actor, you’ll be called upon to play it. (In a script.)
It’s best, to be at a point, where you even enjoy it.
Wanna start now?
Shall we dance?
___REMOVED VIDEO OUT OF RESPECT FOR CHRISTIAN BALE, ESPECIALLY SINCE WE ALL HEARD IT WAY TOO MUCH. Originally, I put the music remix up, because I simply thought it was funny. That was before I saw just how serious people took Bale’s outburst. My own reaction was not as extreme, perhaps because I live in Hollywood!!
Update: I forgot to give proper credit to the artist who made the Christian Bale remix! His name is Revolucian (Lucian Piane) and, by clicking on his name, you’ll reach his MySpace page…he’s about to mix RuPaul’s new jam.
(I have an additional update that will be coming up, in the next post…It’s also about actor, Christian Bale…)
Best,
;-Dana
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And thanks, especially to the ones that have been spreading the word, about this blog… and Twitter…(where I’m __dana__ )
If you don’t know his name, it may be because he was ‘outa the game’ for awhile. But…when he was ‘in it‘, he floored everybody. Came out of nowhere, into the spotlight with two little movie scenes; and then consistently gave the rawest, yet right on, performances.
This year, for “The Wrestler“, his acting performance may get the “Best Actor” Academy Award.
I hope so. (If you’ve been following this Hollywood Actor Prep Blog, then you know I respect Mickey Rourke, as an actor. I think he is an fine film actor, with consistent depth.)
His acting ability, talent, and skills, are rare… Authentic, to the highest degree.
Here is an older interview with Rourke, where he discusses some film-acting experiences; in each, of the earlier films he was in.
Other things Mickey Rourke candidly discusses are:
All of the actors, the directors, that you hear about here… are probably familiar names to you.
You probably, also, heard of most of the movies that he talks about; because many well-known films reside on Mickey Rourke’s acting resume.
Enjoy!
If you would like to view film scenes from some of these movies that Mickey Rourke mentions here, you can find them at this post on the Hollywood Actor Prep Blog. (‘Time For The Acting Of Mickey Rourke’)
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These movies are being released in the next few days, and all are good ones.
I don’t know how much is “hype” but “Nixon/Frost”, directed by Ron Howard, is getting some great reviews.
The second trailer, “Doubt”, is ultra-high echelon stuff…it was a Pulitzer Prize winning theater piece, that had a good run, on the stage. Adapted for the screen, and directed by the playwright himself (John Patrick Shanley)… in order to make sure that the film truly is organic to the author’s intent. (Can’t get more integrity than that!) The cast is full of some the best American actors we’ve got: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. 
The third movie, here, “Cadillac Records”, is also getting some surprisingly good reviews. I am putting it here, on the site, because it’s about on of my most favorite periods in music…I never grow tired of “At Last”, by Etta James. I still listen to it, quite a bit. I’m from Philadelphia, which has a strong soul-music heart, and I grew up on soul.
As far as acting goes, generally, biopics are cast usually by celebrity power, instead of chops, but it’s improving somewhat, in the last few years. I don’t really see “Beyonce” as a heroin addict, but biopics tend to Hollywood-ize their biograpical casting. I think she’ll do “junkie” quite glamorously, maybe that’s good for the movie; in the least, it won’t hurt it’s popularity. I’m an acting- purist, I like my film junkies to really convincingly seem like a junkie… She does have an audience, charisma, and star-quality. She also has that Beyonce voice.
I do agree that casting her will give the movie, and ticket sales, some mojo. I assume that’s why she was cast, and because she can sing; unless they wanted to dub, they needed that…
Etta James really could too, unlike anyone else has ever been able to replicate.
I do think that Adrian Brody is a good strong actor, and Jeffrey Wright is too. Those two’ll balance it out with their acting-power.
Actors, please remember…. It’s important to be fully stocked with acting skills, because you won’t get cast without them. But, remember this, too: there are all kinds of reasons why particular actors get cast, and the other factors may count the most, in the final decision. I say that, now, because a lot of Hollywood Actor Prep users are auditioning, quite a bit, lately…
Sean Penn is one of my favorite actors, and this performance is creating an Oscar buzz…“Milk”...
“Doubt” was directed by John Patrick Shanley, whose name you may recognize. He’s a well-known playwright; and “Doubt” was originally written for the stage. That’s when it won the Pulitzer Prize.
Great cast in the film version, including Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep.
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is getting some very good reviews, and a few that aren’t so great. All agree, though, that it’s technically remarkable…
…And, according to Slashfilm, who got it from FirstShowing, you can listen to the entire soundtrack of “Benjamin Button” for free, on Warner Brothers’ ”For Your Consideration Site”.
