Peter Bart: A New Memoir & Documentary Reveal How Paul Newman Resisted The Cult Of Personality, Even As He Dissected It Onscreen
deadline.comHe is a TV news star: His views are populist, his subtext racist. His advocacy is passionate and his TV audience is vast, despite suspicion that he pursues an agenda above and beyond his own.Some may rush to identify this character – images of Fox News flash before us – but the TV anchor was, in fact, a creation of Paul Newman, a star of a previous generation whose presence seems pervasive in the present.At a moment when political expression, personal or corporate, seems instantly suffocated, Newman was a courageous free spirit who vented his opinions and put his career at risk in support of them.
The superstar is the subject of a riveting new documentary directed by Ethan Hawke prompting praise this week at the SXSW festival.
He also is the subject of a revealing, long-suppressed memoir being published this fall by Alfred A. Knopf.Though he passed in 2008, Newman occupies an exalted presence in the superstar community as someone who cared deeply about the acting profession but also about his political community.
In the 1969 movie titled WUSA he pre-invented Tucker Carlson of Fox News in such vivid ideological and personal detail that the anchor himself today seems like a time traveler (details below).In his illustrious acting career Newman starred in hits like Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Hud.
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