Stewart Stern Talks About Paul Newman

As is true of many writing efforts, there is a story behind the story. This one is no different. Though in this case I am reluctant to go in to great detail for fear of risking threat of slander. I’ll simply give you what I can…

When Paul Newman died in September of 2008, I received an email from a co-worker whose direction I take as seriously as that of any publisher. The email title line simply said, “DO THIS.” I was advised I should contact Newman’s close friend, Stewart Stern, for comment on the actor’s life. Get 50 words, and get it yesterday.

I’ve had a tentative correspondence with Mr. Stern for some time, but was uncomfortable approaching him during what was obviously a time of grief. I did, but with some reluctance. Mr. Stern was gracious enough to respond, stating he’d love to talk with me but would have to get back to me in several weeks, as he was preoccupied with issues pertaining to Newman’s family and estate.

I heard from Mr. Stern about two weeks later. We talked for over two hours about his relationship with Paul Newman. I was left with over 15, single-spaced pages of interview transcript. Knowing that I was only asked for 50 words, I wrote up as brief a story about Newman’s life and accomplishments as I could.  Needless to say, it more than exceeded 50 words.

Since the source material for an article I was scheduled to write for a certain publisher was having trouble coming together. I suggested my Paul Newman article as a replacement.

I learned the 50-word piece had been scrapped.

I was then vilified for even making such a suggestion, let alone writing such a lengthy and unsolicited piece. What was said to me sent me back to a counseling, when all that need be said was, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

I tried several other publishing sources, all of which turned me down. By then Newman had been dead nearly a month, and talking about his greatness, talking of the void left by his absence was simply no longer of any value in the public consciousness.

The Sexiness of Death has a very limited shelf life.

Mr. Stern contacted me stating he wished to review my piece as he was concerned over revealing something not fit for public consumption. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the piece had been shot down.

He read it. He loved it. He made minor additions.

About a week later I was walking through the grocery store. I glanced over at a row of Newman’s Own bottled salad dressing. I saw that image of Newman on the labels, row after row of broad smiles and glittering eyes codified into a brand that will live on alongside his films for as long as this culture can remain upright. But it’s just an image of the man.

I thought, “Don’t worry…I know you some. I know you enough—I know you now more than anyone in a hundred mile radius, maybe even a thousand.” Save one. One man, who loved Paul Newman will all of his heart and a greater part of his soul and was so very kind to share those thoughts and feelings with me. 

Stewart Stern Talks About Paul Newman
Cole  Hornaday
12.2008

In September of 2008, the entertainment industry, and the world as a whole, lost one of its great shining lights when Paul Newman lost his battle with lung cancer.

What do we hope to leave behind? Is it our hard work, our deeds, our stories? Shakespeare said, “ The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” Is our bid for a positive, lasting permanence a totem left to the physical world, or is it something far less tangible?

The long-time friendship between Paul Newman and Hollywood screenwriter, Stewart Stern (REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, SYBIL) spans over fifty years. Fifty years of life, love, art and adventure lived both within and without the beauty and chaos of the entertainment industry.  It was a bond that began in the early days of live television, while Stern was writing for NBC’s Philco Television Playhouse on a production called THUNDER OF SILENCE,  “In my story there was a farm couple down in Middle Atlantic States and they had two sons who had gone off to war and one of them had been killed…I was about to bring on the hero [and]…I suddenly had no vision of him and just didn’t know what I was going to do—except maybe quit. I went home and happened to turn on the television and caught one of the other live-dramas. I saw this boy on his knees trying to explain something to [his mother] about the war…and he let out a moan, this, ‘aaahhh’—I’d never heard the like of and it came from so deep inside him, and just had me in tears and I thought, ‘That—that’s the quality-- that’s the boy who has to play this…’ And it was Paul Newman.”


Through that initial production, Stern’s relationship with Newman began to expand, “And right after the show went on the air, Paul walked me cross-town to meet the love of his life, Joanne, with whom a new friendship developed that is a ruling one in my life, giving me not only family membership in her heart, but most of the talent that lit up my work.”

Through his entire life, Newman was fascinated by the divergent notions of nature and nurture, chaos and luck; trying to determine whether there truly was any sense to the senseless, or whether the good or ill that befalls us simply happens at random.  The common observer may have noted this view of the world in the roles he played, the sporting activities he pursued, and the charities he helped to establish and maintain. Yet one area of his life seldom left to chance was his investment in his friends and loved ones. Regarding their friendship, Stern said, “I was never able to figure it out…There was a part of him that was so vulnerable, and that was the part of him that I was attracted by because I understood and it was a part that really only we could share. I never was able to be the part of his life that I envied other people—you know, to go fishing off the Florida Keys or to be athletic or to be a racecar driver. [We were] this very unlikely combination that nobody could quite figure out."

Since his death, people have spoken volumes of Paul Newman’s legacy, the charities funded by his Newman’s Own products, the Hole in the Wall Gang camps for seriously ill children, and more. But for Stewart Stern, Newman’s legacy is something far simpler, and far more personal, “I think, for me, it’s his example as a man--as a human. He had an appetite to just keep going and to keep growing and to never quit and to face the things he feared being.   He had acrophobia and so he would get onto a higher wall each day until he didn’t have it anymore. He just would hang in there like a terrier. He said, ‘Its the one thing I have that a lot of people I know don’t, and that’s tenacity; I will hold on until the end and I may come in after Brando and I may come in after Dean, but, by God, I’m going to get there.’ He admired people who had that kind of grit and he wanted everybody to have the chance to feel it.” It was precisely this willingness to allow one to explore their own potential, to forge their own grit; that has left the most indelible impression upon those who knew him. “That’s what he admired so much in other people and wanted to support people who proved it, and so many of his friends felt the benefit.”  



Immortality, true immortality is that part of yourself you transfer to others through your lifetime; it is a commodity that passes on and on.

 

In May of 2009 it was announced writer Shawn Levy, film critic for The Oregonian, would be publishing a bit of a biographical tell-all on Paul Newman; “Paul Newman: A Life.” From the promotional material it sounded as though very little of the book’s source material was original, but cobbled together from non-family reminiscences and previously published material.

I have yet to peruse the book. I’ll bet you the $29.99 cover price Levy has not half the riches as I when it comes to stories about Paul Newman. Stories shared as only a Best Friend can.