Mr. Class: A Tribute to Paul Newman

Somebody Up There Likes Me was the film that made Paul Newman a star back in 1956 and it's title seems an apt epitaph for his life. Gifted with the beauty of a Greek God, not a little talent, a successful career and marriage that lasted five decades, Newman was blessed. The thing, though, that made Newman, who passed away September 26 at 83, so special was that he knew it and consistently worked to live up to his blessings. For nearly five decades, the actor maximized his gifts and we as movie fans were the beneficiaries.

Most movie fans alive today can't remember a time when Paul Newman wasn't around. That makes it easy to forget that Newman's initial stardom did not come easily. Starting in the god awful biblical epic The Silver Chalice, Newman did not seem bound for stardom. He seemed enslaved to Brando's example without the master's presence, spontaneity, energy and innovation. Even when Newman hit with his ingratiating turn in Somebody Up There Likes Me, he still seemed a talented imitator. And for the next five or so years, he served as a good not quite Brando, even appearing in a couple more than respectable (albeit somewhat neutered) Tennessee Williams' adaptations. With each picture he got better, his confidence grew.

In 1961, he finally found himself as Fast Eddie Felson in Robert Rossen's classic The Hustler. Newman inhabited the outwardly cocky, inwardly self-loathing pool shark in a way that no other actor could. He didn't brood like Dean, he didn't explode like Brando. He was free of their mannerisms and when his character found his humanity in the finale, we saw for the first time the level of supernal calm and self-containment that became the hallmark of Newman's career.