They say that when Cary Grant was asked his opinion about the unfading star actor Cary Grant, he replied: "I would also like to be like Cary Grant."
I think his answer is great.
And there have been stars at his legendary height, like one Paul Newman, someone endowed with such beauty, magnetism and talent that when he appeared in front of the camera he fell in love with countless women with a sense of taste and provoked envy and admiration in their always devoted viewers.
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Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, secrets and setbacks of a marriage full of love and talent
His presence in the movies, regardless of the quality of the product, guaranteed that the box office would be very happy and would explode with certain titles.
Newman will always remain in the collective memory of his viewers, but long before he left this world he decided to tell his own life to his close friend, the screenwriter Stewart Stern, and for the testimonies to appear (provided they told the truth, however crude it was). whatever this was) from his family and the people he worked with.
The title of this book is
The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man
.
They try to explain the "current", but I doubt the accuracy of the term.
If he was ordinary, what is left for the rest of us?
He was an extraordinary, complex being with nuances.
He suspects that he is also a legal person.
He explains the reasons for starting those memories in 1986: “This book arose from the battle of trying to explain everything to my children.
I want to leave some kind of record that clears things up, that breaks with the mythology that has been generated around me, that destroys some of the legends and that drives away the piranhas.
Something that documents the time I was on this planet with some sort of precision."
And he gets it.
It is not an apology for the hero.
There are devastating episodes, such as his relationship with his son, who at 12 sniffed glue and palm at 28 with an overdose of heroin.
And his long love story is fascinating,
with very dangerous potholes and Newman's alcoholism about to destroy her, with that woman as intelligent as she is a memorable actress named Joanne Woodward.
Newman's doubts made him burn the cassettes of all the interviews in 1998. But 5,000 sheets of transcripts remained in a closet in the family home.
Two decades later, they came back to light.
The HBO series
The Last Stars of Hollywood
previously used the material contained in the book.
It has no waste.
It is driven from the confinement of the pandemic by actor Ethan Hawke.
It has an exhaustive festival of family images of Newman and Woodward, the films they shot together and separately, the interviews they gave, the portrait that people who treated them affectionately and professionally make of them.
George Clooney and Laura Linney lend their voices to the legendary couple.
And the brilliance that the real stars gave off is natural to you (I don't know if there are any like them today, unless they have been replaced by the protagonists of the triumphant Marvel factory), the hypnotic effect they caused on the public, the continuous display of true talent.
Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, in a promotional portrait.Cordon
Woodward was always good and sometimes moving, like in
Rachel,
in which Rachel was directed by Newman.
And I always like to look at him and listen to him.
The general public will always remember him or enjoy him again for two exemplary films that admirably mix action, adventure and comedy, such as
Two Men and One Fate
and
The Coup
, but I will always put an altar to two gloomy masterpieces which starred
Playing two talented but character-failing losers, two drunkards who will know hell, but who will regain their self-respect at the cost of excessive suffering.
They are separated by several decades.
One is
The Hustler;
the other,
Final Verdict
.
The arrogant, gifted pool player and the twilight, drunken lawyer with no job offer are two dazzling Newman creations.
He was not awarded an Oscar for any of them.
Yes, because of the unnecessary and at times irritating continuation of
The Hustler
that Scorsese dared to film in
The Color of Money
.
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