The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon

Several years before he died in 2008, Paul Newman commissioned his best friend to interview actors and directors he worked with, his friends, his children, his first wife, his psychiatrist, and Joanne Woodward, to create an oral history of his life. After hearing and reading what others said about him, Newman then dictated his own version of his life. Now, this long-lost memoir—90% Newman’s own narrative, interspersed with wonderful stories and recollections by his family, friends, and such luminaries as Elia Kazan, Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill, Martin Ritt—will be published. This book will surprise and even shock people, it reveals unknown sides of Paul Newman: funny and tragic, charming and insightful, personal and professional.   
 
Newman’s traumatic childhood is brilliantly detailed: his terrible relationship with his mother (he says she always considered him purely a decoration, not an actual child), his complicated relationship with his father (who once insisted eight-year-old Paul walk home several miles with a broken leg). He talks with extraordinary honesty, insight and humor, about his insecurities as a teenager, his lack of success with women, his feelings of failure. Tales of his army years feel like a movie in itself. His college years, his early yearnings to be an actor, learning his craft, his acting rivals at the beginning of his career (Brando and Dean), his films (good and bad) - he spares no one, including himself. He discusses the complicated relationship he had with his first wife, his son Scott’s death, and his guilt about that death. Perhaps the most moving material in the book comes when he discusses Joanne Woodward—their love for each other, his dependence on her, even their sexually charged life together. 

PAUL NEWMAN was an American actor, film director, race car driver, and entrepreneur. Newman was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.  His major film roles include The Hustler, Hud, Harper, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Verdict, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Nobody’s Fool, The Road to Perdition, and the voice role of Doc Hudson in Disney-Pixar's Cars. Ten-time Oscar nominee, Newman won an Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money. Newman won several national championships as a race car driver. A political activist and humanitarian, he raised and donated nearly one billion dollars to many charities. Newman had six children and was married to Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward for 50 years. He died in 2008 at the age of 83.