Here’s the playlist:
1. Postcards
2. Mr. Gateau
3. Meeting Daisy
4. A New Life
5. Love in Mourmansk
6. Meeting Again
7. Mr. Button
8. Little Man Oti
9. Alone At Night
10. It Was Nice to Have Met You
11. Children Games
12. Submarine Attack
13. The Hummingbird
14. Love Returns
15. Sunrise On Lake Pontchartrain
16. Daisy’s Ballet Career
17. The Accident
18. Stay Out of My Life
19. Nothing Lasts
20. Some Things You Never Forget
21. Growing Younger
22. Dying Away
23. Benjamin and Daisy
Enjoy!
;-Dana
A director who loves actors?
Well, … that, too…
Without thinking about it a whole lot; I’d say, it’s a director who is one or a combination of this list…
Actors’ directors are not only confident, and comfortable, with the artistic process and discovery, as they work ; they depend on that process to be ”the predominant compass”. (And they can deal with the accompanying ambiguity and ambivalence)
That means that there are “parts unknown”, in the planning stage, and throughout the shooting schedule. So they do give up control, in certain areas…Not all aspects, of course. But, they value the things that they leave out of their control, far more.
They allow their movie, to be like theatre in the experience; in the elements that only will occur when the scenes are shot… this kind of director allows those elements to evolve, to create themselves. With trust, they relish these areas.
Because they know that, there, in that unknown, is when the most compelling parts of the film are created…and that when they give up control; they allow art to occur, instead.
When I hear the term “actors’ director”… I think, of Elia Kazan, the prototype.
Elia Kazan was, as an actor, a member of the famous Group Theatre. Later, he was one of the founding members of the Actors’ Studio…
Kazan, clearly, had a deep passion for the art of acting. Is that a necessity, in order to make a great movie? For that answer, just watch one or two. (I do mean watch the entire movie, to really see what I am referring to; here’s a few clips for now.)
Before coming to Hollywood for films, Kazan directed plays for the New York stage.
In the 1950’s, he directed William Inge’s “The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs”, which ran on Broadway. This is an excerpt from an interview with actress, Teresa Wright, a lead in that play.
She refers to Kazan by his nickname, “Gadg”…
There is absolutely no one who can come anywhere near Gadg. I felt, in a way, that I’d never been directed before. He’s the first person that ever really directed me. By directed, I don’t mean he told me what to do.
Again, it’s a question of bringing out something from you, but he doesn’t just sit back and wait for something, the right thing, to come out of you — as, for instance, Willie Wyler does.
He guides or talks or analyzes the character with you so much that you begin to see insights into both yourself and the character that you just weren’t aware of. I have never known anyone who had the knowledge of people that he has.
I never knew anyone in my life who is as keenly aware, as articulate in talking about it, and he’s so spontaneous in his talking. It isn’t a set “this is what I’ve learned about people” sort of thing. He approaches each character, and each situation that that character might have to face, and sort of opens himself up to it completely — and as he opens himself up to it, he shares with you this tremendous insight and knowledge and compassion that he has for people, and excitement.
I can’t help feeling that there are an awful lot of people who tried to copy the outward signs of Gadg’s approach — they sort of go at each part, open it, examine it — but always you feel it’s kind of studied. “This is what I’m going to say about this part,” or — with Gadg you don’t feel that.
You always feel that he is absolutely experiencing his discovery with you, this knowledge. He really opens himself up, and forces you to open yourself, which is his great gift. It isn’t this coldly sitting back and analyzing.
I think the key is, it’s done with that great really caring. It makes a difference. Creatively, at the moment, experiencing something with you.
You never once feel his theatrical knowledge imposed on you. You never once feel that you’re doing something for some theatrical effect, and yet certainly he is the most effective theatrically. I heard nothing but praise of Kazan, but not what I saw. I used to sit and listen, as he told things to each character in the play. Each little thing that came up, he’d explore it so, with such enthusiasm. He is the most creative person I have ever met, ever worked with, ever heard about.
In the Hollywood Reporter, I found an interview with Julian Fellowes, and he discusses Robert Altman…. (Fellows is an actor/writer/producer and Oscar-winning director...)
“I was standing next to him for the whole thing. It was a unique opportunity to see the business of directing from a ringside seat,” he says of working as a writer on the set. “(Directing) is like tennis, you learn by playing with people who are better than you.”
“He really likes actors. He’s not faking it,” says Fellowes, who studied acting at London’s prestigious Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, which produced Terence Stamp and Julia Ormond, among others. “He wants to hear their opinions. As an actor, it was what I always craved. You really want as an actor to be treated as one of the grown-ups. Half the time, you are treated as a demented child who has wandered onto the set.”
