Somebody Up There Really Likes Me!

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was one of the first movies I ever saw without my Mom or Dad. Dropped off at the Six West Theatres and getting to choose one of six movies to see? How cool was that in 1969?

Paul Newman passed away over the weekend. He was freaking 83 years old. Paul Newman is NOT 83 years old. The real "Old Blue Eyes" is not allowed to get old and die of cancer. No!

Well, he did get old and die and once again, I am sad. This has been one shitey year for this kind of thing. These people I really like and admire keep dying. My fear is nobody will come along to replace them.

Paul Newman, the kind of actor who knew who he was. He played Paul Newman, brilliantly of course, but he played himself a lot. He played himself in Empire Falls, a great HBO mini-series. He played himself in Nobody's Fool, a crusty old guy looking to hit the trifecta. He played himself in Road To Perdition, a patriarch. He played himself and he always called younger people "kiddo". I loved that.

If you want to see Paul Newman really act, and he could act, see him in The Verdict as an alcoholic bum of a lawyer. Watch him when he knows he's been betrayed by Charlotte Rampling, and woman or not, he decks her.

See Newman in Fort Apache The Bronx, not the greatest movie ever but watchable. Watch him when he sees the dead body of Rachel Ticotin, who has overdosed on heroin. Watch him refuse to accept it and attempt to wake her up. How much of that acting involved channeling his son's death from drugs a year or so earlier?

Oh there's so many. You know them. But what really defines Paul Newman is not acting but his actions in real life. The $250 million in charitable giving, the camps for sick children, the 50 year marriage to Joanne Woodward.

No no no! Paul Newman isn't dead, or 83 years old. I gotta go. I have vision while rest of the world wears bifocals! Next time I say let's go to Bolivia, let's go to Bolivia. Bye!