The Sting

In 1983 a sequel to The Sting was released, called simply The Sting II. It was written by original Sting scribe David S. Ward and starred Jackie Gleason, Mac Davis and Teri Garr. It was a box office disappointment. Similarly to what Bonnie and Clyde had done for women in 1967, The Sting's 1930's-inspired fashions ignited a trend in men's clothes across the country with gangster suits briefly becoming all the rage. The Sting features an irresistible musical score made up mostly of turn-of-the-century Ragtime tunes originally written by composer Scott Joplin including the highly popular "The Entertainer". The success of the film was responsible for turning the spotlight on Joplin's wonderful music more than 50 years after his death and re-igniting its popularity with the public. The musical soundtrack to The Sting, produced by composer Marvin Hamlisch, was a big hit. Hamlisch's adaptation of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" was released as a single and reached number 3 on the American Top 40 Chart - a remarkable feat for an old-fashioned instrumental piece. Scott Joplin was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1976 "for his contributions to American music." Many scholars agree that this was due in no small part to the increased public awareness of Joplin's music brought on by the popularity of The Sting. The Sting had a theatrical re-release in 1977, which included a booking at New York's Radio City Music Hall. by Andrea Passafiume

According to the book Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, Edith Head was presented her Academy Award for Best Costume Design for The Sting by Twiggy and Peter Falk. "Just imagine," said Head during her acceptance speech, "dressing the two handsomest men in the world and then getting this." Neil Simon and Marsha Mason presented the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay to David S. Ward for The Sting. Shirley MacLaine and Walter Matthau presented the Academy Award for Best Director to George Roy Hill for The Sting. Elizabeth Taylor presented the Best Picture Oscar for The Sting. Producer Julia Phillips said on stage, "You can imagine what a trip this is for a Jewish girl from Great Neck - I get to win an Academy Award and meet Elizabeth Taylor at the same time." The Sting was the only film for which Robert Redford was ever nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor. The Sting was the second film on which Paul Newman, Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill teamed up. The trio had first worked together on the hit film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969. According to Lawrence J. Quirk's 1996 book Paul Newman, the character of Henry Gondorff was originally little more than a supporting role. When Newman became associated with the project, however, the part was expanded in order to maximize the second on-screen partnership of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Paul Newman had been advised to avoid doing comedy films, according to Lawrence J. Quirk's 1996 book Paul Newman, because he didn't have the light touch needed to play comedy. Part of the reason Newman wanted to play Henry Gondorff was to prove that he could play comedy as well as drama. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were considered Hollywood's most bankable and most attractive leading men at the time they made The Sting. One of the Oscar®-winning producers of The Sting was Julia Phillips, author of the infamous vitriolic 1991 Hollywood memoir You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. In her 1991 memoir You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again producer Julia Phillips said that the one thing she learned while making The Sting was to make sure she always negotiated the width as well as the height of the letters of her name in movie credits. When The Sting came out, she said, "everyone's name is in thick black letters but ours, which are willow thin." Director George Roy Hill wanted The Sting to be reminiscent of old Hollywood movies from the 1930s and watched a lot of films from that era for inspiration. He also used old issues of The Saturday Evening Post to influence the film's visual style. George Roy Hill originally wanted actor Richard Boone to play the part of villain Doyle Lonnegan. The limp that actor Robert Shaw sports throughout The Sting is no affectation. Shaw hurt himself for real when he slipped and fell on a handball court just before shooting began. Director George Roy Hill decided to incorporate the injury into the film. According to producer Julia Phillips, Robert Redford was concerned that he wasn't acting in The Sting but only doing a lot of running around. At the end of shooting, director George Roy Hill gave Redford a sculpture of the Warner Bros. cartoon character the Road Runner made out of nails as a joke. It was inscribed: IF YOU CAN'T BE GOOD BE FAST. The Sting heavily utilized composer Scott Joplin's turn-of-the-century Ragtime music throughout even though the action takes place in the 1930s – many years after the Ragtime trend had been popular. Director George Roy Hill felt that despite the musical anachronism, the lightness of Joplin's music perfectly captured the playful tone of the story. Director George Roy Hill deliberately avoided using extras in most of The Sting. While studying old gangster films of the 1930s he noticed that there were rarely any extras in the scenes, and he wanted to give The Sting a similar feel. According to Paul Newman, one afternoon of friendly drinks together triggered a series of competitive practical jokes between Paul Newman and George Roy Hill. Hill invited Newman to his office for a drink one afternoon. Just before, however, Hill told Newman that he had