The Newman Encounter

I was sent to interview Paul Newman 3 weeks after the Redford on the set of The Natural interview and knew that I had a guardian angel,as I had never met movie stars this famous when I worked for CBS in San Diego.My crew and I went to Malibu where he and Joanne Woodward were staying.I was surprised at some of his personal comments when it came to his wife,his marriage,his career and his love of racing.I want to share some of them.His wife,Joanne, had stared in several movies with him or has been directed by him and this what he said,”She blows my socks off when I am directing her.It can be difficult.It can be easy.If it was too easy,it wouldn’t be any fun.I know when to keep my mouth shut with her.” And on his marriage,”I think our marriage is successful because we listen a lot.I don’t want to give the impression that it’s all cherry pie and ice cream. It can be stormy,impossible, difficult and insensitive,but never boring.”When it came to his career it was all about hating his performance in The Silver Chalice and he was surprise to learn that one the most the famous Hollywood journalists, Hedda Hopper, said in her column that she knew he would be a star from that film.I told him that I had a copy of the article and he asked if he could have it and of course I gave it to him. As for racing he told me”Joanne has an interesting theory.She thinks one of the reasons I started racing is that I was getting bored with acting,and my passion for racing bled back into acting….the lady knows me better than I know myself.”What I took away from meeting Redford and Newman is that really big movie stars are gracious and kind when it comes to doing interviews even when they don’t want to do them.Later in my career, I met the other kind who thought they were a star whose behavior bordered on rudeness,those stories and more are in my book Nearly Famous: Secrets,Lies and Addiction.