Great Romances of the 20th Century (1997) s01e06 Episode Script

Paul Newman is one of Hollywood's 24-carat superstars, the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history.
He reached the top of the tree in the mid-1950s, and by the dawn of a new century had defied advancing years to remain an actor of presence and power.
Since 1958 Newman's co-star has often been his wife Joanne Woodward, long recognized as one of the most intelligent and sympathetic actresses working in movies and television.
Both Newman and Woodward have lives which stretch far beyond film and keep them in the public eye.
Their long-lived marriage bears testimony to their determination, their love for each other and their ability to survive the knocks that afflict even those who are outrageously blessed by fortune.
Famous as they are, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward have always jealously guarded their privacy ln a world which often refuses to grow up, they are the genuine article, a truly grown-up couple.
Paul Newman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 26th of January 1925.
His father was Jewish, the prosperous proprietor of a sporting goods store, and Newman and his brother were raised in the suburb of Shaker Heights.
ln World War ll, Newman served in the Pacific as a US Navy radioman, third class, in the back seat of carrier-borne bomber aircraft.
After the war, he studied at Kenyon College, Ohio, and Yale School of Drama, before making his way in New York.
ln 1949 he married his first wife, Jacqueline Witte, whom he had met while working in repertory theatre near Chicago.
But it was in New York that Newman's acting career took off lt was the so-called ''Golden Age'' of American television and there was plenty of work for ambitious young actors.
New York became the forcing ground for a new generation of actors who would soon take Hollywood by storm.
At the beginning of 1953, Newman landed a part in Joshua Logan's Broadway production of Picnic.
He also understudied Picnic's star, Ralph Meeker, who played the sexy braggart who turns a small Kansas community upside down.
Newman earned excellent notices, and filled in for Meeker when the star of the show took a vacation.
The understudy to Picnic's two female leads was a 23-year-old blonde with a languid Southern drawl and a steel-trap mind her name was Joanne Woodward.
During the 14-month run, she and Newman became friends.
Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia, in February 1930, and was to play many Southern roles in her career.
As a young girl she always dreamed of acting, and one of her most vivid childhood memories was of attending the premiere of Gone With the Wind, in Atlanta, in December 1939.
Colossal crowds lined the city's streets to greet the movie's stars.
Like Paul Newman, Joanne came to New York, after Louisiana State University, and a spell at a community theatre in South Carolina.
Woodward's unwavering aim was to be a great actress rather than a star, like her heroine Bette Davis.
ln New York, both Newman and Woodward were members of the Actors Studio, presided over by the mercurial Lee Strasberg.
''l got it only only at one moment actually, when you sort of smiled to yourself there was a kind of a fiendish, not exactly, but a kind of strange glee''.
Here, Woodward and Newman rubbed shoulders with classmates James Dean, Rod Steiger, Julie Harris, and Marlon Brando, with whom Paul was often compared early in his movie career, much to his displeasure.
Thirty years later he recalled being accepted by the Studio.
''ln those days you had to do two auditions you did one audition for some of the older students who had been with the studio for a long time and then your final audition was done with for Kazan and Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford.
And, uh, this girl had passed her first audition and the actor she was working with got ajob and she asked me if l'd do the second one.
So technically l was not but l was so nervous and so rattled by this experience l'd just come out of school that that somehow translated into something they confused with being enraged and uh so l got in by what l thought was trickery in any case but whatever it was l was really wound up like a rubber band that day and uh l simply was allowed in.
'' Newman's Broadway stint in Picnic had attracted the attention of Hollywood, and in 1954 he signed a contract with Warner Brothers.
lt was a decision Paul was later to regret.
At the end of the decade it cost Newman half a million dollars to escape studio boss Jack Warner.
But it was money he would quickly recoup.
However, Newman's first at Warners was a disaster, The Silver Chalice, in which he starred as a slave called Basil.
Years later, when the movie was shown on TV, he took out a newspaper ad disowning it.
''Oh, no l took an ad out in the Los Angeles Times with a funereal wreath around it two columns and about six inches, 8 inches in which l said that l apologise every night at seven o'clock for having unleashed this thing on the unsuspecting audience.
lt backfired incidentally - people thought that was charming and they tuned and it had very high ratings.
'' Things could only improve, and they did when Newman played boxing champ Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me.
Pier Angeli was Rocky's wife.
''No place in this man's army for a wise guy.
Do you understand that? Ah wait a minute, you might be a Captain and all that but you don't impress me so hot.
lf you're so tough come on outside You've given me lot of reasons why not but l still haven't heard the one thing that will convince me Well, what about them other guys? Smearing it all over the front page, what a rat l am, what a liar, what a no good, Graziano he's a no good criminal, a coward, a yellow rat, remember that Graziano, the scum of the slums Stop it! You know, l've been lucky somebody up there likes me''.
And somebody in Hollywood liked Joanne Woodward, who had followed Newman to California and signed with 20th Century-Fox.
She made her screen debut in 1955.
