Paul Newman

A native of Ohio, Paul New­man began his career on stage, tour­ing with sev­er­al the­ater com­pa­nies before set­tling in New York, where he per­formed on Broad­way and joined Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio.

He rose to fame in 1958 with the fea­ture film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, direct­ed by Richard Brooks, in which he starred along­side Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor, earn­ing his first Oscar nom­i­na­tion. In 1961, he por­trayed the leg­endary pool play­er Fast Eddie Fel­son in Robert Rossen’s The Hus­tler, a role he reprised twen­ty-five years lat­er in Mar­tin Scorsese’s The Col­or of Mon­ey, for which he won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Actor.

He worked with some of the great­est direc­tors of his time: Michael Cur­tiz, Otto Pre­minger, Alfred Hitch­cock, Robert Alt­man, Sid­ney Lumet, Syd­ney Pol­lack, Mel Brooks, James Ivory, Joel Coen and Sam Mendes.

Paul New­man also stepped behind the cam­era. He direct­ed his wife, Joanne Wood­ward, in his debut film Rachel, Rachel (1968), which earned an Oscar nom­i­na­tion and won him a Gold­en Globe for Best Direc­tor. This was fol­lowed by Some­times a Great Notion (1971), The Effect of Gam­ma Rays on Man- in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), Har­ry & Son (1984) and The Glass Menagerie (1986).