Another Hollywood icon bites the dust, but we could see this death coming, thanks to those dreadful tabloids that ran photos of a dignified, emaciated Paul Newman on their front pages a few weeks ago, with faux-concern headlines like "97-pound Paul Newman's brave last days." The paparazzi caught Newman in the most private of moments as he contemplated "When Time Ran Out."
Back in 1958, Newman and Orson Welles had some great scenes together in THE LONG, HOT SUMMER.
There was some choice dialogue in that epic southern drama between Newman as rascal barn-burner Ben Quick and super-bloated Welles in old man's makeup as local patriarch Will Varner (who owns every business in the hamlet of Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi). A few samples:
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Ben: If you're scared of me, mister, why don't you just come right out and say so?
Will Varner: Sir, why should I be scared of you?
Ben: 'Cause I got a reputation for being a dangerous man.
Will Varner: You're a young dangerous man. I'm an old one. I guess you don't know who I am. I better introduce myself. I'm the big landowner, chief moneylender in these parts. I'm commissioner of elections, veterinarian, own a store and a cotton gin and a grist mill and a blacksmith shop... and it's considered unlucky for a man to do his trading or gin his cotton or grind his meal or shoe his stock anywhere else. Now that's who I am.
Ben: You talk a lot.
Will Varner: Well, yes I do, sir. I'm done talking to you, except for passing you on this piece of information. I built me a new jail in my courthouse this year, and if during the course of your stay, something, anything at all should just happen to catch fire, I think you ought to know that in my jail, we never heard of the words habeas corpus. You rot.
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Will Varner (to Ben Quick): I've been watching you. I like your push, yes. I like your style. I like your brass. It ain't too dissimilar from the way I operate.
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Will Varner: I get preached to on Sundays
Ben: I know, and you don't listen, and neither did I.
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Will Varner: I got influence. I'll dog you, boy, wherever you go. I'll break you.
Ben: No, you won't. You'll miss me.
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Yes, we will, Mr. Newman. We'll miss you terribly... we decrepit boomers with bad knees and belly fat who caught you back in the sixties when you were in your prime in all those "H" movies: Hud, Harper, Hombre, Hand Luke and Harry Frigg... and countless other great films. Even the so-called duds were good. Lady L and Torn Curtain, for example...
Does anyone know if Paul Newman was one of the A-list actors considered for the lead role in THE BIG BRASS RING?
All the greats are going fast. Who's next? Karl Malden? Kirk Douglas? Herbert Lom? Joan Fontaine? Joseph Wiseman?
Paul Newman Dead at 83
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Paul Newman Dead at 83
by Harvey Chartrand » Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:41 am
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by The Night Man » Sun Sep 28, 2008 1:42 am
Keats, in those chats did you ever get around to the subject of working with Orson Welles? (If not, your Wellesnet card may be in jeopardy!)
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by Glenn Anders » Sun Sep 28, 2008 7:19 pm
["All the greats are going fast. Who's next? Karl Malden? Kirk Douglas? Herbert Lom? Joan Fontaine? Joseph Wiseman?" Your list, Harvey, is rare, great, and distinguished. It's possible some of us here don't know who one or two of them are.]
And that's a most touching anecdote, keats, which fits with stories told about how Paul Newman lived his private life in Westport, Connecticut. One resident said that he often came to the local [a rustic Ha-Ra Club?], in jeans, an old t-shirt, and tennis shoes, to drink a beer and eat a hamburger while listening to chit-chat from the regulars.
Over thirty years ago now, my wife and I attended a "site-specific" production of William Saroyan's Time of Your Life, at Spec's, a famous old bar in North Beach of San Francisco. The audience sat with their drinks, and the play's action erupted and crackled all around us. We were at the bar, where certain stools were marked with X's, reserving them for players.
Our places happened to be in an open block of three.
The bartender waved off several people who tried to sit on the stool next to mine, but just as the play was about to begin, an attractive, petite, woman in casual dress hurried in, nodded to the bartender, and sat on that empty stool next to me.