no beer or vodka and asked him to pick some up and bring it with him. Newman agreed. Later, Newman sent Hill a bill for $8.00. Hill responded to the bill by sending Newman a three page letter about the nature of friendship and how Newman had abused it. Newman responded to that by cutting Hill's desk in half with a chainsaw and leaving a note that said: "This isn't about friendship, it's about $8.00. I may detonate the entire bungalow next time, so I wouldn't mess around." Later, Newman received a bill from Universal Studios in the amount of $800 to pay for the damage to the desk. Newman never paid. Screenwriter David Ward was inspired to write The Sting while doing research on pickpockets. That led him to learn about con artists known as confidence men, whose large-scale cons depend on their winning the trust or confidence of their intended marks. Originally screenwriter David Ward was supposed to direct The Sting - it would have been his first film as a director. However, star Robert Redford insisted on someone more experienced behind the camera before he would sign on to play Johnny Hooker. When George Roy Hill was first trying to interest Paul Newman in playing the part of experienced con man Henry Gondorff, Newman thought that he wasn't right for it. While Newman loved the script, he thought that the person playing Gondorff should be much older. David Ward listened to a lot of blues music from the 1930s and 40s while writing The Sting. According to Sting co-star Ray Walston, Paul Newman decided to play a joke on Robert Redford while shooting the film. Both actors drove Porsches and lavished attention on them obsessively. One day while Redford was gone, Newman took the keys to his co-star's Porsche and hid the car making Redford think that someone had stolen it. George Roy Hill wanted an unknown face to play Robert Redford's love interest, Loretta, so that audiences wouldn't project any pre-conceived ideas onto her character. The actress chosen to play her, Dimitra Arliss, heard that some Universal executives didn't think she was pretty enough to be Redford's love interest, but Hill fought for her. Screenwriter David Ward defines "The Sting" as the moment a con man separates a mark from his money. John Scarne, a one-time magician known as an authority on card games and tricks, was used as a technical consultant and poker game hand double on The Sting. Co-producer Tony Bill was an antique car buff who helped round up several period cars to use in The Sting. One of them was his own one-of-a-kind 1935 Pierce Arrow, which served as Lonnegan's (Robert Shaw) private car. When The Sting first aired on television following its theatrical release, it scored a record share (61) of the viewing audience which was a huge number. The art work used in the credits and inter-titles for The Sting were inspired by The Saturday Evening Post, a weekly publication that enjoyed its biggest popularity during the 1930s, the time period in which the story takes place. In addition to winning an Academy Award for his adaptation of the musical score of The Sting, Marvin Hamlisch also won two additional Oscars the same night for his work on The Way We Were. Legendary costume designer Edith Head won her eighth and final Academy Award for her work on The Sting. When The Sting was finished, Universal could tell that it had something very special on its hands. The high hopes that everyone had had for the reunion of Butch and Sundance had been realized tenfold. All of the elements came together beautifully on The Sting: the cast, the script, the playful tone, the music and the stylistic elements. Everything worked, and it seemed to everyone that The Sting was sure to be a crowd pleaser at the box office. Universal released The Sting over the Christmas holidays in 1973, and the reaction was immediate - it was a huge hit. Audiences loved seeing Robert Redford and Paul Newman together again in a fresh original comedy. They also loved The Sting's famous trick ending. Many people would return to the theater a second time or more to watch the film again just to go back and look for anything they may have missed during the first viewing, which certainly didn't hurt the box office receipts. "One of the things George [Roy Hill] had...was that he understood the value of surprises," said Robert Redford looking back on the film in a 2005 interview. "He would throw a surprise at the audience. Just when the audience thought they had something figured out, he'd go right or left..." In order for the film to work, according to writer David Ward, the audience had to be fooled. "The trick was not just in working the con game," he said according to the 2009 book Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy, "but in conning the audience as well...You didn't want people leaving the theater saying, 'Well, that was nice, but I'd never fall for anything like that.'" The plan to reunite the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid team in The Sting exceeded everyone's expectations and was a memorable time for all involved. "It was a great experience," said Robert Redford in 2005. "First of all, the cast was terrific. Everybody loved each other. We had a great time...We all knew we were in the hands of a master craftsman...and everybody got so completely into their part." The Sting turned out to be the highest grossing film of the year. Its stylish elegance and sense of fun helped set the standard for the modern caper film, and its influence is still felt as it ranks among the best comedy films ever made. Famous Quotes from THE STING "Luther said I could learn from you. I already know how to drink." – Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) to Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) "Glad to meet