Besides being a movie star, he was a Navy Vet of WWII and married to Joanne Woodward for 50 years.
Besides being a movie star, he absolutely excelled in two other fields that had nothing to do with films:
1. Newman was an absolutely gifted auto racer, something he started later in life than most. He had superb vision, situational awareness, “feel” – and lightning reflexes. After the 3 years it took to get his international professional racing license, for almost 20 years, he was among the world’s best endurance racers, once finishing 2nd in the Le Mans. (In 1979, driving a Porsche 935.) He is also in the record books as the oldest driver to win a professional team race. He was still competing in open field, and beating most younger drivers, into his late 60s.
Plus his off-track racing with Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, and a pack of serious gearheads is captured in many stories.
On top of being a driver, he built one of the best racing teams ever, Newman/Haas. And helped build events into “great events” and brought along some of the best drivers and crews.
He was as special to the racing community as he was to filmgoers.
2. Newman invented the business model, along with his manager, of the commercial product created and branded to devote profits from sales to charity. The guy generated over a Quarter of a Billion dollars in philanthropy from “Newmans Own” plus he was an annual giver of several hundred thousand to several million dollars of his own income and investment returns every year for almost 30 years, that add an estimated 50 million (so far, pending his Will) to the quarter of a billion.
This was a guy who lived a life..
