Joanne Woodward biography

The Long Hot Summer (1958) featured Woodward as an heiress who is both attracted and repelled by a small-time grafter played by Newman.

Hollywood Veteran

Soon Woodward and Newman reteamed for a string of films, including Rally 'Round the Boys (1958), From the Terrace (1960), Paris Blues (1961), and A New Kind of Love (1963). She also gave some strong performances on her own, appearing opposite Marlon Brando in Sydney Lumet's The Fugitive Kind (1960). Starring as the title character, Woodward starred in The Stripper (1963).

With her husband serving as the film's director and producer, Woodward gave an amazing performance as an old maid schoolteacher still hoping for love in Rachel Rachel (1968). She received an Academy Award nomination for her work and the film was up for Best Picture.

Woodward took the lead while Newman worked behind the scenes for the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds in 1972. She received the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of a single mother estranged from her two daughters — one of whom was played by her real-life daughter Nell. The next year, Woodward received her third Academy Award nomination for Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973), in which she played a woman suffering from frigidity.

Joanne Woodward also found critical success on the small screen. She won Emmy Awards for her work as an actress on See How She Runs (1978) and Do You Remember Love? (1985). As a producer, she won another Emmy for Broadway's Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theater in 1990.

Later Years

That same year, Woodward and Newman had another successful on-screen venture together, the drama Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990). She played a wife and a mother who has spent much of her life lost in her conservative lawyer husband's shadow (Newman). For her deeply nuanced work, Woodward scored her fourth Academy Award nomination. She also received her college degree that same year. Woodward graduated from Sarah Lawrence College alongside her youngest daugher Claire "Clea" Newman.

Later films include Philadelphia (1993) with Tom Hanks and Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993). Woodward has also appeared in several productions for television, including her final collaborative performance with her husband Paul Newman in the cable miniseries Empire Falls in 2005.

In recent years, Joanne Woodward focused most of her attention on the stage work, performing and directing plays. She has served as the artistic director at the Westport Country Playhouse. Woodward also works closely with Newman's Own and The Wall Gang Camp, which is for children with terminal or serious illnesses.

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman have three children, Nell, Melissa and Clea. For 50 years, Woodward and Newman have been regarded as one of the most successful and enduring love stories of Hollywood. Paul Newman died of cancer at age 83 at their farmhouse in Westport, Connecticut on September 26, 2008.

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