The legendary director who called Paul Newman an “erotic joke”: “He aroused the women”
If there was one thing that Paul Newman hated the most about being a successful actor, it was the frequent accusations that he was just another pretty face, or the suggestion that his spot on the A-list had been earned, in part, by the fact that, to quote Derek Zoolander, he was a really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
In the detractors’ defence, he was a handsome chap. Newman’s chiselled visage and piercing blue eyes made him stand out amid the sea of Marlon Brando clones that emerged in the late 1950s, all of whom wanted to emulate the legendary method man but didn’t have a fraction of his talent.
Newman did, though, and since they were only a year apart in age, studied under some of the same teachers, and brought a naturalism and intensity to their early performances, it stuck. That got under his skin, since he knew he couldn’t be Brando, nor did he want to be, but stigmas can be hard to shake off.
Matters weren’t helped by the soon-to-be cinematic superstar being written off as a sexy, sexy punchline by one of the greatest auteurs in cinema history, even though the filmmaker was one of his earliest supporters after Elia Kazan directed Newman in the original Broadway run of Sweet Bird of Youth in 1959.
They never worked together on a movie, but Kazan continued watching him from afar. The two-time Academy Award winner and mastermind behind On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, and East of Eden always had a feeling that Newman would make it big, even if his memories were somewhat dismissive.
“I remember that he was something of a joke, an erotic joke, at The Actors Studio, because he was so handsome,” he told James Grissom in 1993. “He caused as much physical commotion as Marilyn [Monroe] did. He aroused the women, and he created a lot of tension and jealous and competition among the men, simply by turning up.”
Newman would have bristled at being compared to Monroe, who spent her mainstream career under the scalding spotlight of intense media scrutiny while simultaneously being written off as eye candy and a bombshell, but at least Kazan had some nicer, non-aesthetic things to say about his favourite erotic joke.
“He is a kind and patient man, and he is a kind and patient and careful actor,” he continued. “His incremental method of working can give some the impression that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he does. He investigates stealthily, and he gets things done. He waited a long time to prove that he was a good actor.”
Newman didn’t have to wait too long, in fairness, having solidified his silver screen credentials by the mid-1960s. Then again, he made his stage debut in the late 1940s, so Kazan has a point, since it took him a decade and a half to outline himself as being not just an object of desire, but a damned good actor.
