THOSE BABY BLUES

Paul Newman played a big role in some of my first dates. There he was up on the big screen in the peak of his drop dead gorgeous years while I sat in a darkened theater with wonderful young men watching him portray Luke, the feisty prisoner on a Southern chain gang who refuses to buckle under to authority in Cool Hand Luke or the handsome scoundrel Butch in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. How often have you heard someone recite, "What we've got here is failure to communicate?"

He passed away at his tree shrouded home on a rolling back road of Wesport, CT after a long battle with cancer. He was 83. There are attractive younger movie stars on film these days, but few of them are conscientious charitable role models for the rest of us to emulate. As Roger Ebert said of Newman’s passing, “He seemed above all a deeply good man, who freed himself to live life fully and joyfully, and used his success as a way to follow his own path, and to help others.”

Paul Newman met Joanne Woodward in his 1953 debut Broadway production of Picnic. They shared an apparently love-filled 50-year marriage. They were artists, sweethearts, parents and dedicated philanthropists together.

I lived in Westport for three years in the 90’s and regretted that I had not one Newman/Woodward sighting. Off-stage, their tireless devotion to philanthropic work enhanced many lives and worthwhile causes locally. Their family's support of the renowned Westport Country Playhouse, for which Joanne Woodward is artistic director, is famous.

Newman is celebrated for founding The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, named for the outlaws in Butch Cassidy, where seriously ill youngsters enjoy summer camp in the great outdoors for free. Newman’s Own Foundation, the philanthropic arm of his food empire founded along with author A. E. Hochner, donates all profits and royalties after taxes to educational and charitable purposes. He has donated more than $250 million to charities, including The Scott Newman Center for drug abuse prevention, Parkinson's research and the Canary Foundation on the early detection of cancer (for which he drove in the San Jose Grand Prix - where he came in second - to raise money), as well as Help USA to empower the homeless and many, many other worthy causes. In 2007, he donated $10 million to Kenyon College, where he had enrolled after being discharged from the Navy.

He took my breath away in the 60's and his passing takes my words away now. In the spirit of Paul Newman, we should all leave such a lasting legacy.