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[shadowkat]

Took migraine medication, and using cooling pads. Also ate a bit more today. Hopefully I'll be able to go to work tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
I think it might be a sinus infection? Not positive. Might do a hot shower and neti pot tonight.

More on Woodward and Newman Doc.

Takeaways:

* Newman was radioman overseas with the bomber division of the US air force in World War II, served from 1944-1946. He signed up to be in the air force, but was declared color blind - so sent to boot camp, and ended up being a radio man. Was supposed to be on the bomber Bunker Hill, but got reassigned at the last minute and everyone on that air raid was killed by Japanese Kamikaze pilots. (He served in the Pacific).

* Newman considers himself Jewish, and while half Protestant and half Jewish, has always been raised as Jewish. As a child he and his brother banged their heads on the wall - and the doctor informed his mother that this was something Jewish boys did, but only Jewish boys. (That's completely untrue, I know a lot of people who've done that who aren't Jewish.) He enjoyed the fact that his looks were a stab in the face of the Jewish stereotype, and as much as felt his good looks were a flaw and a cross at times, he realizes he wouldn't have gotten as far if he looked like Golda Meir.

* Newman's mother was kind of abusive and he did not have a good relationship with her. (She disliked both of his wives. Claimed Joanne was having an affair with Gore Vidal (which is amusing considering Vidal was famously "gay") and Newman stopped talking to her for fifteen years when she told him.) His father died when he was twenty-two, and he was forced to take over the business, but eventually left with his first wife (also an actress) to study acting at Yale.

* Part of Newman's difficulty with acting, was he is naturally emotionally reserved. His first wife never saw him cry, and he barely remembers crying more than a few times. But he manages to do so in Cool Hand Luke - and it's among the few times his kids saw him cry. Newman's acting is very similar to Fonda, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, and Robert Redford - it's natural, and understated. Redford and Newman became long-lasting best friends from the moment they worked together, and Redford states that Newman was loyal and committed fully to friendship. He loved the man. Makes sense - both are similar actors, with similar issues - too good looking for their own good, which limited them in regard to more character oriented roles. Newman saw Joanne as more talented than he was - and went out of his way to prove it.

* Certain films get the in-depth treatment - in Episode 3, Butch and Sundance, Cool Hand Luke (considered among his best roles), and Rachel, Rachel - a ground-breaking independent film that he directed Joanne Woodward in, and was among her best roles. Three Faces of Eve is another film that gets it in a previous episode.

I told Mother about the doc - and she asked if they'd addressed Rachel, Rachel yet - it's among her favorite films. They do in Chapter 3 and in quite a bit of depth, I was pleased and impressed, and it made me want to watch the film. (I grew up with parents who loved to analyze the films, books, theater, and television series that we saw. We'd discuss them. Knew the trivia. Some families are into sports or music? Mine was into film and television. My parents did enjoy sports and music. But we all thought visually and were analytical - so...I grew up doing it. It's why I do it here - it comes naturally? Like breathing?)

Comments

[kazzy_cee]

I'll have to add this documentary to my watch list. It sounds interesting.

[shadowkat]

It's also on Amazon apparently. It's good, but by no means a typical biography.

[yourlibrarian]

His father died when he was twenty-two, and he was forced to take over the business, but eventually left with his first wife (also an actress) to study acting at Yale.

This is one of those glossed over issues that left me with a lot of questions. He was the younger brother, why was he put in charge of the store? Secondly, what happened to it and its income for his mother, when he left?

We never hear anything more about his brother or why they didn't have much of a relationship (or if they did, why weren't they a source of support for one another?) Similarly, we wouldn't even have known Woodward had a sister if she hadn't died young.

[shadowkat]

No they explained it. His older brother took off and wasn't capable of taking care of it. It eventually went bankrupt and they sold it. She lived off the income. He had two younger siblings as well. But the focus was on the love story between Joanne and Paul, and less on their siblings and families.

Here's the details if you are really curious:

"The fate of "Newman's father's store" depends on which store is being referenced. One famous chain, Newman's Department Store, went bankrupt in 1987 and closed all locations in 1988, with its final mall location being bought by another department store. Another store, the historic Newman-Stern building in Cleveland, was sold in 1950 by the Newman family, with the business later closing in 1973 after being acquired by another company."

His mother had money, and he did take care of her financially at various points, but for the most part they were estranged (for good reasons). Part of the estrangement was due to the fact that his mother wanted him to run the family business - but he didn't. And she could never accept his career choices. I think maybe his half-brother worked in it for a bit. I don't remember. I was admittedly surprised by it - because I thought Newman was a football player or jock for some reason or other. He wasn't.

I can see why you missed it. I had to rewind a lot. It jumps through things quickly. And we jump back and forth to the documentarians on Zoom discussing what we saw. Plus a lot of film footage. It's not done in the traditional way of docs - like Joel's for instance. I personally found that interesting, but I'm admittedly a process geek.

Also from some of the asides throughout? I got the strong feeling that neither were close to their extended families. They refer to each other as "orphans" in various interviews. Joanne was really just close to her step-mother, and Newman was estranged from his family.

That's not uncommon? I have extended family members who are estranged. And I know a lot of folks who are.

**

It's also hard to go into depth on extended family members or childhood. The documentarians have to get the family members to sign off on it (extended -- is much harder than immediate, and of course the dead and their estates, and the information available). There's a lot of reasons.

I just saw the last episode. And I think Newman destroyed the tapes for a completely different reason than reveal of the five year affair with Woodward, (most people already knew that - that was made public fifty years ago - I know this because my mother stated it), and the alcoholism (also kind of knew it - again mother knew about it), but he felt it was exploitative to talk about his family in that way, and possibly a tad vain to talk about himself - so in a fit of shame and self-revulsion destroyed the tapes, and stopped recording them. [I just saw the last episode - and it's what I picked up from it. That Newman realized that he didn't want to do that after going into counseling with his daughter - which was around the same time period (1990s).] It's emphasized at various points that both Woodward and Newman were famously "private" and rarely discussed too much of their private lives. It blew my mind that he'd consider doing a memoir. Also, I'm not sure how much of the information from extended family was transcribed or released? Newman may have talked to some of them - and they may have expressed their discomfort of being talked about in a memoir.
If you think about it? Most of the people in the documentary are fellow actors and directors - who are famous in their own right? There's only a handful - mainly grandchildren, and a few of their kids, Joanne's stepmother and the ex-wife (who I think is dead) that participated.

So, I do believe, that Hawk's hands were partially tied in that respect, remember Newman's kids hired him to do the documentary and I believe that Newman and Woodward were to an extent estranged or not that close to extended family, they may have saw them at holidays here or there, but that may have been it? Or letters?

[yourlibrarian]

That's right, I do remember some of that now. And yes, I definitely got the impression they were not close to any relatives. Plus, I'm sure a lot of these people or those who knew them are dead at this point.

[shadowkat]

I think both their biological parents were long dead by the time he stated doing the interviews and taping, along with his siblings or estranged. There's little on them on the internet.

Interestingly enough, I discovered that his daughter published the memoir on his life in 2022.


Go HERE

I vaguely remembered it coming out and looked it up.

It may include some of that. They did show it at the Kennedy Center Honors, and have at various points.