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Quick Facts
- NAME: Paul Newman
- OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Theater Actor, Television Actor, Race Car Driver, Entrepreneur
- BIRTH DATE: January 26, 1925
- DEATH DATE: September 26, 2008
- EDUCATION: Kenyon College, Yale School of Drama
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Cleveland, Ohio
- PLACE OF DEATH: Westport, Connecticut
Best Known For
Paul Newman came to be known as one of the finest actors of his time. He also started the Newman's Own food company, which donates all profits to charity.
Videos see all videos
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Paul Newman - Heartthrob (2:42)
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Paul Newman - Philanthropist (2:21)
Paul Newman - The Color of Money
An inside look at Paul Newmans role in Martin Scorseses film "The Color of Money."
Paul Newman - Actor and Humanitarian
Watch a short video about Paul Newman whose acting career earned him eight Oscar nominations. In his later years, he became a prolific philanthropist, launching his own successful charity.
Paul Newman - Heartthrob
Paul Newman was born on January 26, 1925. As Paul grew into a handsome teenager, his good looks won him female admirers wherever he went. But, to his friends, he never showed an ounce of conceit.
Paul Newman - Philanthropist
After tasting oily salad dressing in a restaurant, Paul Newman, almost as a joke, took his Newman?s Own salad dressing to supermarkets and donated the profits to charity.
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Play NowPaul Newman. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 09:27, May 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564.
Paul Newman. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564 [Accessed 19 May 2013].
"Paul Newman." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 19 2013, 09:27 http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564.
"Paul Newman," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564 [accessed May 19, 2013].
"Paul Newman," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564 (accessed May 19, 2013).
Paul Newman [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564.
Paul Newman, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564 (last visited May 19, 2013).
Paul Newman. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-newman-9422564. Accessed May 19, 2013.
Synopsis
Paul Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio. He turned to acting after getting kicked off the football team in college. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 and began doing television and films, eventually becoming known as one of the finest actors of his time. He created a food company, Newman's Own, that donates all proceeds to charity. Newman died of cancer on September 26, 2008.
Early Life
Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio. Newman grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his older brother Arthur and his parents, Arthur and Teresa. His father owned a sporting-goods store and his mother was a homemaker who loved the theatre. Newman got his first taste of acting while doing school plays, but it was not his first love at the time. In high school, he played football and hoped to be a professional athlete.
Graduating high school in 1943, Newman briefly attended college before enlisting in the U.S. Navy Air Corps. He wanted to be a pilot, but he was told that he could never fly a plane as he was colorblind. He ended up serving as a radio operator and spent part of World War II serving in the Pacific.
After leaving the military in 1946, Paul Newman attended Kenyon College in his home state of Ohio. He was on an athletic scholarship and played on the school’s football team. But after getting into some trouble, Newman changed course. “I got thrown in jail and kicked off the football team. Since I was determined not to study very much, I majored in theater the last two years,” he told Interview magazine in 1998.
After finishing college in 1949, Newman did summer stock theater in Wisconsin where he met his first wife, actress Jacqueline Witte. The couple soon married, and Newman continued to act until his father’s death in 1950. He and his wife moved to Ohio to run the family business for a time. Their first child, a son named Scott, was born there. After asking his brother to take over the business, Newman and his family relocated to Connecticut, where he studied at the Yale School of Drama.
Running out of money, Newman left Yale after a year and tried his luck in New York. He studied with Lee Strasberg at the famed Actor's Studio alongside Marlon Brando, James Dean and Geraldine Page.
Career Breakthrough
Newman made his Broadway debut in William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy Picnic in 1953. During rehearsals he met actress Joanne Woodward, who was serving as an understudy for the production. While they were reportedly attracted to each other, the happily-married Newman did not pursue a romantic relationship with the young actress.
Around this time, Newman and his wife welcomed their second child together, a daughter named Susan. Picnic ran for 14 months, helping Newman support his growing family. He also found work on the then-emerging medium of television.
In 1954, Paul Newman made his film debut in The Silver Chalice for which he received terrible reviews. He had better success on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning The Desperate Hours (1955), in which he played an escaped convict who terrorizes a suburban family.
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