The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

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A stint in the U.S. Navy flying as a radioman gunner during World War II put some meat on Newman’s bones — he grew 5 inches to 5-foot-10 — and forced some maturity on him. The service also gave Newman ample opportunity for some serious boozing and tomfoolery, neither helping him overcome his belief that he was a poser. This was at times difficult to listen to because as he points out, there is a difference between the inner child and the outer self, the movie star persona who we all expect to see or meet. He was not an easy man (in his own words), but he does believe he always strives to do what is best especially as he has grown older. The Paul Newman narration is done by Jeff Daniels and is well done and easy to listen to. An excessively private man he started to make notes for an intended Memoir and then gave it up. His children found much of the documents long after his death and decided to share it with the public. Since they are his children they would know better than I if he would be pleased about this or not – considering he passed away so many years ago, maybe now he couldn’t care less. Newman was predisposed to addiction and alcohol. He compensated his drinking with physical fitness and long saunas.

The one thing I’ve always admired is excellence. I recognize it in almost anything: plumbers, museum guides, limousine drivers, bank tellers—I delight in seeing it. Maybe we choose those arenas in which we have the best chance for excellence. For me, maybe that’s acting, or being somehow connected to the theater, or capitalizing on the way I look, or fooling people” I thought I knew quite a bit about his life. Turns out, I knew next to nothing. From the long standing affair he had with Woodward, prior to his divorce and marriage to her, to the death of his beloved only son, I learned so much about his upbringing, his marriages, parenting and most importantly, his philanthropy. Per his daughter, “his obituary in the economist noted he was the most generous individual, relative to income, in the twentieth century history of the United State. He was also incredibly loyal to his friends and helped beyond what most people would do. I know of a few times he gave up part of his salary to his co-stars to level the playing field. He strove for fairness in all things.” I have been a huge fan of Paul Newman since I saw my first of his movies, The Long Hot Summer, which also happened to feature his wife Joanne Woodward. Those baby blues led to my major infatuation on my part and even to this day, I consider Paul Newman to be a celebrity crush. When I heard a posthumous memoir was created from his writing and interviews, I knew I needed to get my hands on it. He had a reputation for being a private person so I was pleasantly surprised how much he shared his thoughts and feelings of his childhood, career, marriages and fatherhood. He sought therapy over the years and I'm sure that led to quite a bit of reflection about his life. He's self-deprecating, to a fault in my opinion, but it also shows he didn't have a massive ego. He knew he had flaws, he knew there was always room for improvement. I always liked him as an actor but after reading this memoir, I have mad respect for him as a man.One of the very finest screen actors of our time. Newman spanned the gap between the golden days of Hollywood, the 40s and 50s with actors like Cary Grant and James Stewart and Clark Gable, and the present lot represented by Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise' Sir Michael Parkinson In a new memoir, the late cinematic icon Paul Newman shares some insight into his complex relationship with stardom–and specifically with the role his appearance played in his own fame.

THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF AN ORDINARY MAN is revelatory and introspective, personal and analytical, loving and tender in some places, always complex and profound. Newman was a fine driver, who was famous in Hollywood for doing his own stunt driving as often as not.' Ron Dennis, Formula 1's McLaren Chief Danger ejected him from this state of anaesthesia. Hence his obsession with racing cars, which began with a movie role as a grand prix driver in Winning but took him “outside that fictional experience into something real and quite primitive”. More culpably, he also urged his son, Scott – an addict and an unsuccessful actor, with whom his relationship was “a dance of death” – to take high-speed risks on the road. At one lacerating moment, Newman recalls that he considered shooting himself to rid Scott of “the affliction that was me”; in the event, it was the unhappy Scott who died prematurely.You work what you consider pretty hard at your craft, and you're getting to the point where you're just starting to feel kind of good about yourself, and then somebody says, 'Oh, God, take off your sunglasses so I can see your baby-blue eyes!' " Newman said, in an excerpt from the book released by People. Memoir is loosely applied here. This is the transcript of a recorded series of conversations between Paul Newman and screenwriter friend Stewart Stern in the late 80s- early 90s that two of Newman's daughters published years after their father's death, with added bits and pieces from other friends, family and industry colleagues to round out the anecdotes and memories. In this way, it is mostly Newman's own words, but it's impossible to know if this is how he would have chosen to present his story and his voice. Then all this was put together for a book about Paul Newman, contributions and stories from his co-stars and directors. Newman often had a shitty opinion of himself - spent time in therapy examining his life, his marriage to Joanne Woodward, his parenting, his acting, etc. Newman's often traumatic childhood is brilliantly detailed. He talks about his teenage insecurities, his early failures with women, his rise to stardom, his early rivals (Brando and Dean), his first marriage, his drinking, his philanthropy, the death of his son Scott, his strong desire for his daughters to know and understand the truth about their father. Perhaps the most moving material in the book centers around his relationship with Joanne Woodward - their love for each other, his dependence on her, the way she shaped him intellectually, emotionally and sexually.