you, kid. You're a real horse's ass." – Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) to Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) "Not only are you a cheat. You're a gutless cheat as well." – Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) to Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) "Sit down and shut up, will you? Try not to live up to all my expectations." – FBI Agent Polk (Dana Elcar) to Snyder (Charles Durning) "Sorry I'm late. I was taking a crap." – Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), pretending to be drunk as he arrives at a poker game. "I don't even know you." "You know me. I'm the same as you. It's two in the morning and I don't know nobody." --Loretta (Dimitra Arliss) and Johnny (Robert Redford) "Doyle, I KNOW I gave him four THREES. He had to make a SWITCH. We can't let him get away with that." "What was I supposed to do -- call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?" Floyd (Charles Dierkop) to Doyle (Robert Shaw) "Who told you this guy was in here?" "Nobody. I just know what kind of woman he likes. Going to check all the joy houses till I find him." "Oh, well maybe I could help you, if you tell me his name." "I doubt it. Which way are the rooms?" "Right through there. But I wouldn't go in there if I were you." Billie (Eileen Brennan) to Lt. William Snyder (Charles Durning) Compiled by Andrea Passafiume

In the early 1970s Paul Newman and Robert Redford were Hollywood's top box office stars and the leading male sex symbols of their time. Their first pairing together in George Roy Hill's 1969 western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had been a smash hit. Audiences had loved the chemistry between Newman and Redford and held out hope that they would get the chance to see the two work together again in the near future. That chance came when a young writer, David S. Ward, got the idea to write The Sting. Ward, who had previously written the 1973 drama Steelyard Blues, first got the idea for The Sting while he was doing research on pickpockets. "I was researching pickpockets, and I had a bunch of books on pickpockets and grifters in general," said Ward in a 2005 interview, "and all the books had chapters and information on confidence men. And the more I read about confidence men, I thought, 'God, this is an incredible subculture. I'd love to do a movie about this. I've never seen a movie about confidence men-at least not about this kind of confidence man.' And since it was something I'd never seen a movie about before, I just said, 'I gotta do this.' The thing that sort of attracted me about confidence men were they seemed to be in some ways almost moral...because they didn't use violence, they didn't even steal - they used the mark's own greed against him...In some ways they were exposing the hypocrisy and the greed of supposedly respectable people." Out of that idea came the complex story of a naïve young grifter teaming up with an older seasoned con man to outsmart a dangerous mob boss and avenge the death of a friend. Ward gave the script to producer Tony Bill, who loved the idea. Bill, in turn, shared it with Julia Phillips, a colleague who was looking to become a producer along with husband Michael Phillips. Both Julia and Michael Phillips were impressed. The pair decided to team up with Tony Bill and go into business together. They optioned both Steelyard Blues and The Sting from Ward. Ward signed on with the understanding that he would be allowed to direct The Sting when the time came, making his feature film directorial debut. The producing team next approached Robert Redford to star in the leading role of Johnny Hooker in The Sting. Redford was interested, but did not like the idea of David Ward directing. "It seemed fun, it seemed different and kind of quirky," said Redford in 2005, "but because of its structure I thought it would take a real master director to pull it off, and I didn't want to insult or not support a newcomer." Redford told the producers that he wanted to make The Sting, but only with an experienced director behind the camera. Not long afterwards, Robert Redford got a call from his friend, director George Roy Hill. Hill told him that he had come across the screenplay for The Sting and thought it was great. The screenplay was at Universal Studios, where the producing team had partnered with Richard Zanuck and David Brown to make the film. Hill was in the middle of making Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) at Universal, but when he was finished, he said, he wanted to direct The Sting. As soon as Hill signed on to direct, he knew that he wanted to lighten the tone of The Sting. Originally, David Ward had written the story as a much darker tale of con men on the take. Hill, however, envisioned The Sting as a playful homage to old Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s. Originally the part of boozy worn-out con man Henry Gondorff was much smaller. It was meant as a supporting role behind Robert Redford's character of Johnny Hooker. George Roy Hill first described the part of Gondorff as "a burly, oafish slob of a man," and actor Peter Boyle was one of the first names tossed around to play him. However, one day Hill called up Paul Newman in order to rent a house that Newman owned in Beverly Hills. According to Sting co-star Ray Walston, Hill had rented the same house from Newman while they had worked together on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. When Newman asked why Hill would be needing the house again, Hill said that he would be shooting The Sting with Robert Redford. Newman reportedly said, "Oh? Anything in it for me?" Hill, according to Walston, "saw the dollar signs turning in his head," but told Newman that Gondorff was the