‘The Last Movie Stars’ Director Ethan Hawke On How Paul Newman And Joan Woodward Set “High-Water Mark” For Hollywood – Contenders TV: Docs + Unscripted
deadline.comIn Hollywood history, no Oscar-winning couple has earned greater admiration than Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. The actors who were married for 50 years before Newman’s death in 2008 are the subject of the six-part CNN Films/HBO Max documentary series The Last Movie Stars, directed by Ethan Hawke, himself a four-time Oscar nominee. “I’ve dedicated my life to this profession, and they are kind of the high-water mark of what can be achieved,” Hawke said as he appeared along with his filmmaking team at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted event. “A lot of the stories of great artists — a lot of them end tragically.
So it was really fun to study two people who continued to develop, and they became better at their craft and became better citizens and better parents.” The Woodward-Newman love affair was not uncomplicated.
When they first met and fell passionately for each other, Newman was still married to his first wife, with whom he had three children. “That’s part of what’s so interesting about the two of them,” noted producer Adam Gibbs. “It’s not a fairy-tale love story necessarily, but it’s still really a beautiful, long marriage despite whatever bumps along the way there were.” RELATED: Contenders Docs + Unscripted Deadline’s Complete Coverage Early in their relationship, Woodward was the bigger star, and she won the Academy Award in 1958 for her lead performance in The Three Faces of Eve.
He first was nominated in 1959 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof but didn’t win a competitive Oscar until 1987 with The Color of Money.
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