The director who left Paul Newman tongue-tied: “He was mystical”
Paul Newman worked with some of the greatest directors of all time over the course of his six-decade career, including Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese. He even starred opposite Orson Welles in The Long, Hot Summer, though the Citizen Kane boy wonder wasn’t directing the film, and the two hated working with each other.
Although you might assume that Newman would be the most intimidating person on all of his film sets, given his star power and the admiration he commanded from his peers, that was not always the case. In fact, in 1972, right at the peak of his career, the actor found himself so bowled over by a director that he could hardly speak.
The Life and Time of Judge Roy Bean was a passion project for Newman, a western satire that was just a little bit too out there for most critics and audiences. He looked back on the film fondly for the rest of his life, however, and cherished his memories of the production. The main character in those happy memories was director John Huston, who was in his sixties at the time but more electrifying than ever.
In his memoir, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man, Newman recalled his overwhelming admiration for Huston, even though he suspected that the feeling wasn’t mutual.
“I don’t think Huston ever thought of me as a great actor, but as a good actor,” the star wrote, adding, “I was actually tongue-tied around him, maybe because he had such a strong aura of expectancy. He was mystical, magical, something undefinable.”
It wasn’t just that indescribable aura; it was also his style of directing. Newman detailed how Huston encouraged lengthy rehearsals so that the actors could discover their characters as they worked. He also felt that the director had “great faith in actors,” which, for Newman, who frequently confessed to feeling like an inferior practitioner of his craft, found to be an intoxicating and buoying experience.
As it happened, Huston was equally impressed with Newman. If anything, he was even more in awe of the star than the other way around.
“Paul, of course, is incomparable,” he said. “I find no flaw, no fault in him, as an actor or as a man… I so admire the way he has lived his life.” He was referring mainly to how Newman approached fame. He compared the actor positively to Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, who the director described as one of the many stars who disappeared into a cloud of self-importance from which they never emerged.
“Paul and Jack Nicholson live on the same street,” the director concluded, “But they have different addresses.” These were harsh words, considering that Nicholson was in a decades-long relationship with Huston’s daughter Anjelica and thought of the director as a father figure, but they speak to the unvarnished appreciation that the director held for Newman.
There were few actors who impressed the great John Huston. He worked with some of the best, including Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and Nicholson. He tended to impress everyone he met, but was stingy with his praise. The fact that Newman earned such unequivocal words of appreciation was no small feat.