“I’m a big believer in listening to actors,” he says. “There’s a reason why they are successful. They have good instincts, and they made good choices.”
In fact, he says there is no greater compliment than to be called an actor’s director.
Best,
;-Dana
Paul Newman was an authentic actor, a real actor. He was, so thoroughly, the “real deal”; that no amount of looks, or fame, or anything else that can taint a pure talent…ever tainted his. Same goes for his character: the “real solid deal”, untainted.
It’s impossible to fathom just how powerful that talent, and that integrity, would have to be. That he had. And it survived, endured flawlessly, for 82 years.
Mindblowing.
A beautiful human being, with an almost inhuman strength of character; and one of the finest talents we have ever had. He made us all look good.
Today, on The Huffington Post, I found a blog written by Danny Miller. It not only goes stylistically with this blog, but it talks about Paul Newman’s early career, both early wins and some surprise stings. (No pun intended; but I love the accident…!)
I put excerpts of that blog here, along with the videos. Oh, those videos! Paul Newman had such skills.
Read on, for his early experiences, early flops, (even about an ad that he took in Variety that begged people not to go and see his a film he was in!) and lots that I think those with acting careers, can certainly relate to.
Paul Newman
“I’ve repeatedly said that for people with as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an uncommonly good marriage. We are actors. We make pictures and that’s about all we have in common. Maybe that’s enough. Wives shouldn’t feel obligated to accompany their husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with the neighborhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other…You can’t spend a lifetime breathing down each other’s necks.”
“I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don’t want any woman to look under the carpet, guys, because there’s lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Bridge’ comes closest to who I really am. I personally don’t think there’s one character who comes close…but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don’t have a solid opinion about.”
Paul Newman :: Joanne Woodward
When someone of Paul Newman’s stature dies, there is so much written about the whole of their career. I always like to dip into the archives to their earliest days in the public eye and see how they were viewed before they were swept up into the fame machine.
Reading about Paul Newman when he was a very young man, the good news is that his personality seems the same as it was after achieving enormous success. But like many stars, Newman was almost done in by his first brush with big fame. After appearing in a few small roles on television, Newman got his first big break in the original Broadway production of William Inge’s “Picnic” in 1953. He wasn’t the male lead, the dangerous drifter played by William Holden in the film version, but he had a good part as the drifter’s rich college friend, Alan, who was also in love with the town beauty, Madge.
With his crazy good looks and the acting technique he developed at the Actors Studio, Newman was soon fielding offers from the Hollywood studios. They sent him script after script, and to his eternal regret, the one that he finally accepted was the religious epic, “The Silver Chalice.” This abomination, in which Newman played the artist who was given the task of designing the chalice that would house the Holy Grail, also starred Virginia Mayo, Pier Angeli, and Jack Palance. Newman got the full studio build-up. A 1954 L.A. times article breathlessly announced:
Warner Bros. Is evidently successfully combing Broadway for talent for top film assignments. Having already secured James Dean to play opposite Julie Harris in “East of Eden,” the studio has now acquired Paul Newman for the pivotal role of Basil in “The Silver Chalice.”
Following his arrival in Los Angeles, Hedda Hopper weighed in about the influx of young New York talent.
—-Got quite a shock when I walked into the Green Room at Warners for lunch. Hadn’t been there in quite a spell, so maybe I was expecting some of the glamour stars that graced the studio not too long ago–people like Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, Jim Cagney, Jane Wyman.
The place was jumping all right, but a new set of actors had taken over. It’s what I call the Dirty Shirttail School of Acting. Against a wall sat two boys, James Dean and Richard Davalos, one slouched down on his coccyx. They balanced forks on water glasses, got extra chairs on which to rest their feet, and gave the appearance of a couple of Roman soliders resting up from the wars, not getting up when a female entered the room.
Was about to tackle my lamb chops when in walked what looked like a sensible Marlon Brando. He was Paul Newman, who costars with Virginia Mayo in “the Silver Chalice.” I asked how he got to look so much like Marlon. “I’m a chronic sloucher,” he replied.
Then Miss Glamour herself, Virginia Mayo, joined us. Pointing to her costar she said, “He’s the best-looking thing in a toga you’ve ever seen–I call him ‘Skirts Newman.’”
