Young, hunky Paul Newman has always been tucked away somewhere in my consciousness as my masculine archetype.  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid came out the year I was born (B.J. Thomas's wonderful theme song for the movie, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" also takes me right back to my earliest days), and I remember even as a child preferring Newman over his pretty-boy sidekick, Robert Redford.  Must have been those peepers.

Newman was a natural.  He was not a great actor, like young, hunky Marlon Brando, but he was more than just a hot slab of beefcake, although, thank the gods, there were plenty of roles that demanded he run around in next to nothing (most gratuitously in 1963's The Prize, which was, after all, about The Nobel Prize, but somehow called for Newman to scamper about in nothing but a towel for half the picture). 

Even in his weightier roles, like Brick opposite Elizabeth Taylor's Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, it's not his acting, it's his essence.


In fact, he's perfect opposite Elizabeth Taylor for just that reason.  She was never a great talent either, but she conveyed the raw essence of woman, just like he conveyed the essence of man.  And just as it could never be said of Taylor that she wasn't all woman, you could never say of Newman he wasn't all man.  She's all affectation, but even with the fake southern drawl and phony sets there's no affectation in Newman. 

His characters were never very complicated — they were mostly simple, straightforward types who found themselves, occasionally, in complicated situations.  They were, like Brick, frustrated by mendacity.  That's one of the most memorable scenes, for me, in this movie, and Newman is marvelous in it...


To the end, Newman had it, however you want to define "it".  And he made a damn good balsamic vinaigrette.  Now where am I gonna find another man like that?