The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

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The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

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To start, this book published 14 years after Newman's death is a book Paul Newman never meant for you to read. It was compiled from hours and hours of interviews he did with a screenwriter friend decades ago, and after that session, he decided to burn all of the recordings. However, this book was compiled at the wishes of two of his daughters from the transcripts. Much of this is revealed at the end of the book in an afterward. Still, it's a fascinating portrait of an actor of preternatural beauty who worked extraordinarily hard at his craft. His complicated childhood and fraught personal life as a young man imprinted him early with a need to be seen and yet fiercely guard his true self. Understanding the irony that his looks would breed jealousy and suspicion in an industry where beauty opens doors, Paul Newman pursued gritty, hard-edged roles ( Hud, Cool Hand Luke), but there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that he would escape the sex symbol status that vaulted him to the top of the celebrity A-list. To say he was an extraordinary man would be an understatement. he saw himself as a working actor, not a movie star, and insisted that everyone else did the same. There was no ego, no entourage, no hangers on. Only Paul, his script and his incredible spirit. One can say this about very few people, but he was a truly great man. It seems to me to be one of the great 20th-century lives: he was famously generous, with his extraordinary and unstinting work for his charities, he was a shining example of how to use global fame for the greater good, and most of all he was one of the great movie actors of this or any other age. [Directing Newman] was the highlight of my professional life.' Sam Mendes 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.

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”.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 often had a shitty opinion of himself - spent time in therapy examining his life, his marriage to Joanne Woodward, his parenting, his acting, etc. In 1986, Paul Newman and his closest friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, began an extraordinary project. Stuart was to compile an oral history, to have Newman's family and friends and those who worked closely with him, talk about the actor's life. And then Newman would work with Stewart and give his side of the story. The only stipulation was that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. That same stipulation applied to Newman himself. The project lasted five years. 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.

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. I think anyone who enjoys reading about complex people will enjoy this book. You don't need to know anything about Paul Newman or even be interested in Hollywood. This book isn't a Hollywood book, it's a deeply personal book about man who never believed his own hype.

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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. he was honest to the core, was a loyal friend, very well respected by most people, loved to laugh at his own jokes….. Newman's piercing bright blue eyes were a huge part of what made him so strikingly handsome, but in Paul Newman: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man, he discusses feeling as if his looks were obscuring his hard work.



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