It’s not easy for screen stars to grow old gracefully and stay on top at the same time. Although he turned 81 last month, the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history shows no signs of stopping. Justin Camilleri describes Paul Newman’s successful career which spans five decades and the movies which he has in the pipeline.

Paul Leonard Newman was born on 26 January 1926 in Cleveland, Ohio to Arthur and Theresa Newman, two successful sporting goods owners.

From a very young age it was clear that Newman possessed the same bravado and sense of mischief as his onscreen characters. When he attended Ohio University Newman was expelled for crashing a crate of beer into the president’s car.

His ambition was to become a pilot but his dream was cut short when he was discovered to be colour-blind. Newman joined the Navy instead and served as a radio operator in the South Pacific during World War II. After being discharged from the navy in 1946 he enrolled in Kenyon’s college, where he later joined the prestigious Woodstock Players in Chicago.

Sadly in 1950 Newman’s father passed away and he took over the family business for a year. However, this did not deter him from pursuing his dream because he enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. Newman began his professional acting career playing small television roles and was eventually accepted at the Actors’ Studio in New York.

Newman’s acting debut came on the Broadway stage in 1953 in William Inge’s Picnic for which he received a lot of critical acclaim.

His screen appearance would be in the sword and sandal epic The Silver Chalice (1954) directed by Victor Saville. The plot centred on Basil who protects the Holy Grail and co-starred Virginia Mayo, Jack Palance and a very young and unrecognisable Pier Angeli. Newman was so unhappy with his performance, that when it was later shown on television in 1966 he placed an advert in Variety, the Hollywood trade paper, apologising for his performance, requesting people not to watch the film. This move apparently worked in his favour as the broadcast received high ratings.

His breakthrough role would come in 1956 in director Robert Wise’s Somebody up there likes me, based on the life of middleweight boxing champion legend Rocky Graziano.

Not a lot of people know that the unknown Newman was chosen as a last minute replacement after James Dean, who was originally signed on as the Italian American boxer, died in a car accident. Newman received rave reviews for his performance as a young troublemaker who finds fulfilment in the boxing ring.

This part became known as the landmark role for Newman, after the critics had viciously branded him as a Brando rip-off in The Silver Chalice.

His next movie would be The Rack, directed by Arnold Laven and co-starring Lee Marvin, in which he played a Korean War vet who is charged with collaborating with the enemy. Despite Newman’s star power this movie was slammed by critics and was pulled from

cinemas.

Despite this setback, there seemed to be no limit to his talents as Newman subsequently took part in The Helen Morgan story (1957), Until they Sail and The Long Hot Summer (1958).

Although these films allowed Newman to explore his acting talents the public’s perception of him as Brando’s shadow, became a burden to the actor. He wanted a string of movies where he could stand on his own two feet and not be compared to the method actor. Newman wished to be remembered for more challenging roles. He feared that because of his piercing blue eyes and handsome chiselled features he would be typecast as a romantic leading man.

His wish came true when he was offered the role of the youngest gun in the west, in The Left-Handed Gun directed by Arthur Penn. This would be Newman’s first western on the big screen, but it would be the second time he would play Billy the Kid. He had played William Bonney in The Death of Billy the Kid in the historical re-enactment series You are There. This was yet another role originally intended for James Dean, and Newman played the legendary teenage outlaw whose fiery temper causes his downfall to great effect.

Lee Strasberg who trained Newman at the Actor’s Studio once said: “Paul would have been as great an actor as Brando if he hadn’t been so handsome.” But Newman’s powerful performance in The Left-Handed Gun certainly proved Strasberg wrong, as critics and audiences recognised him as an actor of singular stature, a feat that would be repeated in Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Thin Roof (1958) earning him his first Oscar nomination.

By 1959, Paul Newman’s career was moving into high gear with even his harshest critics admitting he was far more than just a Brando look-alike. Vincent Sherman’s The Young Philadelphians would be the film that would seal Newman’s dazzling male sexuality and would mark many of his films in the 1960s. Newman plays an upcoming lawyer who defends his crippled college friend, returning from North Korea, accused of murder.

The Young Philadelphians was soon followed by Director Otto Preminger’s Exodus, in which Newman played a young intelligence officer, opposite Eva Marie Saint. On its release The Chicago Tribune hailed it as poignant and timeless. Its success was due to its brilliant adaptation from Leon Uris’s novel, coupled by the fact that this was one of the first screen portrayals on the foundation of the state of Israel.

1961 brought Newman one of his signature roles, that of slick pool shark Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler. Directed by Robert Rossen, the movie tells the story of a young pool player who challenges a veteran player Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) to a marathon duel which he loses. He rebuilds his career helped by the strength of his manager played by George C. Scott (Patton). Both Newman and Gleason were Oscar nominated, as was Piper Laurie who played Newman’s girlfriend.

After a series of movies that included Hud, A New Kind of Love, The Prize, Lady L and Harper, Torn Curtain would be the film which would finally give him the chance to act under the direction of the Master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Newman this time playing a rocket scientist who appears to defect to the east. Co-starring Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music) as Newman’s girlfriend, this was sadly one of Hitchcock’s weaker efforts as the script lacked the suspense of his earlier classics such as North by Northwest. In fact in an interview Newman said: “I think Hitch and I could have really hit it off, but the script kept getting in the way.”

Many consider his two all time greatest films to have come at the end of the 1960s when Newman starred in Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The classic tagline on the Cool Hand Luke movie poster read: “The man… and the motion picture that simply do not conform.” Newman played the title role, a determined prisoner in a Florida prison, who refuses to submit to the warden and consistently tries to escape. Many critics stated that Luke’s inability to conform is in the same vein as his rival Steve McQueen in The Great Escape and Jack Nicholson from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. However, in my opinion, Newman and the film stand in a class of their own for three memorable scenes.

The first being the egg scene when Newman is cajoled by his inmates to eat 50 eggs, the second is when he gives the impression to the chief guard that he has given up on his antics, while he secretly pickpockets the keys to his chains and car, managing to escape. Finally the ending, when Luke gets shot and is taken in the car and grins, leaving the audience curious as to whether he is actually dead or alive.

The western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is considered to be one of the top 10 grossing films of the 1960s having made more money than Goldfinger.

Two of the main roles were originally offered to Warren Beatty and Steve McQueen but Newman (Butch Cassidy) would be paired with another blue-eyed wonder Robert Redford (The Sundance Kid). In fact, Redford has often noted that it was this film that made him a star and changed his career forever. Directed by George Roy Hill the western tells the story of the legendary outlaws. It’s hailed as a classic for its ending in which Butch and the Kid are being chased by the army and leap off a cliff, forever defining the buddy genre. At the time of its release the movie became very popular with the hippie generation for its title song, Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head.

Newman followed his cowboy role with the spy thriller hit, The Mackintosh Man directed by John Huston. In 1972 filming of the movie brought him to Malta’s shores, alongside James Mason. Although initially The Mackintosh Man was shot on location in Ireland, filming was then shifted to Malta where extensive use was made of various locations that involved scenes featuring Newman and Mason. My course coordinator and journalist Maggie Henfield recalls the day she met up with the star, at a renowned hotel on the sun-scorched island. After filming in Ireland, Newman relished Malta’s climate and Maggie was glad to report that he was as she expected him to be: a humble, down-to-earth gentleman who oozed wit and charm.

Newman’s next hit would be The Sting, reuniting him once again with Redford. The plot centres on two professional card players who con a mob boss played by Robert Shaw. Directed by George Roy Hill the film received seven Academy awards including Best Picture but the film is remembered particularly for its theme piano song, The Entertainer by Scott Joplin and the surprise twist at the end.

The Towering Inferno, directed by Irwin Allen would be Newman’s entry into the disaster genre. Playing architect Doug Roberts, Newman combined forces with Steve McQueen in his role of a fireman, rescuing people while battling the flames in the world’s tallest skyscraper.

Fast forward to the 1980s. Newman went back to his roots reprising his most popular role of Fast Eddie Felson from The Hustler in its sequel The Colour of Money directed by Martin Scorsese. This time Newman was not alone as we see him train the next generation of hustler boy glamour in the shape of Tom Cruise.

The Colour of Money finally earned Newman’s long-awaited Oscar for best actor proving to all that veteran actors could still pull off the magic against younger models pretending to act. The 1990s gave Newman the light-hearted comedy image a try by appearing in Mr & Mrs Bridge, The Hudsucker Proxy and Nobody’s fool.

In Road to Perdition Newman finally hit the jackpot. In a role that rivals Brando’s Vito Corleone from The Godfather Newman plays the gentlemanly but deadly Irish head of the family John Rooney who is closer to his adopted son Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) turned hit man than his own sibling (Daniel Craig), leading to disastrous consequences for all.

At the time of its release, Road to Perdition left audiences in awe of its sensational performances by all the principal leads. In particular, Newman’s immortal line deserves a place in the mobsters’ gallery of classic one-liners: “ In our business, neither of us will see heaven.”

With more hits on the way that include the animated feature Cars Newman has successfully made the transition from decade to decade becoming an international superstar. Through his career he never needed a comeback as he was always there.

Noted for his charm and sense of humour, when once he was asked about adultery he answered with a mischievous grin: “Why fool around with a hamburger when you have steak at home?”