by Tony Dayoub
As he got older, he only got more beautiful. His steely blue eyes took on a special glint as his hair grayed. Years before Brad Pitt came onto the scene, even a middle-aged Paul Newman had a six-pack that was the envy of most men. And when his physique started to decline, as it does for us all, his cocky voice took on a smoky, gruff quality that denoted a world-weariness, which he put to good use in some of his later films, like
Fort Apache, The Bronx (1980),
The Color of Money (1986), and most recently,
Cars (2006).
According to Eric Lax, his biographer, Newman's looks got in the way of his career early on. Often finding himself up for the same roles as his Actors' Studio contemporaries, James Dean and Marlon Brando, Newman was having some trouble standing out. Too good-looking for Dean's roles, and resembling Brando a little too closely, his film career was slower to start. But Broadway had no trouble putting him to work, where he debuted in the original production of
Picnic. After a stumble in his first film, the ill-suited costume drama,
The Silver Chalice (1954), he recovered nicely, playing boxer Rocky Graziano in
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1958).
