Paul Newman's possible romances: Marilyn Monroe, Lita Milan, Nancy Bacon

Paul Newman may have been a better actor than many moviegoers realized. Self-assured in his talents the Oscar winner was not. A sexual ace with the ladies? Hardly. Newman grappled with alcoholism, too, and the man who famously played fun-loving Butch Cassidy could turn into a moody drunk before passing out. After he became a social activist in the 1960s and ’70s he considered getting into politics, but thought his drinking might become an issue. Says who? Newman himself, in “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man,” a memoir by an actor who could convincingly play a charismatic but self-destructive outsider because he knew the breed all too well. Just watch “The Hustler,” “Hud,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Verdict” or “Nobody’s Fool.” Newman began working on a memoir in 1986 with screenwriter Stewart Stern. After several years of effort that included recorded interviews with relatives, friends and colleagues, their project began to drift. Newman’s daughters Melissa and Clea decided to turn that raw material into a book punctuated by first-person accounts by others, including Newman’s first wife Jackie Witte as well as his second and soul-mate, actress Joanne Woodward. 

The result is a painfully frank reflection on a life filed with self-doubt. Newman grew up in a dysfunctional household in Shaker Heights, Ohio, his parents marrying when their first son Arthur was conceived out of wedlock. Paul soon followed, not making the marriage any happier. His heavy-drinking father was emotionally distant while his mother might beat him one moment and hug him the next. His mother draws the most criticism in his memoir, followed closely by Newman himself. She became a symbol of his bottled-up emotions and low self-esteem, and success did little to wash away those feelings. When he became a star, his mother sent him clips of negative reviews. After one slight too many —what he considered an insult aimed at Joanne Woodward — Newman didn’t speak to her for 15 years. 

The blue-eyed future sex symbol recalls being terribly shy as a teenager, a short and skinny kid smitten with girls but more comfortable playing a laugh-getting buffoon. In college a date once told him, “I like going out with you because you’re so harmless.” An unfocused student, he mainly chased girls and drank alcohol. A stint in the U.S. Navy flying as a radioman gunner during World War II put some meat on Newman’s bones and forced some maturity on him. What’s an insecure showoff to do? “Acting gave me a sanctuary where I was able to create emotions without being penalized for having them,” Newman writes. Good looks, charm and an air of confidence provided an effective cover. He went from understudy in the 1953 Broadway production of “Picnic” to featured roles, then to starring in the movies. It sounds so meta: the professional faker faking it so professionally.

Things just seemed to go his way — “Newman’s luck,” he called it. The irresponsible drinker booted from the Kenyon College football team found a place in college theater. The lazy student managed to graduate and later study drama at Yale. The immature husband and father pivoted to eager adulterer when Woodward made him feel sexy for the first time. However, “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man” lacks the keen look at filmmaking that usually punctuates a movie star’s story. While a bumpy, disjointed confessional, it also smolders with introspection as Newman tries to ascertain what he couldn’t see in himself that so many others did. Source: apnews.com

Lita Milan, (co-star of Paul Newman in "The Left-Handed Gun," directed by Arthur Penn, was the daughter of a Polish homemaker and a Hungarian fur salesman in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, and originally named Iris Lia Menshell, Lita shot like a rocket into the mid-1950s Hollywood. A wild and lovely woman, she had a smoldering beauty onscreen. "She drew men to her like moths to a flame," said producer Fred Coe. "One of those moths was Paul Newman himself." According to Lita, it was "a passionate affair" with Newman. Afterwards, Lita Milan had brief flings with Steve McQueen while filming Never Love a Stranger and with Steve Cochran in I Mobster.

Lita had been a Las Vegas showgirl and model before getting cast as a spitfire senorita in The Ride Back in 1957. The sultry, even fiery, Lita Milan was cast as Celsa in The Left Handed Gun. Coe felt that in the movie Billy the Kid, Lita's character was created for a diversionary romance, even though Celsa in the film is already married to a goodnatured locksmith (Martin Garralga). In any biographical sketch of Lita Milan, there appears this fact: "She had a passionate affair with Paul Newman during the filming of The Left Handed Gun." She had admitted she had seduced him after a long night of drinking beer.

In his memoir, Palimpsest, Gore Vidal addressed the rumors of a menage a trois between Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman and himself. "I should note here that over the years, I have read and heard about the tryst between me and Paul Newman. Unlike Marlon Brando, whom I hardly knew, Paul has been a friend for close to half a century, proof, in my psychology, that nothing could ever have happened. I liked Paul Newman, but I loved Joanne Woodward." 

It is mainly through Shelley Winters and Rod Steiger that we know of the brief friendship between Paul Newman and Marilyn Monroe. Steiger was fascinated by Marilyn and dug most of the secrets of their relationship from assorted insiders from the Actors Studio. From scattered, fragmented accounts revealed over the years, a rather touching story emerged. Supposedly, when she'd flown back to Hollywood from New York, Marilyn was still hoping to play the lead in Picnic, starring opposite Newman. Both allegedly had a meeting at the Chateau Marmont. Newman would later tell Steiger that it was Marilyn's voice more than her body that he "found the most seductive part I've ever known. No one has a voice like hers. It was the perfect voice to sing `Bye, Bye Baby,"' he would recall. Shelley Winters surmised that in Newman, Marilyn "found one of her safe ports. It wasn't sexual. It wasn't that kind of relationship. Marilyn knew that he was committed to Joanne. Until the final day of her life, she had a tender feeling for Paul and always regretted never having appeared in a film with him." While Newman was chatting with Marilyn at the Chateau Marmont, he almost forgot about his publicity photo sessions at Warners with Virginia Mayo and Pier Angeli. "I remember her sitting in the hotel armchair," Newman told Steiger. "She just sat there staring out the window at the blinding sunshine of the day. She'd washed off all that makeup and her hair was a bit matted. She didn't feel the need to talk, huddled in that chair almost like a little girl. It was like she was waiting for some message to invade her mind. She was waiting for some answer. But an answer to what question?"

