Paul Newman passed away this weekend, true to the man’s private nature, most didn’t realize he was sick, let alone dying. He was a anomaly in entertainment, a big star who did not live the Hollywood lifestyle, endlessly publicize himself by appearing at every opening, or get involve in any scandals, heck he was married to the same woman for decades, and even more incredible for a leading man sex symbol, she was his age. He made a lot of great movies: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, The Young Philadelphians, Hud, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Harper, Hombre, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Towering Inferno, The Verdict, Fat Man and Little Boy, Blaze, The Hudsucker Proxy, Twilight, Road To Perdition and Cars (to name a few of the high spots in his career). He was also a race car driver back in the seventies and started a company that made and sold good products while having all profits go to charity. Sadly, a man of his class and integrity is a rare phenomena in this world. I know of no other actor is this industry who would have bought TV time to tell people not to watch his movie because it wasn’t any good, which he did for the TV premiere of The Robe. My favorite memory of him is his appearance on the debut episode of The Late Show on CBS, David Letterman was put in the old Ed Sullivan Theater which was across the street from the hit musical Cats. Newman stood up in the middle of the monologue demanding to know “Where the hell are the singing cats!”, realizes he is in the wrong theater, shoots his forefinger at a few audience members and leaves. Letterman spent the rest of the show good naturedly complaining that he was the hit of the night while mimicing Newman’s finger shooting gesture. He will be missed.
Archive for September, 2008
Abe Vigoda’s catch phrase could be taken from Mark Twain, “News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated.” Apparently the actor has been dodging death rumors since 1982, when it got falsely printed that the late actor was not at a Barney Miller wrap party. Like some surreal Monty Python sketch Vigoda has spent the last twenty-five plus years routinely popping up to dispel death rumors. CNN.Com just put up an article on Tuesday assuring everyone that he is still alive at age 87 and is one of the top hand ball players in New York City. You go Mr. Tessio!
I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Mickey Rourke’s new movie Wrestler, which got a lot of good press at the Toronto Film Festival. A lot of critics are saying that this is his big comeback. I don’t consider this Rourke’s comeback. For me he was already back. The film that did it was Sin City. Though technically not the star due to the film’s set up as an anthology, Rourke’s brutal anti-hero Harv blew everybody from Bruce Willis to Clive Owen off the screen. He was the real star of that film and is the one character that sticks in your mind after the credits finish rolling. I hope Rourke enjoys the kind of success from his re-emergence as a leading man that Robert Downey is having.