Throughout Newman's account of his life (narrated very well in audio by Jeff Daniels), there is a sense of real loneliness, at feeling like he wasn't always in control of his own life, and that he resented the intrusion of fame. He found it boggling how women eventually found him to be such a sex symbol, as he couldn't get a girl to even talk to him until after he had been discharged from the military. There were a lot of fascinating moments in this book: reading about his relationship with his parents (his mother treated him mostly like a prop and once he was married to his first wife, insisted they sleep in twin beds), his family's complicated relationship with Judaism and how he was the rare actor who chose not to change his name, his time working with Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio, his relationship with Joanne Woodward, the comparisons to Marlon Brando and James Dean, etc., plus the information from his daughter about his philanthropic efforts. The later part of his life when he started his philanthropic organizations and camps for children, he continued to question his life and motivations. His love of car racing continued throughout his later life, and he was quite successful personally and professionally with his racing team. It was also interesting to hear about his view of or relationship with other actors and directors. Drawn from conversations between the late actor Paul Newman and screenwriter Stewart Stern, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man sees the Cool Hand Luke star reflecting on a life marked by dizzying success and psychological pain. The interviews, which took place over five years from 1986, were seemingly forgotten until Newman’s children unearthed them in 2019 and turned them into this memoir-cum-oral history. Newman at his best...with his self-aware persona, storied marriage and generous charitable activities...this rich book somehow imbues his characters' pain and joy with fresh technicolor." -- The Wall Street Journal

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The Last Movie Stars". Сериал, посветен на въпроса, как може да си звезда, и все пак да останеш женен за една и съща жена 50 години, да преживееш самоубийството на сина си, да участваш в движението за граждански права на Лутър Кинг, да дариш милиони за грижа за болни деца и наркомани като насмешливо сложиш лика си върху домашен сос из супермаркетите и същевременно живееш на ръба като автомобилен състезател. Paul Newman is also candid about his own alcohol addiction and the abandonment of his children from his first marriage, but he seems to have pulled it together after Scott's death, devoting more time to his philanthropic endeavors (yep, I've got a bottle or two of Newman's Own salad dressing in my fridge), his passion for auto racing, and his family. And still his acting roles just seemed to get better as he aged ( The Color of Money, The Verdict)... Do I really want to watch eternal faves like THE HUSTLER, ABSENCE OF MALICE, SLAP SHOT, NOBODY'S FOOL and think about what a shitty young husband and father Paul Newman was? How mean he could be when he was drunk? That he didn't speak to his mom for fifteen years? Given this psychological record, Newman refuses to take credit for his much-praised philanthropy. Although the salad dressing sold as Newman’s Own generated millions for charitable causes, he winces at the way he marketed his celebrity on the shelves of grocery stores and suspects that his altruism came “from having no civic impulses at all, just inventing them the way I invented everything”. Presumably that also applies to his political activities in support of candidates who opposed the Vietnam war; though he voted Democrat, Newman defines himself as “an emotional Republican” – hard faced and self-contained or, as a college crony says of him, “tough and cold”, even “devilish”.

This is pieced together from work Newman did for a memoir project earlier in his life that he never ended up finishing. It does help you feel like you know him as a person, and in compiling it they've done a good job of bringing in a few other voices from other people he had interviewed. This isn't an industry memoir. The first half or so is his life before fame, and the second half is less linear story and more anecdotes and thoughts around particular topics. I didn't mind it, and Jeff Daniels reading it is a nice choice. he was honest to the core, was a loyal friend, very well respected by most people, loved to laugh at his own jokes….. As seen in The Last Movie Stars documentary - t he raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an icon. The greatest movie star of the past 75 years covers everything: his traumatic childhood, his career, his drinking, his thoughts on Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, his greatest roles, acting, his intimate life with Joanne Woodward, his innermost fears and passions and joys. With thoughts/comments throughout from Joanne Woodward, Tom Cruise and many others.

also a director, race car driver, husband, father, philanthropist, (went further than most actors), business owner of a non-profit ‘Newman’s Own’ (salad dressings, etc.), struggled with alcohol, was often lonely, a private man who needed to have a lot of people around him…..