Sometime today Paul Newman died in his West Port, Connecticut.  He was aged 83 years.  Reports are saying that his death was an over complication of being a total bad ass since 1956.  Doctors close to the case are saying that Newman’s coolness cockles an area known to produce a sex icon and brooding toughness pheromone had failed completely after a life of over use.  According to one medical expert, “We’ve seen this before, it’s the same thing that got Brando.”

Paul Newman is gone.  Now its time to survey his filmography and works and figure out where he resides in terms of the pantheons of all-time greats.  Here’s the rub, most of his great movies are in black and white and were filmed prior to 1965 (Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Long, Hot Summer, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Exodus, and The Hustler).

I’m going to be the first to admit that the only B&W film that I’ve watched was either the first half of the Wizard of Oz, which doesn’t really count, or Night of the Living Dead.  I guess you can throw Psycho in the that list as well.  So if Paul Newman had been fighting zombies or cross-dressing crazies, I might have caught one of his early films.

Point being, for all of his greatest works I have no frame of reference other than  any other old actor guy.  Was Cat On a Hot Tin Roof better than A Streetcar Named Desire?  I have no idea, nor do I really have the inkling to investigate.  I know that 1950s sex symbols are not the same as 2008.  Back in the day, they looked more like down on their luck highschool QBs working at a gas station than the fitness trainer showered in bling.

Old movies had a certain feel to them, actors acted differently than how they do today.  This may be a better column for my sister to write since she likes all those old people.  She’s a huge Doris Day and Katharine Hepburn fan.  I once heard that Doris Day sleeps in a pajamas filled with Vaseline to preserve her youthful skin.  I guess John McCain must be sleeping in a napalm fire suit.

Personally, with the quality of the film back that, which we will call LDTV, how can you even tell the actors and actresses apart?  They are all grainy blogs of over-sized pixels speaking in a over-delivered, rapid fire voices.  My sister has a purse with a print of Hepburn on it.  I guess I can’t make too much fun of her because I’ve got a large brass belt buckle with Old Dirty Bastard airbrushed on it titled “Big Baby Jesus”.

Outside of the painful B&W era we get movies such as Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Slapshot (1977).  Butch Cassidy et al is in my opinion the best buddy movie of all time, even surpassing Tango & Cash, Red Heat, and 48 Hours.  Cool Hand Luke captures perfectly the counter culture concept of the anti-hero.  Plus he eats a lot of boiled eggs.

He was in the Hudsucker Proxy and The Road to Perdition, but neither of them jingled my bells so to speak.  I guess from my self-admitted limited exposure to his body of his work, I will say that Paul Newman was a successful and talented actor for a very, very long time.  Does he compare with the likes of De Niro, Stewart, Hanks, or Pacino?  I don’t think so.  And I think its because he is missing the sustained level of masterpiece work.

De Niro had Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and The Deer Hunter.  Jimmy Stewart has It’s A Wondeful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and his numerous collaborations with Hitchcock.  Tom Hanks, the reincarnation of Stewart, has Philadelphia, Castaway, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, etc.  We’ll go ahead and finish out the list of with Crazy Alfredo Pacino with Godfather epic, Serpico, and Scarface.  Newman’s greatest pieces are brilliant, but after Cool Hand Luke the quality of his movies drops a tier.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is that Paul Newman was the nemesis version of Charlton Heston.  While Moses was out popping semi-automatic assault rifle (for home protection of course) at all non-white people passing by his gated, rich neighborhood and dancing an Irish jig on the graves of gun victims, Newman was doing quite the opposite and championing causes for gravely ill children, war refugees, and starving grandmas.  He started a line of food products called Newman’s Own that donated all of their profits to charities, totaling about $200 million dollars to date.

Pry that from your cold dead fingers, you NRA dumb shit.

Also, noteworthy is that he married a smoking hot babe, was married to her for 52 years (he died, thus they are no longer married), and never cheated.  He was quoted as saying, “why would I go out for hamburger, when I’ve got steak at home.”

He was also a big time racing entusiast and added his voice to the old Buick in Cars.  I hate every form of auto-sports unless Battle Bots is somehow included, so no points with me on that one.

It’s my opinion Paul Newman should go out as he lived.  Surrounded by the things that made him great and that took him a step beyond Hollywood legend to a wonderful human being and philanthropist.  I guess the only debate that is remaining – should he be buried in Newman’s Peppercorn Ranch Salad Dressing or Newman’s Chunky Pasta Sauce with Red Wine and Garlic?

For my vote, I say put him in the salad dressing.  “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”