Paul Newman

Born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Newman showed an interest in theater as a child and at age 10 performed in a stage production of Saint George and the Dragon at the Cleveland Play House. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in drama and economics from Kenyon College in 1949. After touring with several summer stock companies including the Belfry Players, Newman attended the Yale School of Drama for a year before studying at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg. His first starring Broadway role was in William Inge's Picnic in 1953.


Newman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Color of Money (1986). His other Oscar-nominated performances were in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Absence of Malice (1981), The Verdict (1982), Nobody's Fool (1994), and Road to Perdition (2002). He also starred in such films as Harper (1966), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), Slap Shot (1977), and Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981). He also voiced Doc Hudson in Cars (2006).


Newman won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing. He was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which he donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity.^[2] As of 2020, these donations have totaled over US$570 million.^[3] Newman continued to found such charitable organizations such as the SeriousFun Children's Network in 1988 and the Safe Water Network in 2006. Newman was married twice and fathered six children. He was the husband of the actress Joanne Woodward until his death.

Philanthropy[edit]

With writer A. E. Hotchner, Newman founded Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982. The brand started with salad dressing and has expanded to include pasta sauce, lemonade, popcorn, salsa, and wine, among other things. Newman established a policy that all proceeds, after taxes, would be donated to charity. He co-wrote a memoir about the subject with Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good. Among other awards, Newman's Own co-sponsors the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, a $25,000 reward designed to recognize those who protect the First Amendment as it applies to the written word.^[127]


One beneficiary of his philanthropy is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a residential summer camp for seriously ill children located in Ashford, Connecticut, which Newman co-founded in 1988. It is named after the gang in his film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and the real-life, historic Hole-in-the-Wall outlaw hangout in the mountains of northern Wyoming. Newman's college fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, adopted his Connecticut Hole in the Wall camp as their "national philanthropy" in 1995. The original camp has expanded to become several Hole in the Wall Camps in the U.S., Ireland, France, and Israel.^[2] In 1988, Newman founded the SeriousFun Children's Network, a global family of summer camps and programs for children with serious illnesses.^[128] In 2006, Newman also co-founded Safe Water Network with John Whitehead, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Josh Weston, former chairman of ADP, to improve access to safe water to underserved communities around the world.^[129]


In 1983, Newman became a major donor for The Mirror Theater Ltd, alongside Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, matching a grant from Laurence Rockefeller.^[130] Newman was inspired to invest by his connection with Lee Strasberg, as Lee's then daughter-in-law Sabra Jones was the founder and producing artistic director of The Mirror. Paul Newman remained a friend of the company until his death and discussed at numerous times possible productions in which he could star with his wife, Joanne Woodward. In June 1999, Newman donated $250,000 to Catholic Relief Services to aid refugees in Kosovo.^[131]


On June 1, 2007, Kenyon College announced that Newman had donated $10 million to the school to establish a scholarship fund as part of the college's $230 million fund-raising campaign. Newman and Woodward were honorary co-chairs of a previous campaign.^[132]


Newman was one of the founders of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP).^[133] Newman was named the Most Generous Celebrity of 2008 by Givingback.org. He contributed $20,857,000 for the year of 2008 to the Newman's Own Foundation, which distributes funds to a variety of charities.^[134]


Upon Newman's death, the Italian newspaper (a "semi-official" paper of the Holy See) L'Osservatore Romano published a notice lauding Newman's philanthropy. It also commented that "Newman was a generous heart, an actor of a dignity and style rare in Hollywood quarters."^[135]


Newman was responsible for preserving lands around Westport, Connecticut. He lobbied the state's governor for funds for the 2011 Aspetuck Land Trust in Easton.^[136] In 2011, Paul Newman's estate gifted land to Westport to be managed by the Aspetuck Land Trust.^[137]