Most people remember Paul Newman for his dark roles (“Hud,” “The Verdict,” “The Hustler”) but I liked him better for his comedies. My favorite Newman part was his cameo in the Shirley MacLaine vehicle “What a Way to Go.” He played a starving artist in Paris, making ends meet as a cab driver. But then he gets the idea of employing robots to paint to symphonies played and great volume and he becomes the toast of the art world, that is until his robots turn on him kill him. Yes, despite that, it WAS a comedy. ALL of MacLaines husbands got killed in strange ways in that movie, always after becoming successful.
My favorite Newman movie line was in “The Secret War of Harry Frigg,” in which he plays a private who plays the role of a general in a Nazi prison for Allied generals. The line was, “Cheese and crackers!” but it was delivered in a strong German accent that sounded a bit like Ludwig Von Drake (“Chees und creckers!”) I still use it sometimes as a replacement oath when I’m angry.
I loved him in “The Sting” and in Max Shulman’s “Rally Round the Flag, Boys.” Over the years I tired of “Cool Hand Luke” and “The Hustler” and just quit watching them when they came on TV. Same with “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” as bad a movies as ever came out of the ’60s. I saw it recently and can’t believe it was considered a great movie in 1969. It has not worn well.
For all his liberal instincts, Newman was as genuine a person as one could find in the movie industry. You felt he was sincere and not following a herd, as most do. There aren’t many like him. There never were.