Two years later she played a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder in The Three Faces of Eve.
Lee J.
Cobb was the concerned psychiatrist.
For Woodward, it was the kind of part, and performance, that guaranteed an Academy Award.
''Maybe he wants to get Barnie away from me You mean divorce? Maybe not that, but if he can make me believe l'm losing my mind ls that what you think he's trying to do? Well, l don't know what else it could be the way he tells it - Am l?'' Personality No.
2 was a hard-drinking good-time girl ''Oooh, don't you want to give me one? Well, l've never seen you take a drink before There's a lot of things you aint seen me do before that's not saying l don't do 'em.
'' The third character enabled Woodward to pull all the stops out.
''Oh, please Mama, please Mama, don't make me Mama, please don't make me Mama Tell me what happened, Jane, under the house.
She made me she made me kiss her, no!''.
Woodward's Best Actress Oscar for 1957 was a shoo-in.
''l can only say l've been daydreaming about this since l was 9 years old and thank you very much, thanks most of all to mother and father who've had more faith in me than anyone could have.
Thank you''.
Years later, she recalled the emotion ''Then it was a special thrill, yes, because l was young enough for it to be really exciting and meaningful l had just come into Hollywood.
l'd only done two pictures before that and l'd been raised on movie magazines.
And the idea of winning an Oscar was the most exciting thing in the world and l'm glad that it happened when it happened Uh l think the excitement only last for about five minutes, you know, by the time you get back to your seat with the it's you realize it's in fact a statue and as you say it's not a competition but l loved it it was wonderful.
'' The studio bosses were unsure what to do with Woodward - who was not a screen goddess in the mould of Marilyn Monroe.
lt was simpler to play safe, casting her in the role of a Southern temptress, which she did to a tee in The Long Hot Summer opposite Orson Welles and Paul Newman.
Newman and Woodward were now living together, very discreetly.
Newman's marriage to Jacqueline Witte had produced three children but had collapsed, and by January 1958 he was free to marry again.
Newman and Woodward passed from items of hot gossip to wedlock.
The wedding was not in Shaker Heights or in Georgia but, uncharacteristically, amid the neon splendour of Las Vegas.
The couple honeymooned more decorously at the Connaught Hotel in London.
Before and after their wedding, Paul and Joanne spent much time at the California home of writer Gore Vidal, who became a lifelong friend.
Vidal presided over a raffish set in Malibu.
He remembered it as a ''This is a colony of actors, writers, directors somewhat sealed off from the rest of the world everyone has dogs up and down When we lived here we had a cocker spaniel we had that house l think it's about the third house from here.
Mr and Mrs Paul Newman, Howard Austin and me and a blacker cocker spaniel everything was the weekend we were all l was at Metro, Paul was at Warner's, Joanne at Fox one weekend we counted a hundred people who had just arrived l didn't know l knew hardly anyone so l thought they were Paul's friends, or Joanne's they didn't know anyone and we suddenly were the place to come on Sundays, where there would be a hundred strangers wandering around and none of us could say get out for fear it would be the other person's friend.
'' ln 1960, Newman starred in the first of his ''H'' movies, The Hustler, playing pool player Fast Eddie Felson to Jackie Gleason's Minnesota Fats.
''Big John.
Do you think this boy is a hustler? - Sausage.
- Bratwurst.
Piper Laurie was Newman's crippled girlfriend ''Maybe it would be better is we leave each other alone.
l've left my things at the hotel - l'll bring them over later l'm not sure - l don't know what do you want to know and why?''.
Two years later came Hud, with Newman in the title role of the ''man with the barbed wire soul''.
lt was a huge hit, and established Newman as a favourite with male and female moviegoers alike.
Less happy were the attempts to establish Newman and Woodward as a romantic screen partnership in movies like A New Kind of Love.
Somehow the chemistry never quite worked, however hard Paul and Joanne tried.
''Hello, cherie''.
As the 50s turned into the 60s, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman became involved in a wider world than movie-making.
As their friend Gore Vidal observed, ''After Jack Kennedy was elected President, Paul became more active politically''.
Since that time, the Newmans have never wavered in their commitment to liberal causes.
And that commitment has flavoured their choice of movie roles When Paul played private eye Lou Harper in 1966, he supposedly based the character on Bobby Kennedy.
lt was an interesting choice l like dangerous games.
''Your husband keeps lousy company Mrs Sampson.
As bad as there is in LA and that's as bad as there is What do you do this kind of crummy work for anyway? Are you trying to be funny? l do it because l believe in the United Nations and South East Asia and so long as there's a Siberia, you'll find Luke Harper on ajob - Are you putting me on? - l don't think so.
'' Then Newman moved on to one of his biggest box-office successes of the decade as the Christ-like convict in Cool Hand Luke ''You've got to get used to wearing them chains after a while Luke or you'll never stop listening to them clinking.
They're gonna remind you of what l've been saying l wish you'd stop being so good to me Captain.