As Saroyan's wild 1930's goings-on wrapt us, I half turned to watch the action, more or less, forcing me to study the woman's features, as like a bird, she keenly followed each new "entrance", catching every impression. Shortly, I had the overwhelming intuition that she was Joanne Woodward, then at the top of her fame.
She turned her head toward me only once, seeming to sense my passing scrutiny. As our eyes met, it was the kind of moment that performers used to describe on late night TV of the time. She instantly appeared to know that I knew that she knew that I knew.
The play was the thing, however, and we went back to our parts as spectators. When the show was over, and the bar was "open" once more, I turned to whisper my surmise to my wife, but when I turned back, the woman was gone, as if she had never existed.
Later that week, I read in the Chronicle that Joanne Woodward had been in town for a charity event, and was spending time with her husband, Paul Newman, then making THE TOWERING INFERNO in Frisco.
That's pretty much the story, nothing as grand or intimate as yours, keats. Nothing so frustrating either as a similar "near meeting" with Orson Welles in the Lobby Bar of the St. Francis, a couple of years earlier, but there you are.
I doubt Paul Newman, aside from professional respect, would have gotten along with Orson Welles. They were of two different worlds, two different styles. You may remember, keats, in your meticulous scholarship, the Gore Vidal memoir in which he recounts how Welles, on several occasions, pled with him in regard to producing THE BIG BRASS RING: "You know Paul Newman. Can you put in a word with him? Because if I don't have one of the Six Bankable Boys, there's no financing."
It never happened. Doesn't sound as if there was much of a close bond there.
Yet, each was admirable in his own way.
Glenn
And that's a most touching anecdote, keats, which fits with stories told about how Paul Newman lived his private life in Westport, Connecticut. One resident said that he often came to the local [a rustic Ha-Ra Club?], in jeans, an old t-shirt, and tennis shoes, to drink a beer and eat a hamburger while listening to chit-chat from the regulars.
Over thirty years ago now, my wife and I attended a "site-specific" production of William Saroyan's Time of Your Life, at Spec's, a famous old bar in North Beach of San Francisco. The audience sat with their drinks, and the play's action erupted and crackled all around us. We were at the bar, where certain stools were marked with X's, reserving them for players.
Our places happened to be in an open block of three.
The bartender waved off several people who tried to sit on the stool next to mine, but just as the play was about to begin, an attractive, petite, woman in casual dress hurried in, nodded to the bartender, and sat on that empty stool next to me.
As Saroyan's wild 1930's goings-on wrapt us, I half turned to watch the action, more or less, forcing me to study the woman's features, as like a bird, she keenly followed each new "entrance", catching every impression. Shortly, I had the overwhelming intuition that she was Joanne Woodward, then at the top of her fame.
She turned her head toward me only once, seeming to sense my passing scrutiny. As our eyes met, it was the kind of moment that performers used to describe on late night TV of the time. She instantly appeared to know that I knew that she knew that I knew.
The play was the thing, however, and we went back to our parts as spectators. When the show was over, and the bar was "open" once more, I turned to whisper my surmise to my wife, but when I turned back, the woman was gone, as if she had never existed.
Later that week, I read in the Chronicle that Joanne Woodward had been in town for a charity event, and was spending time with her husband, Paul Newman, then making THE TOWERING INFERNO in Frisco.
That's pretty much the story, nothing as grand or intimate as yours, keats. Nothing so frustrating either as a similar "near meeting" with Orson Welles in the Lobby Bar of the St. Francis, a couple of years earlier, but there you are.
I doubt Paul Newman, aside from professional respect, would have gotten along with Orson Welles. They were of two different worlds, two different styles. You may remember, keats, in your meticulous scholarship, the Gore Vidal memoir in which he recounts how Welles, on several occasions, pled with him in regard to producing THE BIG BRASS RING: "You know Paul Newman. Can you put in a word with him? Because if I don't have one of the Six Bankable Boys, there's no financing."
It never happened. Doesn't sound as if there was much of a close bond there.
Yet, each was admirable in his own way.
Glenn
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