The Long Hot Summer

The Long, Hot Summer was based on the works of southern writer William Faulkner, most notably his 1940 novel The Hamlet. The Long, Hot Summer was turned into a television series in 1965. It starred Roy Thinnes as Ben Quick, Nancy Malone as Clara, and Edmond O'Brien as Will Varner. O'Brien eventually left the show and was replaced with Dan O'Herlihy. Legendary director Robert Altman directed the pilot. In 1985 The Long, Hot Summer was turned into a TV movie starring Don Johnson as Ben Quick, Cybill Shepherd as Eula, Jason Robards as Will Varner, and Ava Gardner as Minnie Littlejohn. Although William Faulkner was best known as a novelist and short story writer, he did work as a screenwriter in Hollywood for 20th-Century-Fox during the thirties and forties. A good deal of his work went uncredited and he was never successful in adapting any of his own work for the screen (although he did do a screen treatment for "Barn Burning" but it was never produced). He did, however, receive credit for the screenplay adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not (1944), Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (1946) and a few other scripts such as Submarine Patrol (1938) for director John Ford and The Road to Glory (1936) for director Howard Hawks. Other William Faulkner film adaptations include The Story of Temple Drake (1933, based on his novel Sanctuary), Intruder in the Dust (1949), The Tarnished Angels (1958, based on his novel Pylon), The Sound and the Fury (1959), Sanctuary (1961), The Reivers (1969), Tomorrow (1972, based on his story), and an uncredited Russian adaptation of Sanctuary entitled Cargo 200 (2007, aka Gruz 200). by Andrea Passafiume

The Long, Hot Summer was the first film that Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward ever made together. Robert Mitchum, Don Murray and Marlon Brando were considered for the role of Ben Quick. Orson Welles wore a prosthetic nose for his role as Will Varner. The heat on the location shoot in Louisiana was so bad that Welles would often sweat and it would cause his fake nose to come loose. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were married shortly after they completed filming The Long, Hot Summer. The marriage lasted over 50 years, until Newman's death in 2008. The world premiere of The Long, Hot Summer was held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on March 5, 1958. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward purchased a large brass bed in a local antiques shop during the location shoot in Louisiana. They kept the bed throughout their entire marriage. Eva Marie Saint was originally cast as Clara, but had to bow out when she became pregnant. Memorable Quotes from THE LONG, HOT SUMMER BEN QUICK (Paul Newman): All right then, run, lady, and you keep on running. Buy yourself a bus ticket and disappear. Change your name, dye your hair, get lost - and then maybe, just maybe, you're gonna be safe from me. BEN: Get out of character, lady. Come on, get way out. CLARA (Joanne Woodward): You're too much like my father to suit me, and I'm an authority on him. BEN: He's a wonderful old man. CLARA: One wolf recognizes another. BEN: Tame us. Make pets out of us. You could. BEN: Miss Clara, you slam the door in a man's face before he even knocks on it. BEN: (to Clara, referring to Alan) I respect him. I admire his manners and I admire the speeches he makes and I admire the big house he lives in. But if you're saving it all for him honey, you've got your account in the wrong bank. BEN: Why don't nobody ever wanna talk with me peacable? BEN: Life's very long and full of salesmanship, Miss Clara. You might buy something yet. CLARA: I've spent my whole life around men who push and shove and shout and think they can make anything happen just by being aggressive. And I'm not anxious to have another one around the place. BEN: Well, that's all right. I'm a quiet-living man, myself. EULA (Lee Remick): Oh, I only know one reason for living quiet, that's if you're too old to live any other way. WILL VARNER (Orson Welles): (referring to Ben Quick) Do you know what Quick means in this county? Hellfire. Ashes and char. Flame follows that man around like a dog. He's a barn burner. MINNIE LITTLEJOHN (Angela Lansbury): I made plans, Will, matrimonial plans. WILL: Now you ain't ever heard me say the word matrimony. MINNIE: Well now, I'm willing to overlook that. MINNIE: (to Will) Look, honey. It's no good you trying to tell me you're too old. I happen to be in a position to deny it. WILL: (to Ben) I've been watching you. I like your push, yes. I