September 28, 2008, - 12:33 pm
Farewell, Cool Hand Luke & Ari Ben Canaan; VIDEO: Newman v. Heston in Nuke Freeze Debate
By Debbie Schlussel
One of my favorite old school actors is Paul Newman, who died yesterday of cancer at 83. A great American with tremendous talent on-screen and great generosity off-screen is gone.
Yes, Newman had left-wing politics, some of which was reflected in his more contemporary movies. But unlike today’s talentless Hollywood hacks, he rarely expressed his views and, in fact, rarely gave interviews. And when he did express his views, he was far more subtle and muted than the comparably amateurish contemporary actors, like Sean Penn and George Clooney, who openly embrace our enemies. An aberration is the debate Newman and Charlton Heston had regarding the nuclear freeze. Video is posted below–Heston kicked his butt (based on the incomplete video available), but both demonstrated class.
Aside from his six decades in film, he was a tremendous philanthropist and donated over $250,000,000 in charity to cancer hospitals, camps for kids with illnesses, and other worthy causes from the sale of his various “Newman’s Own” food products. (Read the “Newman’s Own” tribute to Paul Newman.) And he was one of those very cool race car drivers, too.
My favorite Paul Newman films are “Cool Hand Luke” and, of course, Leon Uris’ “Exodus“, a movie that would never be made today, given the domination of Muslim whining and conniptions that dominate the Hollywood agenda.
But there are so many Newman films I loved. To name a few: “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof“, “Hud“, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid“, “The Sting“, and the great hockey comedy, “Slap Shot.”
Paul Newman was not ashamed of his role as the courageous Ari Ben Canaan, the Zionist hero of “Exodus” who seizes a cargo ship and smuggles 600 just-liberated Holocaust survivors to then-Palestine (when the Palestinians had names like Ari and Shlomo, not Ahmed and Yasser), despite British refusal to let them into the country. The movie was based on real-life events, the acts of Israeli hero Yossi Harel (and others), and the actual ship, “The Exodus” (which my father told me was a Boblo Boat from Detroit–Boblo was a now-defunct amusement park on Boblo Island in the Detroit River). Newman was proud of the movie and a supporter of Israel.
Paul Newman was the hunk/hottie of his day, but far more dignified and well-behaved than today’s versions.
Newman was also proud of his Jewish heritage. Born to a Jewish father and gentile mother in Cleveland, he went to high school with many of my Jewish Cleveland friends’ granparents and older relatives. And he identified as a Jew and with the Jewish people, given today’s increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere worldwide.
From Israel’s Ha’Aretz:
Otto Preminger, who directed the 1960 epic [“Exodus”] on location in Cyprus and Israel, said he chose Newman because he wanted an actor of Jewish origin who didn’t look Jewish.
The actor was born in Cleveland, Ohio on January 26, 1925 to an affluent family. His Jewish father Arthur owned the city’s largest sporting goods store, which his Catholic mother Theresa, born in Slovakia, helped run.
In a 1980 interview with TIME magazine, Newman said he identified himself as Jewish, stating, “it’s more of a challenge.”
Paul Newman’s charm, handsome blue eyes and visage, and tremendous acting talent, class, and charity will be missed. His death serves as a reminder of the almost-completed changing of the guard in Hollywood and the movie biz from class, taste, dignity, morality, and patriotism to the continuing escalation of the ultimate in garbage, barbarism, himbo-ism, skankiness, and America-hating traitorism.
Paul Newman, Rest In Peace. A true acting legend–and a Great American–is gone.
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Paul Newman’s death reminds me of an unfortunate story my dad told me, when I told him we saw “Exodus” at school. In addition to Newman, the movie also stars the late Sal Mineo. My dad said he once saw a patient who told him, “They tell me I have this disease–I’m Sick of Sal Mineo or something.” What she, unfortunately, actually had was Sickle Cell Anemia.
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Cool Hand Luke v. Ben-Hur/Moses
Here’s the debate between Paul Newman and Charlton Heston on the nuclear freeze. Heston wins it based on the limited video available in both Parts I and II. And America won, because we didn’t follow Newman’s advice–our not doing a nuclear freeze helped bring down the Soviet Union:
Can’t imagine Clooney, Alec Baldwin, or Penn having an intelligent, educated, civil debate like this with, say, Tom Selleck or Jon Voight. They would sneer at the conservative for sure.
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Watch the “Exodus” trailer:
Gotta Love the exploding toilet.
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A nice, brief report on Paul Newman, followed by a couple of montages:
A great man. Today’s Hollywood cannot compare.
barrypopik on September 28, 2008 at 2:39 pm