By: Jeffrey Ressner

World-renowned actor and philanthropist Paul Newman, whose good-natured charm, rugged masculinity and baby-blue eyes graced classic films including “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Sting,” “Hud,” “The Hustler” and “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid,” died Friday evening at his Connecticut home after a long bout of cancer. He was 83.

Newman’s work in the movie business and his great philanthropic success using his name and likeness on food products are both well known. Less publicized was his long-standing involvement with Democratic political causes, from his strong support for 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy (which earned him a spot on President Richard Nixon’s infamous “enemies list”) to his early activism in the civil rights movement.

A frequent contributor to liberal candidates, Newman made donations over the years to many underdog presidential hopefuls including independent John Anderson in 1980, Jesse Jackson and Paul Simon in 1988, Paul Tsongas and Bob Kerrey in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000. In the current election cycle, he made contributions to Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their respective runs for the presidency, and also donated to comic Al Franken’s Senate bid in Minnesota and local politicians Jim Himes’ run for a House seat in Connecticut. Over the years, he contributed more than a quarter-million dollars to political candidates, with most all of it going to Democrats.

“Paul was just a plain-spoken, affirmative guy with a good sense of humor who had a commitment to making the world a better place,” Himes told Politico on Saturday morning. “We talked politics a couple of times, and one thing he mentioned was how deeply pained he was by the loss of our reputation abroad.

"Paul was always very proud of America and he was personally hurt by the way that other countries now felt about us. He also believed strongly in helping the vulnerable and less fortunate among us—that was reflected in his philanthropic work, of course, but he also believed that this administration and the Republican Congress had forgotten their duty and obligation to create opportunities for disenfranchised citizens.”

“Paul was an American icon, philanthropist and champion for children,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton and President Clinton in a statement. “We will miss our dear friend, whose continued support always meant the world to us.”

Nader also issued a statement, referring to Newman as an “excelling man for all seasons—a master of the dramatic arts, a versatile humanitarian, a politically engaged activist,and a champion race car driver for decades,” adding he had lived “an exemplary life.”

 

Newman traced his early political activism to the troubled economic times of the post-war years. "I wasn’t politically active until the early fifties," he told Rolling Stone in 1983, citing the era’s rampant McCarthyism and a cousin who was blacklisted for his political fervor. "I was just starting, in 1952, making the rounds and not getting a lot of work," he said. "I campaigned for Adlai Stevenson. Stuffing envelopes."

He also told Rolling Stone that he frequently considered leaving the movie business for public service "I’d like to get out of some aspects of this rat race. . .the flashbulbs," he said. "I guess the only thing that would have any kind of lure would be politics. But I would be elected for the wrong reasons."

Newman’s enthusiastic backing of Eugene McCarthy during the height of the Vietnam War saw him attend the 1968 Democratic convention as a delegate for the candidate.

Later, President Jimmy Carter appointed him to a United Nations General Assembly session on nuclear disarmament. Newman, who had spoken against nukes for years and had donated heavily to the Center for Defense Information to counter the Pentagon’s pro-nuclear stance, recalled meeting Carter in the White House.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Newman said he had wanted a heart-to-heart talk with the Commander in Chief about the threat of nuclear destruction, but even then his fame intruded. "I wanted to talk to Carter about SALT II, and he wanted to talk about how you made movies," said Newman.

Newman’s final performance last year was also politically-tinged: the narration of a documentary titled “The Price of Sugar,” which follows a priest in the Dominican Republic helping to organize sugarcane workers struggling under inhumane conditions. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival, the documentary received a limited theatrical run late last year and is set for release on DVD at the end of November.

Newman contributed to dozens of other causes over the past few decades. In addition to his creation of the Hole-in-the-Wall camp in Connecticut for terminally ill children, Newman also contributed to various women’s causes and gun control groups over the years. After his son Scott died from an accidental overdose in 1978, he launched a foundation to make anti-drug documentary films and, later, a West Coast-based camp to prevent substance abuse through education. He and his longtime spouse Joanne Woodward were also major supporters of the Westport Country Playhouse, a former cow barn in Weston, Connecticut that underwent extensive renovations over the past eight years.

Of all his political work and support, however, it appears that nothing gave Newman more joy than his appearance on Nixon’s enemies list, initially compiled by Charles Colson and sent as a memorandum to John Dean in 1971. Newman wound up as the 19th name on the original 20-person list, with a notation next to his name that read “Radic-lib causes. Heavy McCarthy involvement ’68. Used effectively in nationwide T.V. commercials. ’72 involvement certain.”

In a fundraising email for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent last year, Newman said of the disgraced president’s hit list, “It was one of my life’s proudest achievements. More than the films, more than the awards — finding out that I was on Nixon’s Enemies List meant that I was doing something right."

Motion Picture Association of America chairman/ceo Dan Glickman said Newman “soared to fame with a fondness for portraying scamps, louts and ne’er do wells, yet he will be remembered as an artist, gentleman and humanitarian whose extraordinary career was rivaled in every respect by an exemplary life.”

Added Glickman, “At a time in our history when the world desperately needs citizens with the power and instinct to both create and to give back, Paul Newman will truly be missed.”

Though he rarely gave interviews and shunned much of the hoopla that came along with his acting career, in 1994 he sat down with Newsweek magazine and discussed how aging hadn’t changed his life all that much. "I’m not mellower, I’m not less angry, I’m not less self-critical, I’m not less tenacious," he said. "Maybe the best part is that your liver can’t handle those beers at noon anymore.”

Newman is survived by his wife, five children, two grandchildren and an older brother.

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