(HOST) Commentator, teacher and film producer Jay Craven remembers a fleeting contact he had with recently departed actor Paul Newman.
(CRAVEN) The late Hollywood director, Jim Goldstone settled in Vermont after he retired and he helped me wrangle support for my first feature film, "Where the Rivers Flow North." When co-producer Alan Davis and I first met Goldstone for lunch in Manchester he talked about directing Paul Newman in the 1969 car racing picture, "Winning." It was the actor’s experience on that film that triggered his enduring love of driving race cars.
So when Goldstone offered to help me, I asked if he could get my script to Paul Newman. He did – and several weeks later I received Newman’s gracious and lively letter discussing what he liked about my lead character, mulish old logger Noel Lord. But he said that his schedule prevented him from considering the role.
Years later, I pitched Newman again, this time for the part of dreamer and schemer Quebec Bill Bonhomme in my film based on Howard Mosher’s novel, "Disappearances." A couple of months passed with no reply. Then I received a thoughtful note apologizing and promising to read my script within a few weeks. And like clockwork, Newman kept his word, writing a warm letter and calling the script "really good stuff." He said that if he were fifteen years younger and not up to his neck in salad dressing, he’d just might take on the role.
During the 1990’s, Newman and Joanne Woodward nearly co-starred as the incompatible old couple in a film based on Howard Mosher’s "Northern Borders." Canadian producer Jake Eberts was developing it and the Newmans loved the story. They asked for a script revision but, as often happens, the constellations ultimately failed to align themselves.
Newman always breathed multi-dimensional life into his rogues’ gallery of flawed characters-the outlaws, rebels and down-on-their-luck outsiders. He played North Country rascal Sully Sullivan with great relish in Maine writer Richard Russo’s "Nobody’s Fool." And he starred in – and helped produce – Russo’s "Empire Falls."
I remember this because I once had lunch to discuss a project with New York agent Sam Cohn who was summoned by the Maitre ‘d to take a call. When he returned, Cohn twisted his napkin and looked at his shoes. "Now Paul Newman’s mad at me," he said.
Cohn had been Newman’s agent for years. "The studios wouldn’t put up money for "Empire Falls," Cohn said, "and now the cable network says our cast isn’t commercial enough – even with Ed Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joanne Woodward, and Newman all working for next to nothing."
"Well, what did Newman say?" I asked.
"He said "tell the cable network I quit. Tell them to go find a movie star."
Well, Helen Hunt joined the cast and the picture got made. But like so many of his characters, activist, philanthropist, and transcendent actor Paul Newman knew when and how to take a stand. He was one of a kind.