Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward: "Head Over Heels" (2023) by Melissa Newman

 

Paul Newman with Joanne Woodward video.

Melissa Newman: "They are juicy and passionate. Sophomoric. It’s obvious he fell fast, and I imagine her as he describes her—the seductress, the free spirit that would lead him from his bourgeois upbringing to the bohemian he longed to be. My mother was the more inevitable artist, a woman so instinctively herself even her genteel southern roots couldn’t compromise her. He was a man uncertain of who he was. It’s easy to understand why he was so smitten. The next week of sifting yields a large stack of telegrams sent to my mother after she won the Oscar in 1957. On top is one from Ingrid Bergman. Tucked in the middle is a blue envelope containing a vaguely snarky congratulation from Joan Crawford: “I have heard such wonderful reports of your great willingness to learn.” In the breakfast room is a photo of my mother, clear eyed, unadorned, androgynous. She has been caught, lips slightly parted, as though she is about to speak. She’s just cut all her hair off with fingernail scissors. The studio is furious. 

My mother looks extraordinary. My parents always kept an eye out for opportunities to collaborate. My father loved to direct my mother, and he nurtured some of her deepest and most complex performances. She was his favorite actress, and she knew it. A photograph from the set of Rachel, Rachel shows my father hovering protectively over my mother, who lies on the ground, being embraced by another man. I have scrutinized his face, trying to discern what he is thinking. As a director, he had repeatedly balked at shooting this scene, arguing it was unnecessary or could be accomplished less directly or somehow obscured. He was jealous. They taught me about passion, and they taught me about long-lived passion, the kind that spills over into art and life, that makes sharing coffee at the breakfast table an act as affirming as the carnal act that may or may not have preceded it. My father carried a folded leather picture frame in his suitcase. No doubt my mother gave it to him to remind him of what would be waiting when he got home if he played his cards right. Inside is a double image of the two of them, two variations of the moment just before a kiss. My parents were inexorable, they were forever. They chose each other over and over, sometimes in spite of, sometimes because of. It wasn’t always a fairy tale, but I wanted to remember the best, dreamiest, most sublime part, and that part just happens to be true."

“The thing I resent about this sex-symbol thing is that writers create these sexy, flamboyant, aggressive characters who might have nothing to do with who you really are under the skin. You don’t always have Tennessee Williams around to write glorious lines for you.” —Paul Newman

“I thought Paul was grossly untalented when I first met him. I remember going to dinner with Kim Stanley, when we were all doing Picnic together in Cleveland, and saying to her ‘God, it’s a good thing Paul Newman is so handsome, because he certainly can’t act.’” —Joanne Woodward

“No one sings like Woodward, or acts like Woodward, or bitches like Woodward or kisses like Woodward or talks like Woodward, or talks as long as Woodward, or wipes water out of her eyes like Woodward, or smiles like Woodward or cusses like Woodward. No one is as theatrical as Woodward, or changes like Woodward, or listens like Woodward, or laughs or cries or hiccups or nuthin’ like Woodward. You are a special, a super, an absolutely unbeatable woman and I love you.” —Paul Newman

“I don’t like to talk about acting. It’s very private. An actor is like a magician. You don’t give away your secrets. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot going on before you face the camera or a live audience. I just don’t talk about acting, and I don’t talk about my sex life.” —Joanne Woodward

“Every time I get into an argument with Joanne about cooking or how to launder shirts, she just shakes her Oscar at me, and I’m dead in the water.” —Paul Newman

“Stars are people who are immediately recognizable, who bring their own mystique, their own essence to whatever role they play. Paul is a star. I think I’m a character actress. Nobody recognizes me when I walk down the street. And I can have a hard time getting checks cashed.” —Joanne Woodward

 

“I shall lock myself in an abandoned water closet. I love you so very much. And I'll shut my mouth and carry on in silent communion with your soul.” —Paul Newman 

“When an actor knows what they’re doing you don’t see the work.” —Joanne Woodward

“I think what describes Joanne’s feeling about my racing was a headline once in the New York Post that said ‘Newman Escapes Death, Joanne Furious.’” —Paul Newman

“I could only dance with one person, that was Joanne. I could never dance with anyone else.” —Paul Newman

“Just to watch Joanne listening is a course in acting itself.” —Paul Newman

"Head Over Heels: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman: A Love Affair in Words and Pictures" (2023) by Melissa Newman