Paul Newman--Actor, Activist, Philanthropist--And My First Love

Paul Newman will always be Ari Ben Canaan, the handsome independence fighter in Exodus who kisses the blonde American shiksa, Kitty, but whose heart always remained first with Israel. The film came out in 1960, and it was the first film that I had to see over and over again. Back then films opened in the big movie houses in Manhattan. My grandfather had a store on 34th Street and he bought the tickets for my father, mother, sister, and me to see the film. Then we went to Davy Jones’ Locker, a restaurant that served lobsters in a room that looked like it was under the sea. I probably wore gloves and my sister and I probably wore matching outfits: felt skirts with, yes, poodles, and a matching blouse made out of polished cotton.

When Exodus finally opened out in the suburbs where we lived I stood on line to see it again, and again.

The year my mother was dying, my nine year old daughter Lena and I both got the flu and were grounded with fevers together. Being a lover of movies, I had been introducing Lena to films since before she could talk. We went through the American Film Institute lists of best comedies and dramas. In the flush of our fevers that February 1998 when my heart was breaking, I went to Blockbuster and rented Exodus.

We watched it one time. Then we watched it again. That afternoon we both adored Paul Newman, his blue eyes, his determination, and his ruthless love for Israel.

Last winter when Lena went to Israel, she called me breathless from the valley where Paul Newman first kissed Eva Marie Saint.

This afternoon she called me from Prague to tell me that the love of our lives, Paul Newman, had died.

Paul Newman was our bad boy in the Young Philadelphians, Hustler, and Hud. He was our fallen hero in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He was our rebel in Cool Hand Luke. We wanted him in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and we laughed with him in The Sting.

Twice I was in rooms with him and twice I was too shy to speak.

He was the first actor I loved, and he was the first actor my daughter loved, too.

Even in his later years, he exuded an American kind of sexuality in Nobody’s Fool.

And he had good politics. He helped save The Nation magazine. Victor Navasky went to Harvard Business School, which came up with a plan to sell limited partnerships to raise money for the oldest weekly magazine in the country. Victor enlisted Paul Newman to help solicit folks to buy these limited partnerships, the worst investment, a guaranteed loss. Our stock certificate hangs in my office. He started Newman’s Own and gave away millions to charity while employing folks and manufacturing good food.

We will always love his blue eyes and that sexy smile.