Top is Hot

Paul Newman died on September 26, 2008.

Paul Newman was a philanthropist, a racecar driver, maker of pasta sauces, a producer, a director. He was also one of the finest actors of his generation.

Newman was born on January 26, 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. He was 83 when he died.Newman started his adult life as a radio operator on a US Navy torpedo bomber in World War II. After the war, he attended Kenyon College on a football scholarship. He took up acting as an extracurricular activity there. He attended Yale Drama School, and later the prestigious Actor’s Studio in New York.

He got his first break in Hollywood in 1954’s The Silver Chalice. It was a perfect disaster. In 1956, however, his role as boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me catapulted him to stardom.

He went on to many memorable roles in many great movies. Here are just five of his more memorable lines from some of Paul Newman’s most memorable movie roles.

Dragline: “Nothin’. A handful of nothin’. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothin’. Just like today when he kept comin’ back at me - with nothin’.”
Luke: “Yeah, well, sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.”
As Luke, after winning a poker game
in Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Butch Cassidy: “What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful.”
Guard: “People kept robbing it.”
Butch Cassidy: “Small price to pay for beauty.”
As Butch Cassidy
in George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

“You know, I got a hunch, fat man. I got a hunch it’s me from here on in. One ball, corner pocket. I mean, that ever happen to you? You know, all of a sudden you feel like you can’t miss? ‘Cause I dreamed about this game, fat man. I dreamed about this game every night on the road. Five ball. You know, this is my table, man. I own it.”
As Fast Eddie Felson
in Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961)

“You gotta have two things to win. You gotta have brains and you gotta have balls. Now, you got too much of one and not enough of the other.”
Reprising his role as Fast Eddie Felson
in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (1986)

“Tough luck, Lonnehan. But that’s what you get for playing with your head up your ass!”
As Henry Gondorff
in George Roy Hill’s The Sting (1973)

There were many more. Feel free to post your own memories of this great actor. Rest in peace, Paul. You made this world just a little bit better for a lot of people in a lot of ways.