The ‘Fuck Hut’, Paul Newman’s secret sex dungeon: “We left a trail of lust all over the place”
Throughout his legendary career, few things frustrated Paul Newman more than critics trying to paint him as little more than another pretty face.
While it wasn’t exactly untrue that the actor was easy on the eye, made audiences go weak at the knees, and possessed a pair of the most piercing blue eyes cinema has ever seen, Newman hated the fact that so much of the conversation surrounding his talent was reduced to aesthetics.
Even though he was a regular contender at the Academy Awards, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, comfortably ranked among the industry’s most bankable leading men, and was easily one of his generation’s most gifted performers, he never truly shook those insecurities until he reached his 50s.
As much as Newman despised the conversation around his sex symbol status, it was an entirely different situation away from the glaring celebrity spotlight. When he was at home, it transpired that Newman was such a sexually charged being that he and his wife even constructed a lair specifically for the purpose of locking themselves away for an extended period of time and going at it hammer and tongs.
His second wife, Joanne Woodward, who he married in 1958 and remained with until his passing at the age of 83 in 2008, opened up a whole new world for Newman. “Joanne gave birth to a sexual creature,” he wrote in his posthumous memoirs. “We left a trail of lust all over the place. Hotels and public parks and Herz rent-a-cars.”
Sure, the couple loved few things more bumping uglies whenever and wherever they could, but Woodward took things one step further when she constructed a boudoir in their Beverly Hills home that was only used for one thing. “I call it the ‘Fuck Hut,'” she revealed with a saucy sense of pride. “Even if my kids came over, we’d go into the ‘Fuck Hut’ several nights a week and just be intimate and noisy and ribald.”
Most people would probably assume that a wealthy and successful couple like Newman and Woodward wouldn’t be short of a room or two in their palatial mansion where they could slink off uninterrupted, but crafting a bespoke dungeon of desire kitted out with little more than a “thrift shop double bed” and (hopefully) some additional soundproofing became their go-to place for the beast with two backs.
Of course, this was all kept hidden away from the public until after Newman’s memoirs were published, and it could have been stomach-churning for the pair’s kids to discover their folks were insatiable animals. However, their daughter Clea was surprisingly supportive of the ‘Fuck Hut’ revelation.
“I have to admit I read that, and I was like, ‘Go, mom,'” she admitted to Vanity Fair. “I mean, I knew that my parents had this very kind of sexy, racy relationship, but certainly, I mean, that was just so wonderfully specific. It’s awesome.”
Most people wouldn’t use the word “awesome” after discovering their parents had a purpose-built sex dungeon on the grounds of the family home but to each their own.
