Posts tagged paul newman
Simply Streisand #25
Of course, on top of everything else the Great Man did, Paul Newman (who was born on this day, 26 January in 1925) enjoyed a long and warm friendship with that other Great Star, Barbra Streisand.
See these couple pics from their fun times together:
Happy Birthday Paul Newman
Paul Newman, one of the Great Movie Stars and quite possibly the most handsome man who ever lived, was born on this day (26 January) in 1925.
A devoted humanitarian whose famous spaghetti sauces - of which all profits went to charities - were just the beginning of his limitless philanthropy. He was also a monogamist, happily married to Joanne Woodward (who won one more Oscar than her husband, who finally won his overdue Best Actor in 1986 for The Color Of Money, the sequel to The Hustler) for fifty years (from 1958 to his death in 2008) and was known to reply to how he resisted the temptations of the countless Hollywood women desperate for sex with him: “I have steak at home. Why should I go out for a hamburger?”
Here’s some pics of Paul in his prime (he aged beautifully, too).
Miss Davis Says #5:
Like the Pyramids of Giza or the temples at Angkor, Bette Davis’ maximum magnificence really kicked in once she became a crumbling ruin.
In 1987 Geraldine Page, the previous year’s Best Actress, was too sick with kidney disease to attend the ceremony (she passed away three months later) and so Miss Davis presented that year’s Best Actor Oscar.
A loving montage of her performances and a thundering announcement of her Academy-related accomplishments played before her appearance at the podium. Miss Davis took in a lengthy standing ovation, before dismissing the adulation with a quick line of self-referential wit at which point everyone dutifully laughed. Then she began announcing the nominees, but in the way of Old Hollywood, where each nominee was briefly spoken about.
Her microphone was immediately switched off after she started talking about Bob Hoskins (nominated for Mona Lisa and a sure winner if overdue Paul Newman hadn’t been also on the list) after the sting for the next nominee, Dexter Gordon, had started playing (to a live television audience of one billion people).
It was switched back on again for her to announce the winner, Newman, and left on as Robert Wise attempted to accept on behalf of the absent honoree. This precious six minutes and twenty-one seconds of material should be watched in its entirety and many times, too, but the awesomeness really goes into overdrive from 5:25:
Happy Birthday Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael, the greatest film critic, was born on this day in 1919 (she passed away at her home in Massachusetts aged 82 in September, 2001).
Far be it from me to attempt a tribute that would do Pauline Kael and her film writing justice so instead, here are excerpts from her typically excellent book, The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael.
On Marilyn Monroe
Her mixture of wide-eyed wonder and cuddly drugged sexiness seemed to get to just about every male; she turned on even homosexual men. And women couldn’t take her seriously enough to be indignant; she was funny and impulsive in a way that made people feel protective. She was a little knocked out; her face looked as if, when nobody was paying attention to her, it would go utterly slack — as if she died between wolf calls.
On Meryl Streep