like your style. I like your brass. It ain't too dissimilar from the way I operate. ALAN STEWART (Richard Anderson): You don't believe in living in one place, Mr. Quick? BEN: Well, my family moved. Not that they wanted to. They was encouraged by the local citizens. ALAN: My people have stood off Indians, Yankees, carpetbaggers. The least they could expect of me is to stand up to a Varner. WILL: Listen, I'm gonna get me some man in the Varner family, some good strong strappin' man Varners. That's what I want, Varners and more Varners. Yeah, more Varners still. Enough Varners to infest the countryside. I'm gonna see that happen, sister, before I die. I'm gonna accomplish that, yes ma'am, by means of that Quick, that big stud horse. BEN: The world belongs to the meat eaters, Miss Clara, and if you have to take it raw, take it raw. BEN: I can see my white shirt and my black tie and my Sunday manners didn't fool you for a minute. Well, that's right, ma'am, I'm a menace to the countryside. All a man's gotta do is just look at me sideways and his house goes up in fire. And here I am, living right here in the middle of your peaceable little town, right in your back yard, you might say. Guess that ought to keep you awake at night. BEN: Well, I'll be damned. WILL: More than probable, you will be. But first, you're going to church and get married, yeah, to my daughter. WILL: (to Ben, referring to Clara) She has quality, quality. Which is as close as you and me will ever get to it. CLARA: You are barking up the wrong girl, Mr. Quick. WILL: (to Jody) You got hellfire and damnation in you, Jody Varner, but you got redemption too. When I think of the hate that put me in there and locked the door and set fire to it, and when I think of the love that wouldn't let me go... I got me a son again. I got me a good right arm - and a left. MINNIE: Will Varner, I heard you was in that fire! WILL: Simmer down, Minnie. You ain't a rich widow yet. Compiled by Andrea Passafiume

The screenplay for The Long, Hot Summer, written by husband and wife team Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., was based primarily on William Faulkner's 1940 novel The Hamlet. Adapted into a steamy story about a shady drifter being pushed into marriage with the prim daughter of a local businessman, The Long, Hot Summer had all the ingredients for a hit film: colorful characters, striking dialogue and enough heat and innuendo to melt the ice cubes in a tall glass of southern iced tea. Producer Jerry Wald, who was fresh off the hit potboiler Peyton Place (1957), put the project together through Twentieth Century-Fox. Director Martin Ritt had only recently begun working in Hollywood again after having been blacklisted for five years during the Communist witch hunts, a direct result of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. He was looking for a strong project to help re-establish himself in the industry and was hired to direct The Long, Hot Summer. To play the part of the slick and disreputable Ben Quick, Martin Ritt first considered Marlon Brando and Robert Mitchum. Paul Newman, still relatively new to Hollywood, was fresh off his triumph playing boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) when he read the script for The Long, Hot Summer. He loved the part of Ben and felt that he understood him. "He had a lifetime of having a bad reputation and for no cause," said Newman in a 2001 interview, "so he just decided that that's what he was going to be. It's like when you're a kid and someone called you a name and you decide to be one. And that's what that character was." Newman wanted the part, and as soon as Martin Ritt saw his enthusiasm, he was won over. Newman, who was under contract with Warner Bros. at the time, was loaned out to Twentieth Century-Fox in order to make the film. Actress Eva Marie Saint was originally cast as the object of Ben's affection, Clara. However, when she became pregnant, Ritt had to replace her. Joanne Woodward happily took the juicy part. Woodward was also new to Hollywood, having first begun her career on the New York stage like Newman. The Long, Hot Summer was fresh on the heels of her Oscar-winning performance in The Three Faces of Eve (1957), though she wouldn't receive the Academy Award until after The Long, Hot Summer was completed. The Long, Hot Summer was not the first time that the paths of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward had crossed. The pair had met during a 1952 stage production of Picnic in New York. Newman was married to someone else at the time with children, but the two had hit it off immediately