PUTS UP
NEWMAN
HIS DUKES
"It's me," says Haul Newman, flashing
a sardonic smirk as he strolls onto a
soundstage at Universal Studios.
"One of the duped and manipulated!”
Wearing a white tee-shirt
emblazoned with "Team Newman,"
his newly-formed racing team
scheduled to debut at the 1983 Indy
500 race, Newman is here to tape a
commercial for the Nuclear Freeze
movement. These days only two sub
jects can compel Newman to meet
the press — anti-nukes and his up
coming movie, The Verdict
Universal Studios, a debt-free
company rolling in money (much of
it courtesy of E T.), is an incongruous
choice to tape an anti-nuke commer
cial. The studio is headed by Lew
Wasserman, a powerful supporter of
Reagan and the status quo But the
studio is also the home base of Em
bassy Pictures, headed by a some
what less powerful but nevertheless
formidable producer, Norman Lear,
an avid supporter of liberal causes.
It's Lear who has put together the
talent for this commercial, and it’s
Lear who is calling the shots. Be
sides, as one executive put it,
money’s money; the studio will rent
to anyone
When Newman comes onto the
soundstage, General William Fair
borne, retired, is talking into a cam
era, telling us all that nuclear escala
tion is ‘ madness.’’ He's not an expert
actor, and he's called upon to repeat
his lines so many times the General
finally jokes in embarrassment, "This
is just like training recruits — ’Hey,
you knucklehead"’ He is referring
to himself.
Newman confers briefly with Lear
He wants it made perfectly clear that
General William Fairborne, retired,
is a former military man.
For close to thirty years Paul
Newman has proved himself to be
not only an indispensible actor and
bonafide movie star, but an outspo
ken and thoughtful supporter of
causes — all liberal. Newman, who
was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a
one-time Quaker community, says he
was raised to use his mind. (That
training ttxik him to Kenyon College
in Ohio and to Yale University for his
MA.)
Newman has followed his convic
tions away from Hollywood. Last year
he served as a delegate to the United
Nations Conference on Disarmament
and this year he is devoting much of
his free time to that same cause He
knows people listen to him because
of his name, his movies. He knows
that while he talks arms, treaties and
alternatives, they’re thinking about
Butch Cassidy and Hud, or they're
looking at his slightly thinning
close-cropped gray hair and thinking
how well he’s held up, or they're try
ing not to stare into those famous
blue eyes. He knows this and
has made
the trade-i
— the same
trade-off evt
celebrity faces when
deciding to go public on
issues.
Newman is not a brilliant talker;
he does not have the gift of gab to
seduce the unwilling, and he’s the
first to admit it. Even those who
think he's doing a pretty gtxxi job
on the anti-nuke issue have been
tripped up by his insistence that
the United States and the Soviet
Union are about equal in terms of
treaty violations. The public reaction
included charges that Newman was
"duped and manipulated."
"Civil defense in this country is an
absurdity,” he starts off, munching an
apple, the only food he says he’s
eaten in almost eight hours. “I’ve
been up since 6:30,” he adds, digres
sing from the issue, "and I’m
starved." His voice trails off as if he’d
rather think about something other
than what he’s talking about When
he picks up the conversation again,
he speaks slowly, deliberately,
choosing his words with care. "For
one thing, civil defense requires a
very cooperative enemy. To evacuate
a city takes at least seven days — is
the enemy going to announce seven
days in advance what they're going
to do? Also," he adds, “let's say you
start to evacuate a city and the bus
drivers who get out with the first
load of people refuse to go back for
another, or the subway shuttle con
ductors take one run and then say
Enough, I want to be safe
Newman is not naive Thirty years
of political activism have taught him
that nothing is final "The freeze in
itiative,” he says in response to a
question about small steps and great
issues, "is not the answer But it is a
beginning. Salt II took seven years.
Do you know how many weapons
both sides will build in another
seven years? We have to create a cli
mate where cooperation Is possible."
Newman, who will be S8 In Janu
ary, grew up in a time when movie
heroes played by the rules. Tracy,
didn't cross Warner,
Mayer and Zanuck, not about
politics and not about lifestyles. It
took Newman’s generation to change
all that. A couple of his compatriots
from the Actors Studio in New York
made their marks before Newman
did — Marlon Brandt) and James
Dean. By the mid Fifties they were
well on their way to creating a
screen image we now take for
granted — the anti hero with a heart
Newman’s distrust for Hollywood
(enct)uraged by Brando and Dean)
was not without justification Jack
Warner was not gtxxf to Newman
The actor’s first film was a laughable
Biblical drama called The SUver
Chalice It sent Newman fleeing back
to New York and live television.
Eventually he returned to Hol
lywood and the roles got better. He
did a fine job as the original Rocky
— Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up
There Likes Me and scored even
more strongly in The Long Hoi
Summer, loosely based on short
stories by William Faulkner Summer
earned Newman his first Oscar
nomination anti brought him recog
nition as a sex symbol. As Pauline
Kael put it, Paul Newman did more
for removing a shirt than any actor
since Clark Gable (she would later
point out that the same could not be
said of Rolx-rt Redford).