Robert Kennedy had toyed with the idea of Newman playing him in a movie based on his book, The Enemy Within. "It's about Jimmy Hoffa and the mob," Marilyn explained to Newman. "Bobby wanted me to contact you because he wants you to star in it." "I'd be honored," Newman said. "I'd like to meet with him to discuss it." "That's not possible right now," she said. "Some people could be spying on us, watching our every move. Jerry Wald is negotiating with Bobby for the screen rights. I want to co-star in the movie with you. Jerry has promised to write in a role for me. Bobby has agreed. I want to play a secretary who, arm in arm, works with Bobby to bring Jimmy Hoffa to justice. With me in the picture and with you as Bobby, we can virtually guarantee box office. I want to sink my teeth into a substantial political drama like Sinatra did." She was no doubt referring to Sinatra's appearance in The Manchurian Candidate, an upcoming release she'd seen at a special screening in Las Vegas.

Marilyn hardly needed to introduce producer Jerry Wald to Paul. He was well known to both the Newmans. He'd produced two filsm starring Joanne Woodward: No Down Payment and The Sound and the Fury. Wald had also produced Faulkner's The Long, Hot Summer. In a touch of irony, he was about to produce Hemingway 's Adventures of a Young Man, in which he'd cast Paul in a minor role, and also The Stripper, a film in which he'd cast Joanne Woodward as the star. Wald was long familiar with Marilyn as well, having produced her Clash by Night (1952) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Lets Make Love (1960). "Scriptwriters can work wonders," Wald assured Newman. "Besides, Bobby demands that we create a role in the movie for Marilyn. I think Bobby really likes her." Wald later discussed privately with friends why The Enemy Within was never made. The studio, 20th Century Fox, began to receive death threats, no doubt from some shady members of the Jimmy Hoffa Teamsters' Union. Wald claimed that he was warned that if the movie were made, "it'll be your last picture." 

"Both Marilyn and Paul also received death threats," Wald said. "Paul Newman pulled the plug. He was very concerned with those death threats, and was very anxious that no harm come to his family. The final blow came when Newman read the first draft of the script and rejected it as mediocre." Pierre Salinger, the press secretary at the White House, reckoned that "Bobby was furious when Newman rejected the role to play him in The Enemy Within. And Bobby was a guy to hold a grudge." Bobby allegedly sent Newman a note, which was probably short but not sweet. Like so many other projects in Hollywood, the film died a slow death. And Jerry Wald died just one month before Marilyn, on July, 13, 1962, at age 50. On the contray, JFK didn't favor Newman for playing him in another failed project: PT 109. Actually, Jackie Kennedy wanted Warren Beatty in the role of her husband. When Newman, upon hearing the televised news of Marilyn's death, he was paralyzed in shock and shared his grief with his wife. 

Nancy Bacon: "I sneaked a look at Paul as he talked easily with the crew. He appeared vulnerable and boyish in his tan Levi’s and moccasins. Then our eyes met and I found myself waiting, as he seemed to be, for the others to leave. And then they did leave and we were alone. Paul put down his beer and ordered a Scotch, and I had a gin and tonic. It began to get dark and he said maybe we should have something to eat. We went into the dining room, which was like a cavern spotted with wooden tables covered with red and white checkered oilcloth. We sat with some of the people from the picture crew, and word got out that I was a writer down there to do a story on Newman. He looked at me strangely for a moment—but only a moment, then his eyes softened. We sat like strangers in my hotel room for a few minutes, nervous, like children, and then he kissed me and after a while he did something he really didn’t have to do. He fell to his knees and clutched me tightly around the waist, his head pressed against my breasts, and he whispered, ‘Please.’ Like a small boy asking for a dime. He didn’t have to say it because I had made up my mind a long time ago. Maybe by the pool, maybe at dinner, or in the dungeons. I took him by the hand and led him up to my bedroom. He was a most tender and gentle lover and even though the last thing he said to me before he fell asleep was not exactly romantic, ‘Whew! It’s heart attack time, baby!’,  I felt he knew this was not just a casual thing. 

I suppose I was in love with him. I suppose he was in love with me. After the first time he said he loved me, it seemed easier for him to repeat it. But I never said it back to him because I was insecure, of course. How can you be secure with a man when you don’t even know his telephone number? He was making a movie called Hall of Mirrors (the title was later changed to WUSA) with Joanne. When Paul came back to Los Angeles he came to see me and he glowered at me and said, ‘I mustn’t be happy. I’m playing Reinhardt, and Reinhardt is a dark man, a man in a black mood.’ And later I noticed that the red in his eyes dimmed the blue, like in a bad color print. I think it was late spring (1970) when I realized how sordid the affair had become. Why didn’t he call me his girl? Then I knew why. He was really a square. He felt he was sinning—and he was always drunk. Or maybe in his guilt he was looking for death. I realized the affair was straining at the seams now." —Legends and Lipstick: My Scandalous Stories of Hollywood’s Golden Era (2017) by Nancy Bacon