and fate seemed to keep bringing them back together over the years. By the time Newman and Woodward met up again to make The Long, Hot Summer Newman's marriage to Jackie Witte was over and the two were free to openly be a couple. Their onscreen chemistry was real and not an act. Orson Welles came on board to play the Big Daddy-like Will Varner. Welles, who was always struggling to come up with money to finance his own personal creative projects, took the acting job for the paycheck. Handsome Anthony Franciosa was cast to play Will's ne'er-do-well son Jody. Actress Shelley Winters, Franciosa's wife at the time, recalled in her 1989 memoir Shelley II that he was in a bad frame of mind when he agreed to make The Long, Hot Summer. Shortly before, Franciosa had been arrested for assaulting a photographer who had ambushed him and Winters. Now the photographer, whom Winters described as "vindictive" and "spiteful", was taking Franciosa to court over it, the date for which would come up during production. Winters herself claimed that producer Jerry Wald all but promised her the part of Jody's sexy wife Eula when he hired her husband. When 21-year-old Lee Remick was hired instead of her, she was upset. Rounding out the remarkable cast was Angela Lansbury, who would play Will's saucy gal-pal Minnie Littlejohn and Richard Anderson, who would play mama's boy Alan Stewart. Invoking his "method" Actors Studio training, Paul Newman traveled to Louisiana before shooting began in order to soak up the local atmosphere. It was an experience he hoped would help inform his portrayal of Ben Quick. A few weeks later, the rest of the cast and crew would join him on location and work would begin on The Long, Hot Summer. by Andrea Passafiume

Shooting began on The Long, Hot Summer in the sweltering heat of September 1957 near Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a budget of approximately $1.5 million. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward channeled their off-screen chemistry into their characters and worked beautifully together. "They seemed to have such a total understanding of each other," said co-star Angela Lansbury in a 2001 interview, "that they were able to work in scenes where they were at each other's throats or falling under each other's spell." Lansbury, who relished her role as Minnie Littlejohn, thoroughly enjoyed working with director Martin Ritt. "Martin Ritt had a wonderful enthusiasm and earthy sexy quality himself," she said. "He loved the idea of the dirtiness of the carryings on, and he certainly brought every bit of kind of naughty sexuality out of me in that role." Orson Welles, who had a reputation for being difficult, had a rough time making The Long, Hot Summer and caused plenty of trouble. Used to being in control of his own projects, it was hard for Welles to do things someone else's way. "He was always nudging and pushing for things," said Angela Lansbury, "and wanted to change lines, but had to be carefully handled so that he didn't always get his way because his way wasn't necessarily the best way for everybody else in the scene." Welles would irritate his co-stars by overlapping his own lines with their dialogue, ad-libbing, and mumbling to the point where his lines were barely comprehensible. "There was something you couldn't resist about Orson," said Lansbury, "even though he was a son-of-a-bitch at times. I mean, there's no question about it, he was very difficult." Joanne Woodward added in a 2001 interview, "Orson had a hard time. It must have been a terrible, terrible feeling for him to be confronted by all these young hot shots who thought they were so great because they came from New York and the Actors Studio. It was a problem." The scorching Louisiana heat didn't help Welles' temperament on the set of The Long, Hot Summer. "He was terribly having difficulty living in his skin," said Angela Lansbury. "He was very very heavy. We were working under dreadful conditions of heat and he was perspiring and he seemed to have a lot of very thick makeup on." Part of that heavy makeup was a prosthetic nose that Welles wore - something he often did for his acting roles. The heat made Welles sweat so much that his fake nose would often come unglued and ruin the shot. The Long, Hot Summer wrapped in December 1957 and director Ritt prepared the film for release. To his horror, he found during post-production that it was nearly impossible to understand any of Orson Welles' dialogue. He and his team worked overtime to improve what they could through post-dubbing. Some cast members thought that Welles had done it quite deliberately as a way to show contempt for the "mumbling" method actors of the Actors Studio, but no one could ever be sure. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward decided to make their relationship official the following month and were married in Las Vegas on January 29, 1958. In March The Long, Hot Summer had its world premiere in Baton Rouge and went on to become a moneymaker for Fox. The success of The Long, Hot Summer helped Martin Ritt reestablish himself as a major director following his 5-year blacklisting from Hollywood. It also showcased the talents of young up-and-comers Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, who won Best Actor that year at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Ben Quick. It marked both the beginning of long and distinguished careers for the talented couple as well as the beginning of one of Hollywood's longest and happiest marriages. by Andrea Passafiume

SYNOPSIS: A sly drifter Ben Quick finds himself in Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi after being run out of another town following accusations of barn burning. Ingratiating himself with the ruthless and powerful local businessman Will Varner, Quick soon finds himself at odds with the entire Varner family. Varner's daughter Clara, a prim schoolteacher, is determined to resist Quick's unsubtle advances, but at the same time she is drawn to him. Quick hatches a plan to settle down in the quiet little town under Varner's wing, but his shady reputation soon catches up with him and threatens everything he has worked to achieve. The Long, Hot Summer (1958) marked the first time that Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward ever co-starred together in a film. Newman and Woodward, already a couple during the making of it, have obvious chemistry on screen which makes the movie exciting to watch. The couple married shortly after filming was completed. They made nine more films together before Newman's death in 2008. The film also marks the first collaboration between Paul Newman and director Martin Ritt. Ritt and Newman went on to make five more films together including Hud (1963). The screenplay for The Long, Hot Summer, written by husband and wife team Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., was based primarily on William Faulkner's 1940 novel The Hamlet. Adapted into a steamy story about a shady drifter being pushed into marriage with the prim daughter of a local businessman, The Long, Hot Summer had all the ingredients for a hit film: colorful characters, striking dialogue and enough heat and innuendo to melt the ice cubes in a tall glass of southern iced tea. Producer Jerry Wald, who was fresh off the hit potboiler Peyton Place (1957), put the project together through Twentieth Century-Fox. Director Martin Ritt had only recently begun working in Hollywood again after having been blacklisted for five years during the Communist witch hunts, a direct result of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. He was looking for a strong project to help re-establish himself in the industry and was hired to direct The Long, Hot Summer. To play the part of the slick and disreputable Ben Quick, Martin Ritt first considered Marlon Brando and Robert Mitchum. Paul Newman, still relatively new to Hollywood, was fresh off his triumph playing boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) when he read the script for The Long, Hot Summer. He loved the part of Ben and felt that he understood him. "He had a lifetime of having a bad reputation and for no cause," said Newman in a 2001 interview, "so he just decided that that's what he was going to be. It's like when you're a kid and someone called you a name and you decide to be one. And that's what that character was." Newman wanted the part, and as soon as Martin Ritt saw his enthusiasm, he was won over. Newman, who was under contract with Warner Bros. at the time, was loaned out to Twentieth Century-Fox in order to make the film. Actress Eva Marie Saint was originally cast as the object of Ben's affection, Clara. However, when she became pregnant, Ritt had to replace her. Joanne Woodward happily took the juicy part. Woodward was also new to Hollywood, having first begun her career on the New York stage like Newman. The Long, Hot Summer was fresh on the heels of her Oscar-winning performance in The Three Faces of Eve (1957), though she wouldn't receive the Academy Award until after The Long, Hot Summer was completed. Shooting began on The Long, Hot Summer in the sweltering heat of September 1957 near Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a budget of approximately $1.5 million. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward channeled their off-screen chemistry into their characters and worked beautifully together. "They seemed to have such a total understanding of each other," said co-star Angela Lansbury in a 2001 interview, "that they were able to work in scenes where they were at each other's throats or falling under each other's spell." Though the film is over 50 years old, The Long, Hot Summer still holds up as one of the most engrossing Southern Gothic tales ever put on film. With a stellar cast, rich characters and memorable dialogue, The Long, Hot Summer is one of the more successful film adaptations of a William Faulkner story. Director: Martin Ritt Producer: Jerry Wald Screenplay: Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. (based on the novel The Hamlet by William Faulkner) Cinematography: Joseph La Shelle Editing: Louis R. Loeffler Music Composer: Alex North Art Designer: Lyle R. Wheeler and Maurice Ransford Costume Designer: Charles LeMaire, Adele Palmer Cast: Paul Newman (Ben Quick), Joanne Woodward (Clara Varner), Anthony Franciosa (Jody Varner), Orson Welles (Will Varner), Lee Remick (Eula Varner), Angela Lansbury (Minnie Littlejohn), Richard Anderson (Alan Stewart), Sarah Marshall (Agnes Stewart), Mabel Albertson (Mrs. Stewart), J. Pat O'Malley (Ratliff), William Walker (Lucius), George Dunn (Peabody), Jess Kirkpatrick (Armistead), Val Avery (Wilk), I. Stanford Jolley (Houston), Nicholas King (John Fisher), Lee Erickson (Tom Shortly), Ralph Reed (J.V. Bookright), Terry Rangno (Pete Armistead), Steve Widders (Buddy Peabody), Jim Brandt (Linus Olds), Helen Wallace (Mrs. Houston), Brian Corcoran (Harry Peabody), Byron Foulger (Harris), Victor Rodman (Justice), Eugene Jackson (Waiter), Robert Adler (Ambulance Driver), Pat Rosemond (Girl). C-115m. by Andrea Passafiume

AWARDS AND HONORS Paul Newman won the award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in The Long, Hot Summer. Director Ritt was nominated for a Golden Palm for the film. Martin Ritt was nominated for a DGA (Directors Guild of America) Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for The Long, Hot Summer. The screenwriting team of Irving Ravetch and his wife Harriet Frank Jr. was nominated for a WGA (Writers Guild of America) Award for Best Written American Drama. The Critics' Corner: THE LONG, HOT SUMMER "What's more, the whole show, in natural settings shot in color and CinemaScope, has the look and the atmospheric feeling of an afternoon storm making up above the still trees and sun-cracked buildings of a quiet Southern town on a hot day. Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. have developed a tight, word-crackling script that lines up the bitter situation in quick scenes and slashing dialogue. Martin Ritt has directed for tension-for scornful, sarcastic attitudes on the part of the principal contenders. And those roles are effectively played. Paul Newman is best as the roughneck who moves in with a thinly veiled sneer to knock down the younger generation and make himself the inheritor of the old man. He has within his plowhand figure and behind his hard blue eyes the deep and ugly deceptions of a neo-Huey Long. He could, if the script would let him, develop a classic character. Joanne Woodward is also excellent as the independent daughter who snarls not only at the arrogant intruder but likewise at her bluff, uncouth old man. And Orson Welles, so help us, does a pretty good hard-hitting job making a shrewd, fierce and bloated vulgarian of this small-town tycoon. He even puts on a Southern accent that you can hardly understand. Anthony Franciosa is somewhat miscast as a weakling son of the South and so is Richard Anderson as a puny Mississippi mama's-boy. But Lee Remick fills the bill precisely as a beautiful but dumb young wife (to Mr. Franciosa's giggling husband) and Angela Lansbury makes a good fleshy old doll." – The New York Times "The Long, Hot Summer...bears only a remote resemblance to the William Faulkner tales on which it is based... it is a pretty exciting movie. Faulkner is as hard to kill as a Mississippi water moccasin, and his energy coils and snaps and hisses in the hundred distortions of the story. To begin with, the young man of the "broad, flat face [with] eyes the color of stagnant water" has been transformed by Hollywood into a dreamy-looking cinemactor named Paul Newman-but Newman's performance as Ben Quick, before the script blunts it, is as mean and keen as a cackle-edge scythe. And Eula Varner, she of the "kaleidoscopic convolution of mammalian ellipses," is divided into two slender young beauties named Lee Remick and Joanne Woodward-but Woodward plays her part with a fire and grace not often seen in a movie queen. And old Will Varner, "thin as a fence rail and almost as long," is transmogrified into the Falstaffian figure of Orson Welles -but Welles, in the first role he has done for Hollywood since Moby Dick, demonstrates decisively that if in the meantime he has scarcely improved as an actor, he is in any case a whale of an entertainer, even when he overacts and over-accents his Deep South dialect." - Time Magazine "The Long, Hot Summer is a simmering story of life in the Deep South, steamy with sex and laced with violence and bawdy humor...This picture is strikingly directed by Martin Ritt... Scriptwriters have done a phenomenal job of putting together elements of stories that are actually connected only by their core of atmosphere, Faulkner's preoccupation with the rising redneck moneyed class and their dominance of the former aristocracy. There are still holes in the screenplay but director Martin Ritt slams over them so fast that you are not aware of any vacancies until you are past them. It is melodrama frank and unashamed. It may be preposterous but it is never dull...the locations pay off in the authentic flavor well captured by cameraman Joseph LaShelle. Highlighting the diverse and contrasting moods is the fine score by Alex North." - Variety "This amalgam of Faulkner's stories "Barn Burning" and "The Spotted Horses" (which is part of his novel The Hamlet) turned out to be highly commercial and hugely entertaining...Ben Quick is one of those arrogant-on-the-outside, vulnerable-on-the-inside roles that Newman could do better than any other movie actor, and he and Woodward have some electric, strong scenes together. Martin Ritt directed with a crackerjack popular screenplay by Irving Ravetch and his wife, Harriet Frank, Jr." - Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies "Disparate incidents from short stories by William Faulkner are intelligently amalgamated to depict conflict within the family of Varner, town boss of a small Mississippi community. Although undeniably an actors' piece, The Long, Hot Summer shows how perceptively Martin Ritt handles intimate relationships." - The Oxford Companion to Film "The ending is an unconvincing cop out, but it can't spoil the film's compulsive dramatic tension (or a marvellous comic cameo from Angela Lansbury as Welles' long-suffering mistress)." - Jane Edwardes, TimeOut Film Guide "Frank Jr. screenplay is peppered with the typical ingredients of 1950s soap opera right down to the de rigeur syrupy theme song. But what sets The Long, Hot Summer apart from other Peyton Place wannabes is the sizzling sexual tension between soon-to-be-married Newman and Joanne Woodward in their first film together-electricity so palpable it short-circuits the overblown melodrama...The real surprises are Franciosa, who wrings out all of Jody's angst with heart-breaking intensity, and the young Remick (in only her second film), whose vivacious, sexy, uninhibited portrayal of the vapid Eula is irresistible. Such involving performances (along with gorgeous location shooting in Louisiana) distinguish The Long, Hot Summer from similar '50s fare and make the material seem far better than it is. Amazingly, after all of the film's domestic disturbances and psychological warfare, it leaves a warm, fuzzy glow. Not exactly true Faulkner, but pure Hollywood." - David Krauss, www.digitallyobsessed.com "Yet another overboiled soap opera from Jerry Wald, the producer of the gold mine Peyton Place [1975], this all-star vehicle was concocted by folding a half-dozen Faulkner stories together. The result is reasonably well-written but still plays like watered-down Tennessee Williams. The efforts of a mostly-excellent cast bring the characters to life, and the real-life romance team of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward bless the story with more than a little dignity. The verdict is, that for this kind of movie, The Long, Hot Summer is not bad at all." - Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant "Well-blended William Faulkner short stories make a flavorful, brooding drama...Excellent Alex North score, weak finish to strong film." - Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide "Busy Peyton Place-style family brawling saga with sex on the side, flabby as narrative but compulsive as character study." - Halliwell's Film & Video Guide Compiled 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.