Actor of the 60's

This blog of the movies in the 60's isn't about the movies themself. During this time I'll try to focus in on the people that made it the greatest and most unique decade in movie history. The decade was filled with great actors but I think one stood out from all the rest: Paul Newman. Barely. Because of the comparisons to Steve McQueen; but Newman was the only male actor to appear in at least one movie in the 60's. The 50's belonged to Marlon Brando and Cary Grant, the 70's belonged to Jack Nicholson, but the 60's was "Newman's Own" (ha ha!). When he emerged in the mid-50's they thought he was a new Marlon Brando but Newman grew his own legend.

The decade began innocently enough with From the Terrace. It featured him again with real-life wife Joanne Woodward (his second wife).

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When asked by one reporter of why his marriage was a success, Newman joked by saying, "There is something about the way she cooks!" After staring in the epic Exodus directed by Otto Preminger, Newman hit gold in 1961 when he played Eddie Felson in The Hustler.

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After co-staring with Woodward again that same year in Paris Blues (along with Sidney Poitier) Newman recreated his Broadway role in the screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth in 1962. But was in the next year that Newman's stardom reached uncharted territory when he played the title role in the movie Hud .

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After co-staring with Woodward yet again in the comedy A New Kind of Love that same year,

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Newman went into a bit of a slump in the mid-60's as a string of films (The Prize, The Outrage, What a Way to Go!, Lady L) were so-so but in 1966 Newman bounced back by playing the title character of Lew Harper-the Los Angeles detective in Harper.

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This was by far the best movie he did in the 60's. Because it showed who he was in his prime. After when the Alfred Hitchcock-directed Torn Curtin with Julie Andrews flopped at the box office that same year, Newman came back in 1967 better than ever as he stared in TWO title films: The Western Hombre in which he played a man raised by Indians in the Old West

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and of course-Cool Hand Luke

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in which he played Lucas Jackson-a drunken former soldier who gets thrown into a chain gang in the 1950's South.

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This was the movie that some say defied the generation gap that arose during the second half of the decade. In 1968, Newman stared in his third straight title movie: The Secret War of Harry Frigg. Newman plays Frigg-a soldier during World War II who becomes a con artist. Then he surprised everyone by directed his first movie with his wife-Rachel, Rachel . The two would co-star together again in 1969 and it was the racing film Winning

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(it also featured Newman's co-star from Harper Robert Wagner). Then Newman saved the best for last as he co-stared with Robert Redford in the smash hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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Although it was a Western the movie reached audiences with a end-of-the-60's mentality.

In all Newman was nominated for the Oscar three times and lost.

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When he reflected on what it takes to accept a character Newman said, "Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors and imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love-you can't give a reason why." That's my 'reason why' the 60's on screen for leading men belonged to the kid from Cleveland.