second part to Redford's. Newman told Hill to send him a script anyway. While Newman loved the script, he told Hill that he would be all wrong for the "burly, oafish" Gondorff. Someone older, a bit longer in the tooth, he thought, would be more appropriate in the role. Hill encouraged Newman to take the part anyway, and had the screenplay tweaked to beef up Gondorff's part and tailor it more to Newman's style. The actor had been advised before by people in his professional life not to do comedy because he couldn't pull it off. However, he was intrigued by the challenge of playing someone like Gondorff and agreed to sign on. For the part of menacing racketeer Doyle Lonnegan, Paul Newman gave the script to English actor Robert Shaw. The day after he finished reading it, Shaw reportedly said to Newman, "Delicious. When do I start?" Supporting actors Ray Walston, Charles Durning, Eileen Brennan and Dimitra Arliss were brought on board to round out the cast of The Sting. Dimitra Arliss, who played the small but important part of Johnny Hooker's love interest Loretta, was an unknown face to moviegoers when she made The Sting. It was unusual for an unknown to be cast next to heavy hitters like Newman and Redford, but Hill wanted a fresh face to play Loretta. It was important, he said, that the audience not project any preconceived notions onto the character, which people would surely do with a name actress. For the music of The Sting Hill made a controversial stylistic choice: Ragtime. Ragtime had been popular in America at the turn of the century, not during the 1930s depicted in the film. However, this wasn't something that ever bothered Hill. "...I don't much care whether the music is in strict period or not," said Hill in the liner notes to The Sting's soundtrack album. "If I thought a jazz band would give me the feeling I wanted for a Roman Epic, I'd use it. It probably wouldn't, but I'd have no academic objection to trying it." When he heard both his son and his nephew playing some of Scott Joplin's rags on the piano while he was doing early preparations for The Sting, he fell in love with the music. "Although Joplin's 'rags' were written before our period around the turn of the century," he said, "I kept connecting in my mind the marvelous humor and high spirits of his 'rags' with the kind of spirit I wanted to get out of the film." Hill hired his old friend, composer Marvin Hamlisch, to adapt Joplin's music for the Ragtime score of The Sting. "The selection of the material was easy," said Hill, "because his favorites were also mine-'The Entertainer,' "Gladiolus Rag,' 'PineApple Rag,' 'Ragtime Dance,' and my favorite, I think, of all of them – the lyrical, haunting 'Solace.'" by Andrea Passafiume

Two days before cameras were set to roll on The Sting Robert Shaw, who was cast to play the film's villain Doyle Lonnegan, had an accident. He had slipped on a handball court and hurt himself enough that doctors put him in a long-term brace. Shaw also acquired a noticeable limp in his walk as a result of the accident and wasn't sure that he would be able to work on The Sting in such a state. Director George Roy Hill, however, encouraged Shaw to remain on the film and incorporate the limp into his character, which he did memorably. Production began on The Sting in January of 1973. The filming was split between some location shooting in Chicago, where the story was set, and on the Universal back lot in California. Hill wanted The Sting to be a stylish film that accurately reflected the feel not only of 1930s Chicago but also of old Hollywood films from the era as well. Hill along with Art Director Henry Bumstead and Cinematographer Robert Surtees devised a color scheme of muted browns and maroons for the film and a lighting design that combined old-fashioned 1930s-style lighting with some modern tricks of the trade to get the visual look he wanted. Edith Head designed a wardrobe of snappy period costumes for the cast, and artist Jaroslav Gebr created inter-title cards to be used between each section of the film that were reminiscent of the golden glow of old Saturday Evening Post illustrations - a popular publication of the 1930s. Hill tried to find locations in Chicago and Los Angeles that had not been touched by modern civilization to use for some of the scenes. In Los Angeles, locations such as The Green Hotel, the Santa Monica Carousel and The Biltmore Hotel were all used. Chicago's Union Station was also used along with LaSalle Street Station. Producer Tony Bill also contributed to the film's authentic look by helping to round up a number of period automobiles in the Southern California area. As he researched old Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s for inspiration, Hill noticed that most of them didn't use a lot of extras in the scenes. "For instance," said Hill as quoted in Andrew Horton's 1984 book The Films of George Roy Hill, "...no extras would be used in street scenes in those films: Jimmy Cagney would be shot down and die in an empty street. So I deliberately avoided using extras." To complete the effect, Hill made choices for The Sting that would utilize certain stylistic techniques of the 1930s. For instance, he decided to use an old-fashioned Universal logo from the period at the beginning of the film, immediately evoking a nostalgic tone for The Sting. Hill also employed devices such as editing wipes to transition between scenes and iris shots - all stylistic choices that would help place the audience in a 1930s time frame. Having to shoot location scenes with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Hollywood's reigning movie stars and sex symbols of the day, proved challenging at times. Crowds would inevitably gather and reactions would be akin to the arrival of The Beatles in 1964. "I used to go see Sinatra at the Paramount in New York when I was a kid," said one observer as the cast and crew shot a scene at Chicago's Union Station, "and, my God, I never saw anything like that. I bet the temperature in here went up 22 degrees when Newman walked in." Added another onlooker at the time, "I never saw anything like it, either. Myself, I think we ought to rope off that center aisle and never let anybody use it again." The pandemonium seemed to reach a particularly feverish pitch for Paul Newman, often to the amusement of co-star Robert Shaw. "...I did notice that it was Newman everywhere we passed through," said Shaw in a 1973 Rolling Stone interview. "I mean, I picked up about two fans on the way, and those two ladies guided me back to the station, and with great joy they introduced me to people along the way...and none of these absolute layers of girls knew who the hell I was. But they all recognized Newman, to be sure. I mean, everybody would come up and kind of swoon over him, but they didn't in Redford's case, not at all." Newman made a point along with Robert Redford to never take such attention too seriously and instead focused on the work at hand. To keep each other grounded, Redford and Newman took turns playing practical jokes on each other. There was a good camaraderie between them, which inevitably registered on screen. "What puts Newman and Redford over so well together is as much chemistry as acting," said George Roy Hill according to the 1996 book Paul Newman by Lawrence Quirk. "When they're in the same frame something exciting happens even when they're not talking or even moving." When Hill first approached composer Marvin Hamlisch to adapt Scott Joplin's music for the score of The Sting, Hamlisch was reluctant. He was a composer of original music, after all, and not in the habit of adapting other musicians' work. "I agreed to see a first cut in the screening room," said Hamlisch in his 1992 autobiography The Way I Was. "I quickly realized that this was one of the best pictures I had seen in years...David Ward had written a witty, stylish script, George Roy Hill had directed it faultlessly, and Newman and Redford were the best screen couple in years...One of the things that drew me to The Sting was that George had been shrewd enough to leave little oases without dialogue for the music. He built montages and sequences into the picture for this purpose. Whenever I see patches in a film that are talkless, I'm in heaven." Hamlisch agreed to take on the job. Although Hamlisch wasn't a Scott Joplin aficionado, he quickly found several pieces of his that he liked and set about adapting them to suit the film. It took him a mere five days. "Writing an original theme for a film takes time, but that was not the job here," said Hamlisch. "Instead, I chose from preexisting material, and that was much easier. I quickly figured out what went where, adapted the music, timed it, cut it up, and the rest was history." He told his agent he was done, and the agent replied, "Whatever you do, don't tell them you've finished in five days. Call them in three weeks and tell them it's coming along nicely." That is exactly what Hamlisch did. Hamlisch had nothing but praise for director Hill. "George Roy Hill was what every director should be for a composer. If I told him I had a problem and needed a little more time in a scene to accommodate the music-or a little less-he would try to make the adjustment. He also would ask my opinion about certain scenes in the movie and how they played. That's a rare collaborator." by Andrea Passafiume

The Sting brought home a string of Oscars® in l973, for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction, among others, and became one of the top box-office grosses of the Seventies. It's not difficult to figure out its success. Coming on the heels of Watergate, Vietnam and a string of portentous social-consciousness message films, The Sting was pure escapism and a breath of fresh air to audiences of its day. Director George Roy Hill and art designer Henry Bumstead went to great lengths to recreate the look and feel of the Thirties for the film, with location shooting in Los Angeles, Chicago and Pasadena. Each chapter of the story is announced with a title card done up in vintage style, and key changes of scenes are achieved with a "wipe", an editing technique of the time that was like an invisible hand running an eraser over the screen and cutting to the next image. Cinematographer Surtees' color palette was a wash of yellows, beiges and sepias that reinforced the film's antique feel. Never mind that the piano rags of Scott Joplin would have been more appropriate to the pre-WWI era; they lend a great deal to the film's overall charm and made Marvin Hamlisch a very popular film score arranger. Screenwriter David Ward was originally slated to direct The Sting, but wary of working with a novice, Robert Redford didn't climb on board until it was announced that Hill would direct. Hill, Redford and Newman had enjoyed great success a few years earlier with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and The Sting would capitalize on much of the same easygoing buddy-movie rapport between the two. It would be hard to imagine Richard Boone in the role of Doyle Lonnegan, but that's what the producers' original idea was before setting their sights on the burly Robert Shaw. Incidentally, Lonnegan's pronounced limp wasn't an affectation; Shaw injured his ankle during the shoot and decided to make the limp part of Lonnegan's character. By the same token, the script originally called for Henry Gondorff to be a more seedy individual and much more of a character part. On reading the script, though, Newman announced that he wanted the role, so Gondorff was overhauled somewhat for the more suave Paul Newman. The talents all come together for a satisfying, entertaining movie that nearly bewilders the audience as much as the suckers who are hoodwinked by Gondorff and Hooker in their elaborate scam. In the hands of a less able director, the movie may have been a confusing mess, but Hill leads the viewer through the story's Byzantine twists and turns without ever telegraphing the outcome. Coupled with the charisma of its stars, his direction and handling of the story makes The Sting a delight to watch nearly thirty years later. Producer: Tony Bill, Julia Phillips, Michael Phillips Director: George Roy Hill Screenplay: David W. Maurer, David S. Ward Cinematography: Robert Surtees Art Direction: Henry Bumstead Costume Design: Edith Head Film Editing: William Reynolds Original Music: Scott Joplin, adaptations by Marvin Hamlisch Principal Cast: Paul Newman (Henry Gondorff), Robert Redford (Johnny Hooker), Robert Shaw (Doyle Lonnegan), Charles Durning (Lt. William Snyder), Ray Walston (J.J. Singleton), Eileen Brennan (Billie), Robert Earl Jones (Luther Coleman) C-129m. Letterboxed. Closed Captioning. by Jerry Renshaw

Two days before cameras were set to roll on The Sting Robert Shaw, who was cast to play the film's villain Doyle Lonnegan, had an accident. He had slipped on a handball court and hurt himself enough that doctors put him in a long-term brace. Shaw also acquired a noticeable limp in his walk as a result of the accident and wasn't sure that he would be able to work on The Sting in such a state. Director George Roy Hill, however, encouraged Shaw to remain on the film and incorporate the limp into his character, which he did memorably. Production began on The Sting in January of 1973. The filming was split between some location shooting in Chicago, where the story was set, and on the Universal back lot in California. Hill wanted The Sting to be a stylish film that accurately reflected the feel not only of 1930s Chicago but also of old Hollywood films from the era as well. Hill along with Art Director Henry Bumstead and Cinematographer Robert Surtees devised a color scheme of muted browns and maroons for the film and a lighting design that combined old-fashioned 1930s-style lighting with some modern tricks of the trade to get the visual look he wanted. Edith Head designed a wardrobe of snappy period costumes for the cast, and artist Jaroslav Gebr created inter-title cards to be used between each section of the film that were reminiscent of the golden glow of old Saturday Evening Post illustrations - a popular publication of the 1930s. Hill tried to find locations in Chicago and Los Angeles that had not been touched by modern civilization to use for some of the scenes. In Los Angeles, locations such as The Green Hotel, the Santa Monica Carousel and The Biltmore Hotel were all used. Chicago's Union Station was also used along with LaSalle Street Station. Producer Tony Bill also contributed to the film's authentic look by helping to round up a number of period automobiles in the Southern California area. As he researched old Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s for inspiration, Hill noticed that most of them didn't use a lot of extras in the scenes. "For instance," said Hill as quoted in Andrew Horton's 1984 book The Films of George Roy Hill, "...no extras would be used in street scenes in those films: Jimmy Cagney would be shot down and die in an empty street. So I deliberately avoided using extras." To complete the effect, Hill made choices for The Sting that would utilize certain stylistic techniques of the 1930s. For instance, he decided to use an old-fashioned Universal logo from the period at the beginning of the film, immediately evoking a nostalgic tone for The Sting. Hill also employed devices such as editing wipes to transition between scenes and iris shots - all stylistic choices that would help place the audience in a 1930s time frame. Having to shoot location scenes with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Hollywood's reigning movie stars and sex symbols of the day, proved challenging at times. Crowds would inevitably gather and reactions would be akin to the arrival of The Beatles in 1964. "I used to go see Sinatra at the Paramount in New York when I was a kid," said one observer as the cast and crew shot a scene at Chicago's Union Station, "and, my God, I never saw anything like that. I bet the temperature in here went up 22 degrees when Newman walked in." Added another onlooker at the time, "I never saw anything like it, either. Myself, I think we ought to rope off that center aisle and never let anybody use it again." The pandemonium seemed to reach a particularly feverish pitch for Paul Newman, often to the amusement of co-star Robert Shaw. "...I did notice that it was Newman everywhere we passed through," said Shaw in a 1973 Rolling Stone interview. "I mean, I picked up about two fans on the way, and those two ladies guided me back to the station, and with great joy they introduced me to people along the way...and none of these absolute layers of girls knew who the hell I was. But they all recognized Newman, to be sure. I mean, everybody would come up and kind of swoon over him, but they didn't in Redford's case, not at all." Newman made a point along with Robert Redford to never take such attention too seriously and instead focused on the work at hand. To keep each other grounded, Redford and Newman took turns playing practical jokes on each other. There was a good camaraderie between them, which inevitably registered on screen. "What puts Newman and Redford over so well together is as much chemistry as acting," said George Roy Hill according to the 1996 book Paul Newman by Lawrence Quirk. "When they're in the same frame something exciting happens even when they're not talking or even moving." When Hill first approached composer Marvin Hamlisch to adapt Scott Joplin's music for the score of The Sting, Hamlisch was reluctant. He was a composer of original music, after all, and not in the habit of adapting other musicians' work. "I agreed to see a first cut in the screening room," said Hamlisch in his 1992 autobiography The Way I Was. "I quickly realized that this was one of the best pictures I had seen in years...David Ward had written a witty, stylish script, George Roy Hill had directed it faultlessly, and Newman and Redford were the best screen couple in years...One of the things that drew me to The Sting was that George had been shrewd enough to leave little oases without dialogue for the music. He built montages and sequences into the picture for this purpose. Whenever I see patches in a film that are talkless, I'm in heaven." Hamlisch agreed to take on the job. Although Hamlisch wasn't a Scott Joplin aficionado, he quickly found several pieces of his that he liked and set about adapting them to suit the film. It took him a mere five days. "Writing an original theme for a film takes time, but that was not the job here," said Hamlisch. "Instead, I chose from preexisting material, and that was much easier. I quickly figured out what went where, adapted the music, timed it, cut it up, and the rest was history." He told his agent he was done, and the agent replied, "Whatever you do, don't tell them you've finished in five days. Call them in three weeks and tell them it's coming along nicely." That is exactly what Hamlisch did. Hamlisch had nothing but praise for director Hill. "George Roy Hill was what every director should be for a composer. If I told him I had a problem and needed a little more time in a scene to accommodate the music-or a little less-he would try to make the adjustment. He also would ask my opinion about certain scenes in the movie and how they played. That's a rare collaborator." by Andrea Passafiume

In Honor of Paul Newman, who died on September 26, TCM will air a tribute to the actor on Sunday, October 12th, replacing the current scheduled programming with the following movies: Sunday, October 12 Program for TCM 6:00 AM The Rack 8:00 AM Until They Sail 10:00 AM Torn Curtain 12:15 PM Exodus 3:45 PM Sweet Bird of Youth 6:00 PM Hud 8:00 PM Somebody Up There Likes Me 10:00 PM Cool Hand Luke 12:15 AM Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 2:15 AM Rachel, Rachel 4:00 AM The Outrage TCM Remembers Paul Newman (1925-2008) Paul Newman, with his electric blue eyes and gutsy willingness to play anti-heroes, established himself as one of the movies' great leading men before settling into his latter-day career of flinty character acting. Born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1925, Newman studied at the Yale Drama School and New York's Actors Studio before making his Broadway debut in Picnic. Newman's breakthrough in films came in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), in which he played boxer Rocky Graziano. He quickly reinforced his reputation in such vehicles as The Rack (1956) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), for which he won the first of nine Oscar® nominations as an actor. In 1958, while shooting The Long Hot Summer (1958) - which earned him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival - in Louisiana, he became re-acquainted with Joanne Woodward, who was the film's female lead. The two soon fell in love, and after divorcing Jackie, Newman and Woodward were married in Las Vegas in 1958. The couple appeared in numerous films together and had three daughters, which they raised far from Hollywood in the affluent neighborhood of Westport, CT. The 1960s was a fruitful decade for Newman, who starred in such hits as Exodus (1960), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969); and scored Oscar® nominations for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). Newman's political activism also came to the forefront during the sixties, through tireless campaigning for Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign. His association with McCarthy led to his being named on future President Richard Nixon's infamous "Opponents List;" Newman, who ranked #19 out of 20, later commented that his inclusion was among the proudest achievements of his career. Newman's superstar status - he was the top-ranking box office star in 1969 and 1970 - allowed him to experiment with film roles during the 1970s, which led to quirky choices like WUSA (1970), Sometimes a Great Notion (1971), Pocket Money (1972), and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) - all of which he also produced through First Artists, a company he established with fellow stars Sidney Poitier and Barbra Streisand. After coming close to winning an Oscar® for Absence of Malice (1981), Newman finally won the award itself for The Color of Money (1986). He also received an honorary Oscar® in 1986 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994. A producer and director as well as an actor, Newman has directed his wife (and frequent costar) Joanne Woodward through some of her most effective screen performances [Rachel, Rachel (1968), The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)]. He remained active as an actor in his later years, playing the Stage Manager in Our Town on both stage and television, lending his voice to the animated features Cars (2006) and Mater and the Ghostlight (2006). Off-screen, Newman set the standard for celebrity-driven charities with his Newman's Own brand of foods, which brought $200 million to causes, and the Hole in the Wall Gang camp for seriously ill children.

George Roy Hill, the Academy Award winning director who is fondly remembered for guiding Paul Newman and Robert Redford in two of their most memorable hits, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), died Friday, December 20, 2002, in his New York City apartment. He was 81, and had been struggling with Parkinson's disease. Born on December 20, 1922, to a well-to-do Minneapolis newspaper family, Hill would hang out at the local airfield as a child and watch the barnstorming pilots, fascinated by their theatrics. His intense interest would eventually drive him to earn his pilot's license by age 16. But his love for the performing arts was inspired by a different calling - the stage, where he appeared in student productions at his prep school in Hopkins, Minnesota. After graduating, he majored in music at Yale. A baritone, he became a member of the university Glee Club but he soon discovered that singing wasn't his forte. He found acting more suitable and joined the Dramatic Society, becoming its president and appearing in campus musicals. Ten days after graduating with a bachelor's degree in music in 1943, Hill joined the Navy. After flight school, he transferred to the Marines and piloted transport planes in the South Pacific during World War II. Following the war, he worked briefly as a cub reporter on a family newspaper in Texas, then used the GI Bill to attend Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where he earned a bachelor's degree in literature in 1949 and did a stint with the Abbey theatre. Back in the United States, he received good reviews in an off-Broadway play, Strindberg's The Creditors with Beatrice Arthur, and toured with Margaret Webster's Shakespearean company - a celebrated theatrical company for its time. The Korean War interrupted his career, when Hill was recalled to Marine duty, serving 18 months at a training center in North Carolina, and later emerging as a major. The time spent away from the theater was beneficial to Hill, and he decided to move away from acting toward writing. His scripts soon found their way to television and Hill quickly rose from assistant director to director on several of the most acclaimed live dramas of the '50s including The Helen Morgan Story, the original TV production of Judgment at Nuremberg. He also earned two Emmy Awards for writing and directing a Titanic story, A Night to Remember. In 1957, Hill moved to Broadway, where he directed the Pulitzer Prize-winning Look Homeward, Angel. After directing Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment, Hill kicked off his film career by directing the 1962 film version, which gave Jane Fonda her first major role. He followed that up with the film adaptation of Lillian Hellman's classic play, Toys in the Attic (1963), but it would be his third film that would earn Hill critical acclaim, the marvelous Peter Sellers' comedy The World of Henry Orient (1964). The story concerning two teenage girls who stalk a concert pianist (Sellers) around New York City, established Hill's brisk style and his flair for bittersweet comedy. His next two films, both starring Julie Andrews, were James Michener's epic Hawaii (1966), and the big-budget musical Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Although his craftsmanship was always impeccable, both films failed to elevate him to the front ranks of Hollywood directors. That all changed with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Few associated with the film could have predicted that this light-hearted western would be the box-office smash it became when it was released, but audiences fell in love with this charming and innovative film. Instead of playing Butch (Newman) and Sundance (Redford) as vicious outlaws, Hill and screenwriter William Goldman made them easy-going, sympathetic drifters for whom robbing banks was just a game. As the director, Hill kept the balance between the film's comedy and drama pitch perfect, emphasizing the straightforward storytelling which was free from any heavy-handed editorializing. Also, by giving the characters a modern feel with contemporary dialogue and using an upbeat, pop-oriented Burt Bacharach score, Hill breathed fresh life into the Western genre. The film deservedly received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director; and earned Oscars for Conrad Hall's cinematography, Burt Bacharach's original score, the Bacharach/Hal David composition "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", as well as Goldman's original screenplay. Newman and Redford would be reunited again with Hill for his next big hit The Sting, as con men who ensnare a brutal gangster (Robert Shaw) in an intricate scheme. A highly stylized piece of work, Hill crafted the film in the style of the old Saturday Evening Post graphics, complete with chapter headings; imitated the flat camera style that was employed for those classic Warner Bros. gangster movies and resurrected the ragtime piano of Scott Joplin for the score (as interpreted by Marvin Hamlisch). For his exceptional work, Hill won the Academy Award for Best Director and the film also bagged Oscars for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (David S. Ward), Best Score (Hamlisch), Best Editing (William Reynolds), Best Costume Design (Edith Head) and Best Art Direction (Henry Bumstead and James Payne). Hill would work with Redford and Newman again, albeit individually, later in the decade. The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), the story of a barnstorming pilot, was culled from some evocative childhood memories, yet despite the star power of Redford, it was not a success. Nor was the Paul Newman vehicle Slap Shot (1977), a raucous look at the lives of minor league ice hockey players. The off-color language and bawdy locker-room antics perplexed audiences and critics at the time, although it's now considered to be one of the best (and funniest) of all sports films. Although he would never again scale the critical and commercial success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Sting, Hill would enjoy later acclaim with the sweet natured A Little Romance (1979), starring Laurence Olivier and a 13-year-old Diane Lane; his ambitious adaptation of John Irving's episodic The World According to Garp (1982); and his final film, the slight, but pleasant Chevy Chase comedy Funny Farm (1988). Soon after that, Hill retired from Hollywood to teach at his old Alma Mater Yale. Hill is survived by his former wife, Louisa Horton, as well as two sons, George Roy Hill III of Roslyn, N.Y., and John Andrew Steele Hill of Ardsley, N.Y; two daughters, Frances Breckinridge Phipps of Dumont, N.J., and Owens Hill of Los Angeles; and 12 grandchildren. by Michael T. Toole