Paul Newman

Paul Leonard Newman, born in Shaker Heights, Ohio on January 26, 1925 is an American actor and film director. His father is German-Jewish and his mother is Irish-Catholic. Before becoming an actor, Newman used to run his parents sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.

In his youth Newman served in the Navy in World War II in the Pacific theater, where he ever trained to be a pilot, but was unable to complete it because of his color blindness. After he finished his military service, that was in 1946, he returned to America and attended Kenyon College after which he spent a year at the Yale Drama School. After that he went to New York and attended to the famous New York Actors Studio.

Granted a handsome face supported by such sexual attraction he has, many TV parts were offered to Newman that he got his first Broadway appearance in the 1953 "Picnic." Soon afterward, the Warner Brothers film company offered him a movie contract, under which in 1953 he got his first movie "The Silver Chalice" which Newman himself believed as the worst movie of the entire 1950s decade. However, this movie had proven to bombard him with a series of acclaimed roles.

In 1956, Newman got his second role that was as boxer Rocky Graziano in "Somebody Up There Likes Me," for which he could make it very well and much better than his first one that he got such raves from the critics. His action in this movie, in fact, rocketed Newman to the list of 1960 top box office actors which brought him to perform in such superior films, as The Hustler (1961), The Prize (1963), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

Since that time Newman focused his deed in producing and directing many high qualified films, including "Rachel, Rachel" (1968) in which he directed his wife Joanne Woodward and for which he received an Oscar nomination for best picture and producer. To add, for the same film Newman also won a Golden Globe as director. And after had been nominated for Best Actor for nine times, in 1986 he finally got his first Oscar ever that was for his performance as an aging pool shark in "The Color of Money" (1986).

Besides receiving Oscar, Newman also gained many other awards for particular films he well known for. "Absence of Malice" (1981), "The Verdict" (1982), and "Nobody's Fool' (1994) were the three films that placed him among the many nominees for an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination. In addition, Newman was also once nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his action in "Road to Perdition" (2002) before he later on nominated for an Emmy Award for his lead role in a 2003 production of "Our Town".

The other appreciation received by Newman, for example chosen by Empire magazine as #12 of the 1995's 100 Sexiest Stars in film history, ranked #19 in Empire UK magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time," awarded an honorary Oscar in 1994 in recognition of his charity work, chosen by People magazine as one of the 1990's 50 Most Beautiful People in the world, and voted the 13th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Above all, this actor had become one of only two actors besides Frank Sinatra, to win an Actor Academy Award, an Humanitarian Academy Award and a Special Honorary Academy Award. By means of which he won the Best Actor Award (1986), the Humanitarian Award (1993) and a Special Award (1985, Lifetime Achievement Award) and Sinatra won the Best Supporting Actor Award (1953), Humanitarian Award (1970), and a Special Award (1945, Best Short Subject The House I Live In (1945)).

Beyond his movie career Newman is reported to have his own line of food products named "Newman's Own" and to run a fall "Discovery" program for inner city kids in Ashford, Connecticut. Moreover, he has also reported to marry for two times, first with Jackie Witte in December 1949 and got divorced in 1958, whereas the second one was with his present wife Joanne Woodward, whom he married since January 29, 1958. From both he has had six children, three with each. In early year of 2005 Newman has reported to safely escape from a race car testing accident at Daytona International Speedway.