Queer Places:
Yale University (Ivy League), 38 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven, CT 06520
2983 Brighton Rd, Shaker Heights, OH 44120
Chateau Marmont, 8221 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046
Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Silver Bear, a Cannes Film Festival Award, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.[1]
In spite of being a married man with three children, Newman had affairs with Marlon Brando, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Perkins, Sal Mineo, John Derek and Steve McQueen, among many others. Women were not neglected, and he managed to bed Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and Jacqueline Kennedy. As well, he had affairs with most of his leading ladies, apparently giving Marlon Brando a run for his money. Brando was a little touchy on the subject. I forget which web site revealed this tantalizing tidbit: In Porter’s 2009 biography Paul Newman: The Man Behind the Baby Blues, Marlon Brando commented about Newman’s bisexuality. Porter interviewed Brando before his death in 2004, and relates this quote from Marlon: "He never fooled me. Paul Newman had just as many on-location affairs as the rest of us, and he was just as bisexual as I was. But, where I was always getting caught with my pants down, he managed to do it in the dark."
Paul’s impossibly handsome face made life complicated for a family man. Rod Steiger said, “He was the Golden Boy of Broadway. Hell, he was so fucking beautiful. Everybody wanted him, and he was willing to share with both men and women. Paul was so pretty I would have fucked him if he asked me to, and I’m about the straightest actor in the business.”
Born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Newman showed an interest in theater as a child and at age 10 performed in a stage production of Saint George and the Dragon at the Cleveland Play House. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in drama and economics from Kenyon College in 1949. After touring with several summer stock companies including the Belfry Players, Newman attended the Yale School of Drama for a year before studying at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg.
29-year-old Paul Newman was working on his first Hollywood film, The Silver Chalice (1954), when he moved into an apartment at the Chateau Marmont, where James Dean was also a resident. On his first afternoon there, Paul was relaxing by the pool when he was approached by Anthony Perkins, who introduced himself as Tony. According to Maila Nurmi, a long-time friend and confidante of Tony’s, Perkins told her that the two found themselves in bed within minutes of meeting. For the next few weeks they were engaged in an intensely sexual relationship. Welcome to the neighborhood. Perkins was a handsome, tortured homosexual who really wanted to be straight. Newman was bisexual, but was like a kid in a candy store, sampling whatever satisfied his sweet tooth, be it male or female. Perkins and Newman never intended to become a couple, but they were both sexually adventurous. Perkins was also involved at the time with Tab Hunter and Robert Francis. In fact, most of the twenty-something male Hollywood stars were all sleeping with each other, but Newman was the only one married with three kids at the time.
"I thought Newman was arrogant. When I finally got him into bed, I taught him who the man was." – Steve McQueen on Paul Newman. They first met on the set of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956). McQueen approached Newman and propositioned him after engaging in crude, even insulting banter. Newman later told his friend Janice Rule that as they ended their conversation, McQueen planted a wet, sloppy kiss on him. With tongue. Thus began a rivalrous relationship that was frequently acrimonious. McQueen turned down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) because he wouldn’t accept second billing to Newman. The two fought like cats and dogs over the positioning of their names on the movie poster for Towering Inferno (1974). McQueen was a brash liar, but Newman found himself strangely attracted to him, and there was obvious sexual tension between the two. But Paul was also having a sexual relationship with Sal Mineo at the time, and Mineo had fallen madly in love with him and wanted to live together as a couple. When Paul rejected that offer, Mineo attempted suicide. By this time Newman had moved his mistress, Joanne Woodward, into the Chateau Marmont. If those walls could talk. Christopher Isherwood called on Paul and Joanne. Gore Vidal was a resident on a different floor (as a cover, Woodward considered marrying Vidal to further the future of his race for the U.S. presidency). Marilyn Monroe once knocked on Newman’s door with a bottle of champagne and got lucky, since Paul was alone that afternoon. Grace Kelly hit on him at the Chateau Marmont – it was Newman who felt lucky that day.
Newman's first starring Broadway role was in William Inge's Picnic, and he starred in smaller roles for a few more films before receiving widespread attention and acclaim for his performances in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), the latter of which also starred Elizabeth Taylor. Newman's major film roles include The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Harper (1966), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), The Sting (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981), and voice role of Doc Hudson in the first installment of Disney-Pixar's Cars as his final acting non-documentary role, with his archival voice recordings being used again in Cars 3 (2017), nine years after his death. A ten-time Oscar nominee, Newman was awarded an Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money (1986). Newman won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open-wheel IndyCar racing. He was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which he donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity.[2] As of May 2021, these donations have totaled over US$570 million.[3] In 1988, Newman founded the SeriousFun Children's Network, a global family of summer camps and programs for children with a serious illness which has served 1.3 million children and family members since its inception.[4] In 2006, Paul Newman also co-founded Safe Water Network with John Whitehead, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Josh Weston, former chairman of ADP, to improve access to safe water to underserved communities around the world.[5] Newman was married twice and fathered six children. He was the husband of Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward.
My published books:
