Paul and Joanne

My mother and I play a little game called Deathwatch, in which we vie to be the first one to call the other with a celebrity death. This morning, even before I'd had my coffee and donut, she called about Paul Newman. It was expected, as he had more or less withdrawn from public view a few months ago after being treated for lung cancer, but it's still sad news. He seemed like a sensible, likeable fellow who kept the "star" thing in good perspective. He was almost breathtakingly handsome back in his early days in films like The Silver Chalice (a very bad movie), The Long Hot Summer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Exodus, and he kept up a solid career right up through the last few years. Though he's probably best known for the early 70's one-two punch of Butch Cassidy and The Sting, I admired him more for going out on a limb and working with Robert Altman on two very uncommerical (indie before "indie" was a concept) films, Buffalo Bill and the Indians and Quintet. They weren't great films, but I liked them both better than Butch Cassidy.

But whenever I think of Newman, I think of his wife, Joanne Woodward, even though they rarely worked together on screen. By all accounts, they had a wonderful relationship, and though I haven't seen a lot of Woodward movies, I saw her live back in the early 80's when she appeared in a Kenyon College production of Shaw's Candida and it's something I'll never forget. At the time, in my twenties, I knew her name but the only thing I remembered seeing her in was Three Faces of Eve, which I thought was a rather old-fashioned psychological melodrama, so I had few expectations. The production also had Jane Curtin in a supporting role, and, as a Saturday Night Live fan, I was probably more excited about seeing her than Woodward. But as soon as Joanne Woodward came onstage, I was mesmerized. She had the audience in the palm of her hand. I couldn't begin to identify what is was about her talent that made her bring that part to such glowing life that night, but I knew I was in the presence of a great actress.

So I'm sad for the loss of Paul Newman, but I'm even sadder for what that loss must mean for Joanne Woodward, and I'm sad for myself that I never saw her on stage again, though her performance that lovely summer evening will stay in my memory forever.