Amid news that he’s giving to charity an extraordinary $120 million--“the entire value of his ownership in Newman’s Own, the company that makes salad dressing and cookies”--there’s more gabbing on the Web about how 83-year-old screen legend Paul Newman is sick with lung cancer. Newman (who in January of this year celebrated 50 years of marriage to actress Joanne Woodward) downplays any health concerns, as do his friends. I hope their reassurances are more than smoke.
Newman, like James Garner and Robert Redford, is one of those veteran actors who seems unable to turn in a bad performance, even when the script they’re working from could have used another rewrite. Although my favorite among his pictures is probably the lighthearted western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), I also remember Newman fondly for his portrayal of Ross Macdonald’s fictional private eye, Lew Archer (renamed Lew Harper for Hollywood), in a pair of films: Harper (1966, adapted from 1949’s The Moving Target), and--not quite as exceptional, but nonetheless fun--The Drowning Pool (1975).
It would be a shame to lose him so soon.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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2 comments:
If I ever had a teenage crush, he was it.
Harper is an unfluential film for me. Turned me on to PI's and to Ross Macdonald, and had a lot to do with the directionof my career.I sawit when I was 15 and the rest is history. Twilight, the recent PI movie Newman did, creates a virtual trilogy with Harper and The Drowning Pool, even though the character's name is not Harper.
RJR
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