Paul Newman and Rawn Harding - Page 3

Paul Newman also gave me a bit of an acting lesson that night.  I noticed him looking off to my right. “See that guy over there?” He said. There was a man sitting at a table over in the corner, three or four tables away.  He was a large man tipping the scales at over three hundred pounds.  The waiter had just served his food, a huge steak, baked potato and vegetable. I answered, “Yeah, I see him.”

“Now, why would a guy eat that kind of a meal this late at night?”

“Maybe he works third shift,” I offered but Paul didn’t respond. Instead he kept asking questions. He looked at his watch, “It’s after 11:30.  Why would you eat this late? Why would you eat that heavy a meal this late? How would you sleep? What would it feel like to be that heavy, to carry all that weight?” I realized what he was doing and said nothing.  You see it wasn’t about judgment, assumption or getting answers to the questions.  It was about asking the right questions. Questions spark an actor’s imagination, and further the “as if” of discovering a character, in “Method” terms.  You see as an actor or with any artist for that matter, you cannot create and judge at the same time.  Judgment is death during the creative process.  I realized that after all those years it was second nature for Newman, just part of the way he lived life.  This was a huge gift for me, one of those things you know and understand but too often forget to remember.  I haven’t forgotten it much since that night, thanks to Paul Newman.

Later that evening when the check came, Paul grabbed it, glanced at it and then looked at me. “How’s your eyes?”

“Fine. Why?” 

He held the check between us just below the edge of the table top. “Can you read that?” 

“Yeah.”

“What’s it say?”

“The total?” 

“Don’t be a smart ass.”  I chuckled and told him what the total was. “You know, it’s the damnedest thing. Your whole life, every morning, you grab the newspaper, go in the john, sit down in the dark and you read the paper.  The one day you grab the paper, go into the john, sit down and just like that, you can’t read a damn thing. It happens just that quick.” 

“You got reading glasses?”

“Yeah, sure, but you know…” He shrugged and tossed a glance around the restaurant.  “Kinda can’t you know…”  Even though he was a very regular guy, fought hard against the movie star garbage, still he was a bit narcissistic.  He was also a very good businessman and knew that Paul Newman “movie star” carried with it a responsibility.  The reality is he was Paul Newman, the symbol of virility and sexuality and of course had those unbelievable blue eyes. So you see, that guy couldn’t wear glasses. 

Let me just stop here and say this.  Paul Newman was fifty-nine years old that night, the same age I am now, another one of those odd paradoxes that keeps whirling around the room as I write this.  He was amazingly handsome, a chiseled Greek statue of Hermes in profile, and then there were those eyes.  When he looked at you, it was like looking into headlights.  His eyes were that stunningly blue, and they were real and it’s just who he was.

Five years later he did The Color of Money.  There is a scene shot in an optometrist examining room.  There is an abrupt cut to a shot in the darkened room from the opposite side of the eye examination equipment, you know that giant piece of equipment you look into and the ophthalmologist flips different lenses into view. In the shot, it first looks like an alien monster then you realize that Newman’s character, Fast Eddie Felson, was getting glasses.  Instantly I broke into laughter. I howled. No one else in the theatre laughed. I laughed and I didn’t care. I laughed because I figured this was something Paul insisted upon having in the movie.  You see, if Fast Eddie Felson could wear glasses on the big screen, then Paul Newman could wear glasses in real life. 

About a dozen years later a film company was shooting a film in the town where I live in upstate New York.  They were looking for union actors and I got a call.  It was just extra work, but I could walk down to the location and besides the film was Nobody’s Fool with Paul Newman, so I said yes.

The location was a small local bar, the Iron Horse.  There were three or four other actors.  We were seated in the back of the bar near the pool table just waiting.  The table was covered with lighting equipment.  Paul Newman walked in, said hi and eyed the table. “Hey fellas, this looks like a pool table.  Any of you guys want to play pool?”  We all said yes and he said, “Well let’s get this stuff cleared off and get to it.”  We all pitched in and moved the equipment.  None of us were used that night in the scenes that were shot, we just sat around and played pool with Paul Newman and I gotta tell you, he was one hell of a good pool player.

The town’s Mayor was there that night and Newman gave him a card and said to call if he could ever help in any way.  For years afterward when a local car dealership held a charity auction, the Mayor would call Newman’s office and he’d always send some sort of memorabilia for the auction.  This was all done very quietly, no fanfare, he was just there to help out.

Racing and shooting pool were two of Paul Newman’s passions.  He told a great story that night.  Seems when he was cast in The Hustler, he didn’t know how to play pool.  So he went to a second floor pool hall over looking Times Square.  He had a cap on pulled down low and went over and leaned against the wall watching the play at the tables.  Before long a guy comes over and leans against the wall next to him.  After a couple minutes the guy asks if he’d like to shoot a game of pool.  Newman said no.  A few more minutes pass and the guy asks Newman if he can ask him a question and Paul says, “Sure.”

“If ya don’t wanna shoot pool, what ya doin’ here?”

Newman explained that he was an actor and had been cast as a pool player in a film and since he didn’t know how to play he thought he’d just watch a while and see what he could learn.

“Dat’s cool,” the guy said.  “An actor huh?  I thought you looked kinda familiar.”  Another few minutes pass, both watching the action, then Newman asks, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

“Suppose I had played you and I won,” Paul asks, “What would have happened then?”

The guy points out one of the pool shooters, “See that guy?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s Joey.  You’da played Joey.”

“OK, so what if I’d played Joey and won, what would happen?”

“Ya see that guy back over there in the corner?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s Vinnie.  You’da played Vinnie.”

“Now suppose I played Vinnie and I beat him, what would happen then?”

The guy paused, looked at Newman and said, “Vinnie woulda called Chicago.”

A few months after I had dinner with Paul and Joanne and Rawn, Paul launched Newman’s Own salad dressing.  At sixty he started a business that donated millions of dollars to charity and he still kept racing and making films. He was a pretty amazing man.  It’s difficult to imagine all the lives he touched especially with his charitable work.  Here’s a man who, on his own in a positive manner, helped better the lives of thousands upon thousands of people; it’s truly an impressive act.  Ghandi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  Don’t think about or talk about it, just take action and do it, live it.  That’s the kind of man Paul Newman was.

Do yourself a favor, watch a mess of Newman’s films.  Watch the early stuff, then the middle stuff and then watch everything he did after The Verdict.  From that point on his work just got simpler and simpler and better and better.  If you do that and you’ll come to understand why he was such a fine artist, why he was a movie icon.

This year I lost my friend Rawn Harding and we all lost Paul Newman.  We’re better for the fact they lived, better people for what they gave us.

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