Along the way, Newman became
rich and famous He divorced his
first wife and mother of his three
oldest children and married act rev.
Joanne Woodward Together they
hail three other children — all girls
— anil together they made some ter
rible movies, such as Hally Houttd
the Flag, Boys and A \eu< Kind of
hove (In which Newman actually mis
takes Woodward for a man) For an
acclaimed movie star, Newman made
a surprising nutnlier of clunkers
But when Newman was good ami
the material lit him, he had no rival
He excelled at creating a certain type
of character — laconic, stoic,
cynical. He played that role
to perfection in The Hus
tier, a taut, crackling
drama where he traded
pool shots with Min
nesota. Fats (Jackie
Gleason) and learned
about guts from Piper
Laurie and George C.
Scott; in Hud, where his
cynical, amoral cattleman
who believed in nothing still
stands as a landmark petfor
mance; and in Cool Hand
l.uke, which introduced 'what
we have here is a failure to com
municate" to the American language.
He also took some chances, turn
ing to directing with a movie called
Rachel, Rachel, starring Joanne
Woodward as a thirty-five-year-old
virgin looking for love That certainly
wasn't the sort of subject matter any
one thought fitted Newman’s on
screen personality.
He also made money with pictures
like hutch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid, The Sting and The Towering In
ferno. He spent a lot of time on the
racing circuit and waited. By 1979,
Newman was at that awkward age, no
longer quite able to get away with
playing the young hero, but still too
juicy to play the voice of wisdom He
had gone beyond being Richard
Gere but he wasn’t yet ready to be
Melvyn Douglas.
In the last three years he’s made
three controversial films that have
made money and earned him per
sonal honors The first was Fort
Apache, the Bronx, about cops in the
South Bronx trying to do what's right
in a very wrong place a kind of
big screen Hill Street Blues The film
was uneven and damned by resi
dents of the South Bronx as racist,
but Newman emerged unscathed,
creating a very sympathetic charac
ter, an over the hill cop still trying to
do the right thing Next came Ah
sence of Malice in which Newman,
the son of a Mafioso, was tarred by
an over/ealous reporter, Sally Field
The film was a slap in the face to
journalists and women, but as critic
Andrew Sarris (xrinted out, women
accepted from Newman lines they’d
never accept from, say, Clint Fast
wood Newman earned his tilth
Oscar nomination for Malhe
Newman is almost certain to gel
another Oscar nomination for The
Verdict Directed by Sidney Lumet,
who has made films such as Dog
Day Afternoon and FYincv of the
('it}’, The Verdhl tleals with issues
and morality, tight and wrong It was
originally ilevclojicd for Rotten Red
ford, but lie pulled out of the project
due to "erealive differences" For a
while, the role was actively sought hy
just about rvety .Mot lietwren the
ages of 50 and AO Die main charac
ter is the son actors dream of play
ing: showy, multi dimensional and
ultimately heroic.
In The Verdict, Newman is Frank
Galvin, a washed-up, alcoholic attor
ney who takes on a malpractice suit
that pits him against the finest law
firm in Boston, a reputable hospital
run by the Catholic Church, public
opinion, and even his own sense of
himself.
“It’s a story about the redemption
of a human being," says Newman of
The Verdict “It's not an attack on the
legal system or the Catholic Church
or hospitals. Those institutions are
springboards for the development of
his character. They’re metaphors for
what seem to be insurmountable ob
stacles all around him.’’
The Verdict is a different sort of
role for Newman. “It’s a very inter
esting character for me because he’s
not cool or collected. He’s fright
ened. He’s living on the edge and
he's panicked. There are people who
really do find their lives in a sham
bles, and they decide they don't like
it Some just continue to degenerate
and some, like Galvin, can pick
themselves up.
“Every person is vulnerable in cer
tain ways, at certain times in their
lives,"
There are many ways in which
Newman Is not now vulnerable. He
is not vulnerable when it comes to
his career or his financial security In
other areas his defense is shakier.
Two years ago his only son, Scott,
died from an overdose of drugs
Newman is still coming to terms with
that tragedy He was teaching an act
Ing and directing seminar at Kenyon
College when he got the news his
son had died, He does not talk pub
lidy about what happened, but he
has poured money, time and influ
encc into the Scott Newman Founda
tlon, which hinds projects directed at
drug rehabilitation
In the early Seventies Newman
tolil a reporter, "Kids, it s a fantastic
time to lx- young In some wavs they
have levs imposed upon them than
my generation did ihcy’rv levs ac
quisitlve, property no longer has
such Importance and they're levs in
hibited
"Yet they have other tilings im
posed on them that are harsher than
anything we Itad to fair Things are
IX) longei clearly defined In black
and white, good and had There’s
this acceleration of change, things
are moving too fast, it’s enough to
drive them all crazy "
Madness of one sort or another
seems to he a recurring Newman
concern, one he shares with his pub
lie on political tames. Not personal
ones
»t Jacxmu Atlas