“But he has no hair on his chest,” I commented. I wanted to know how the Cleveland-born Newman became an actor. “This,” he said, “is where you find out a person is abnormal. I gave up a secure life in the sporting goods business for acting.”—–
Newman’s first film was savaged by the critics. The New York Times reviewer called it cumbersome and creaking. “Paul Newman, a recruit from Broadway, bears a striking resemblance to Marlon Brando, but his contribution is hardly outstanding. As a youth who has been cheated of his rich inheritance by a covetous uncle, sold into slavery, and eventually chosen to create the Holy relic, he is given mainly to thoughtful posing and automatic speechmaking. And, despite the fact that he is desired by the extremely fetching Mayo and the wistful Angeli, he is rarely better than wooden in his reaction to these fairly spectacular damsels.” Another reviewer said “Warners’ new star–or what is hoped will be a new star–Paul Newman, shows promise of doing better things in a movie future. Tall, fair, handsome, undeniably suggesting a blond Brando, he is personable but suffers from the picture’s unwieldy cutting and clipped continuity.”
What’s with all the allusions to Brando? I don’t see the resemblance. Newman admitted years later that he was mistaken for the actor so many times when he first came to Hollywood that he signed “Best Wishes, Marlon Brando” hundreds of times in fans’ autograph books so they wouldn’t be disappointed. To his credit, no one despised “The Silver Chalice” more than Paul Newman himself. “That I survived the first film I did was extraordinarily good fortune. I mean, I had dogs chasing me down the street. I was wearing this tiny little Greek cocktail dress–with *my* legs! Good Lord, it was really bad. In fact, it was the worst film made in the 1950s. My first review said that ‘Mr. Newman delivers his lines with the emotional fervor of a Putnam stop conductor announcing local stop.’” When “The Silver Chalice” had its first television showing in 1966, Newman took out a full-page ad in “Variety” begging people not to watch the film.
The Desperate Hours
Smarting from being talked into such a stinker, Paul Newman took control of his career and hightailed it back to New York. He accepted the gritty part of an escaped convict terrorizing a family in “The Desperate Hours” on Broadway and was a sensation, playing against the pretty-boy image Warner Bros. was only too keen to exploit. The film version, made in 1955, starred a much older Humphrey Bogart in Newman’s role.
Newman then starred in a wonderful TV version of “Our Town” directed by Delbert Mann. I once took a class at UCLA in which Delbert Mann screened this poignant version of Thornton Wilder’s story starring Newman as George and the radiant Eva Marie Saint as Emily. Eva Marie, a friend of my wife Kendall’s family, was at the screening, and talked about how much she loved working with Paul Newman, what a pure and generous actor he was.
Newman’s triumphant return to Hollywood was as Rocky Graziano in “Somebody Up There Likes Me.” James Dean had been signed for the part but after his tragic death it went to his good friend Paul. Newman’s “Our Town” costar, Eva Marie Saint, was supposed to play Norma, but the part went instead to his “Silver Chalice” wife, Pier Angeli. He got great reviews for the film and he had the chance to reunite with Eva Marie Saint a few years later in Otto Preminger’s “Exodus.” Preminger said that one of the reasons he gave Newman the lead was that he wanted a Jew who didn’t look Jewish. Oy. (In case you’re surprised to read that Newman was Jewish, his father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic but he considered himself Jewish “because it was more of a challenge.”)
Newman also starred opposite… Barbara Rush in the somewhat forgotten “The Young Philadelphians” in 1959 and I know that Barbara always had nothing but praise for her costar. This film, in which Newman played an up-and-coming Philadelphia lawyer facing ethical dilemmas as he tried to climb the social ladder, is great fun to watch, as evidenced by this ridiculous trailer…
Wow, that’s insane. But check out this understated, sizzling scene between Paul Newman and “Hud” housekeeper Patricia Neal:
Have you EVER seen a more sexual scene than that? And without anyone taking their clothes off! How about this painful scene from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?” Remember what a great actress Elizabeth Taylor was?
Great career. Great life. Amazing philanthropist. Tireless humanitarian. A class act to the end. Newman was a fierce Democrat. He once said that getting on Nixon’s enemy list was the single greatest honor of his life. After the homosexual aspects of his character in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” were toned down for the movie version by the skittish studio, Newman tried desperately to star in a film version of the novel “The Front Runner,” about the love affair between a male coach and his star runner. He was never able to get it off the ground. “I’m a supporter of gay rights,” he said. “And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being…by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.”
Newman’s feelings about his good looks were complex. Although regarded today as a brilliant actor, many people earlier in his career believed that his looks were a detriment. Lee Strasberg said that though Newman was as talented as Brando, he wasn’t taken as seriously because he was so handsome. Newman himself once said the one thing he didn’t want his epitaph to say was “Here lies Paul Newman who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.” The first time he remembered women going nuts for him was during the shooting of “Hud” in Texas. “Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it’s flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they’re mixing me up with the roles I play–characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.”
A few years ago, Newman said, “I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried–who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who wasn’t complacent, who didn’t cop out.”
Mission accomplished, Paul.