Don't you ever talk that way to me Never! Never!'' By the summer of 1965, Paul and Joanne had three children of their own.
Keeping things in the family, Paul decided to boost Joanne's career by making his directing debut in 1968 with the bittersweet Rachel, Rachel, in which Woodward played the spinster New England teacher of the title.
''Oh, you must have had a lovely evening dear, to have stayed out so late Well, we drove around, it was a lovely evening.
No offence, l was just looking for a little action, l thought maybe you might be too - love baby love - what? Love, it's for you You know you really make me lose my train of thought Why didn't you get married like a normal woman and have children like your sister Stacey did''.
The movie was a huge critical and commercial success, and Woodward won the New York Critics Best Actress Award.
Newman remarked, ''Joanne gave up her career for me to make the marriage work.
That's one of the reasons l directed this film with her''.
Before Rachel, Rachel was released, Paul had co-produced and Joanne had co-starred in a more mundane movie, the motor racing drama Winning.
lt was the prelude to a dramatic change in Paul's life, and the start of a new career.
ln the succeeding years Paul became a top-class professional motor racing driver.
ln 1979, driving a Porsche 935, he finished second in the Le Mans 24-hour race.
Later he became the joint owner of the Newman-Has lndy car team.
His commitment to racing was total ''lt's something that l'd always been fascinated by and simply never had the time to do and uh when l found time and l was fortunately able to afford good equipment, safe equipment.
lt's just if you manage to get through a turn at the absolute limit of adhesion it's a good feeling, like a skier or a line in the Hustler.
You know whatever you do if you do it good you got to get a good feeling from it''.
ln the 60s, most everything Newman did in the movies was also good, climaxing in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Robert Redford, who had been Joanne's choice as Sundance, as Newman recalled ''She read the script and she said it's marvellous and the only guy that can play it is is Bob Redford.
Other people don't remember it that way but l remember it that way.
'' Working on the movie, Newman and Redford established an easy rapport.
Which carried through to their performances on screen.
ln 1969 and 70, Newman was No.
1 at the box office Two years later, he and Redford struck box office gold again with the crime caper The Sting.
However it was not such a golden time for the Newman's' marriage.
ln 1969 they placed an ad in the LA Times declaring ''We Are Not Breaking Up''.
They had never pretended to be a fantasy couple and often joked that they had nothing in common.
But they stuck together, personally and professionally.
ln 1972 Newman again directed his wife in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds, in which Woodward played an eccentric and demanding small-town slattern.
''lsn't that funny, one day you can be the best dancer in the whole school, make a great cheesecake, then you're history''.
The role of Beatrice Hunsdorfer was exceptionally demanding Co-starring was Joanne's daughter Nell Potts, playing Beatrice's child Matilda.
''l've just got to pull us all together - Do you understand - l understand Momma.
'' The movie proved a strain on the Newmans' marriage, although they could laugh about it later ''l will only interject one thing.
ln all the years that Joanne and l have been going together and have been married, uh, she has only brought one character home with her after shooting.
Not the voluptuaries that she's played, not the sensual, stylish ladies.
One character that she chose to bring home that was Beatrice Hunsdorfer.
And l had a lot of meetings late at night in town because l had a lot of dinners elsewhere.
'' Deeper pain struck in 1978 when Newman's son by his first marriage, Scott, a struggling actor, died from a drug overdose.
ln March 1987 Newman finally won the coveted Best Actor Oscar as an older Fast Eddie Felson in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money.
Now Tom Cruise was the Young Pretender ''We gotta race horse here, thoroughbred You make him feel good, l teach him how to run You're an incredible flake but that's a gift This is Fast Eddie Carson, who the hell are you? l'm hungry again l want his best game you couldn't deal with my game Jack, your outmanned Do you smell what l smell? - Smoke? - Money!''.
Long-established with Joanne in Westport, Connecticut, Newman embarked on a third career in the 1980s.
This was the launching of Newman's own food products, a hobby which has grown into an international money spinner.
All the profits are channelled into charity.
Paul is also the driving force behind the Hole in the Wall Gang, a network of summer camps for children with cancer and blood-related diseases, and their brothers and sisters.
The Hole in the Wall Gang operates in America and Europe.
And is a source of great joy to the Newmans.
''lt's to provide a place for kids to kick up their heels and raise a little hell outside of the the atmosphere of the hospital or their homes and to be with other kids who are sick and who are having fun and that becomes the normal l've done some interesting and rewarding things in my time but nothing that um can come close to this.
Um it's not that they said thank you for a good time but thank you for changing my life.
'' Paul Newman has been voted one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World He has won a Best Actor Oscar and has also been an accomplished movie director.
But one suspects that all this achievement and adulation means little to Paul and Joanne when compared with their lives together and the trials they have weathered and overcome.
Paul once said, ''Being famous means you're not anonymous any more.
Nobody can come to respect their anonymity until they have lost it''.
ln their seventies, both are most firmly not quitting the business.
As husband and wife And as actors of strength and sympathy, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman have much more to give us.