Celebrity Retirement Scorecard: Paul Newman
Filed under: Retire, Career, Wealth
Who is making it? Who is not? We've concocted retirement scorecards for some showcase retirees in entertainment, politics and sports. See the full list here.
Winner: Paul Newman
Former occupation/notable position held: Academy Award-Winning Actor
Activities during retirement: Food company founder/executive; philanthropist; race car driver/team owner
Retirement Report Card Grade: A
Recent unconfirmed reports have Paul Newman, now 83, battling lung cancer. If that's the case, you can bet on Newman to keep it a private affair. It's how he's lived his life, both as hot-commodity actor and as longtime, semi-retiree involved in far-ranging pursuits like Le Mans-caliber race car driving, food company leadership and philanthropy. Newman merits a hard-earned "A" as retiree.
Can you think of an actor who literally announced a retirement from stage and screen? In doing just that last year, Newman mused to BBC News, "You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So I think that's pretty much a closed book for me."
The commentary shows how in touch Newman is with himself. It's the kind of self-awareness that anyone contemplating retirement would be well-served by, in setting goals, evaluating abilities and considering what can continue to bring fulfillment.
Newman started his food company, Newman's Own, in the early 1980's, when it can be argued he was still near the peak of his acting powers. Having more money than he needed (not because the world needed another bag of microwave popcorn), he pledged all proceeds after taxes to charity. Tops on that list is the Hole in the Wall Gang camp, a live-in summer refuge for seriously ill children he founded just a few years after debuting Newman's Own.
In a way, Newman seemed to always possess a retiree's mindset: He made lifestyle choices meant to please none other than himself and those closest to him.
He shunned Hollywood living from the get-go, opting to set up house in his beloved Connectitcut. He openly (and without compensation) professed his love for Budweiser. He chose his work carefully, from iconic fare like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to downright rowdy turns like Slap Shot.
If retirement is personal (it is), Newman may well have made the mold. His last big-ticket acting gig came in 2006 as the voice of Doc Hudson in Disney-Pixar's Cars, where his love of all things racing came through, as they used to say, in Technicolor.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-27-2008 @ 9:25PM
Cathy said...
Yes, I was thinking about what a wonderful person Paul Newman is. He's never really been tabloid fodder and could have been -- proving that most celebrities can avoid this if they really want to. His good works are constant and low key. Well, it was a Wednesday last week that I made these comments and said, you know, every year Newman's Own does a matching pledge on WSHU, Public Radio in Fairfield, CT, usually $10,000 and you never know when he's going to do it. WSHU ended a pledge drive in early June. Anyway, when I woke up Thursday morning after mentioning this the night before, there on the WSHU web page was a one-day special matching gift pledge from Newman's Own of $60,000. People pledged and WSHU grabbed the whole $60,000 match - $120,000.
He gives and gives without announcing it to the world -- that's the way it's supposed to be. It's in the Bible -- Jesus said it.
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7-22-2008 @ 8:32PM
Barbara said...
Can you send Mr. Newman an email threw Newman's Own? WIll he get it?
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7-24-2008 @ 3:57PM
Maxine Scott said...
Forty years ago, when my son was in Kindergarten, there was a series of film about Paul Newman. I commented that he was my sweetheart. Days later cleaning under my young son's bed, I found a picture of Paul Newman torn to shreds.
A few years later, when my son was thirteen, the Parade magazine had a full size picture of Paul on the front. Somehow, many Sunday papers were scattered along the road. I salvaged some and lined my son's bed with Paul's pictures, then took a picture of them.
This is a story, I've been wanting to tell for years.
Praying for Paul as he continues this cancer battle.
7-26-2008 @ 8:58PM
Robert Hamilton Liles said...
If you discount the Silver Chalice, the first memorable movie staring Paul Newman was, I believe, Somebody Up There Likes Me, the fictionalized biolpic of Rocky Graziano. I was, and unremarkably still am, 12 years Paul Newman's junior. I loved the guy from the get-go, and he has reamained a much-admired figure every year since.
He has meant a lot to me, his consistently strong character, his indelible screen roles, his public presence on many issues affecting us all. I would love to be able to send him an appreciation, nothing more elaborate than what I've expressed here. I would like give him my very best wishes and to thank him.
Bob Liles
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