The extraordinary life of an ordinary man : a memoir /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2022Description: 297 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780593534502
- 0593534506
- 791.430/28092 B 23/eng/20220217
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Biography | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | B NEWMAN NEWMAN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610023407906 | |||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Biography | Hayden Library | Book | NEWMAN-NEWMAN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610023304228 | |||
Standard Loan | Tensed DeSmet Library Adult Nonfiction | Tensed DeSmet Library | Book | 791.43 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022665546 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon. The greatest movie star of the past 75 years covers everything: his traumatic childhood, his career, his drinking, his thoughts on Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, John Huston, his greatest roles, acting, his intimate life with Joanne Woodward, his innermost fears and passions and joys. With thoughts/comments throughout from Joanne Woodward, George Roy Hill, Tom Cruise, Elia Kazan and many others.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME and Vanity Fair
"Newman at his best...with his self-aware persona, storied marriage and generous charitable activities...this rich book somehow imbues his characters' pain and joy with fresh technicolor." -- The Wall Street Journal
In 1986, Paul Newman and his closest friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, began an extraordinary project. Stuart was to compile an oral history, to have Newman's family and friends and those who worked closely with him, talk about the actor's life. And then Newman would work with Stewart and give his side of the story. The only stipulation was that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. That same stipulation applied to Newman himself. The project lasted five years.
The result is an extraordinary memoir, culled from thousands of pages of transcripts. The book is insightful, revealing, surprising. Newman's voice is powerful, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, always meeting that high standard of searing honesty. The additional voices--from childhood friends and Navy buddies, from family members and film and theater collaborators such as Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill, Martin Ritt, and John Huston--that run throughout add richness and color and context to the story Newman is telling.
Newman's often traumatic childhood is brilliantly detailed. He talks about his teenage insecurities, his early failures with women, his rise to stardom, his early rivals (Marlon Brando and James Dean), his first marriage, his drinking, his philanthropy, the death of his son Scott, his strong desire for his daughters to know and understand the truth about their father. Perhaps the most moving material in the book centers around his relationship with Joanne Woodward--their love for each other, his dependence on her, the way she shaped him intellectually, emotionally and sexually.
The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is revelatory and introspective, personal and analytical, loving and tender in some places, always complex and profound.
Includes index.
"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"--
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Between 1986 and 1991, actor Newman worked with screenwriter friend Stewart Stern on his memoirs, with nothing off-limits and Stern recording their years-long conversation (along with interviewing Newman's friends, colleagues, and family). This posthumous memoir was compiled from 14,000 transcribed pages of interviews that sat dormant for decades. Far from a typical Hollywood autobiography, Newman's memoir is less concerned about his films and more interested in intensive soul-searching to discover why he kept loved ones at a distance for most of his life. The multi-voiced audio production boasts a superb Jeff Daniels doing most of the heavy lifting, narrating the majority of the book as Paul Newman. Daniels captures the world-weariness and fragility of a world class actor who was still plagued with self-doubts, insecurities and alcohol use disorder. Newman's daughters Melissa Newman and Clea Newman Soderlund read the book's foreword and afterword. John Rubinstein reads Stern's contributions, while Ari Fliakos reads other male voices (including directors Sidney Lumet and George Roy Hill), and Emily Wachtel and January LaVoy read the various women in Newman's life (including Joanne Woodward, Patricia Neal, and Piper Laurie). VERDICT This gripping and emotionally wrenching memoir is given a top-notch multi-narrator production.--Kevin HowellPublishers Weekly Review
Actor, race car driver, and philanthropist Newman (1925--2008) was a deeply private man living an intensely public life; this posthumous memoir features the Hollywood legend's own voice as he "sets things straight" and "pokes holes in the mythology" that accompanied his celebrity. Adapted from interviews taped with his friend Stewart Stern before his death, Newman's story unfolds in a humble, sometimes humorous narrative voice--"I'm aware that in some ways it's my nature to deprecate everything I do"--punctuated with earnest awe of the turns his life has taken, astonishment at the intensity of his passion for wife Joanne Woodward, affection for his children and anguish that he could not shelter them from the vagaries of fame. Newman's voice is interwoven with transcripts from friends, relatives, and colleagues (including Eva Marie Saint, Tom Cruise, Elia Kazan, and more) whose memories shed light on what transformed the summer stock actor into an international sex symbol and what curbed his struggles with alcoholism and grief from veering into tragedy. As compiled by editor David Rosenthal, these collective perspectives do more than offer a prismatic view of film industry glamour and dirty laundry: they elevate the book from a humble autobiography to a more nuanced, human portrait--with the "semblance of truth" that Newman craved when he went on the record. With equal parts grounded authenticity and inviting charm, this candid memoir captures the life of a legend. (Oct.)Booklist Review
In 1986, Newman and a close friend, the playwright Stewart Stern, began collaborating on his memoir. Long conversations were recorded; family, friends, colleagues, and costars were interviewed. And then, after five years, the project fizzled. The audiotapes were rumored to have been burned. At the time of Newman's death in 2008, the prospect of his exceptional life story as told from his perspective was thought to be lost to the ages. Transcripts existed, but where? In 2019, a trove of 14,000 pages was uncovered, and, finally, Newman's story could be told. Unlike most celebrity self-retrospectives, this is not a "first I did this, then I did that" kind of memoir. It is, rather, a sharp, acerbic, often somber "what was I thinking?" analysis that reveals a level of vulnerability and insecurity surprising for a man who was seen as the epitome of cool. Newman is relentlessly hard on himself, "I've always been in pain, always needed help," he confesses as he assesses a nature that tends toward self-deprecation and self-destruction. Fans looking for Hollywood gossip will not find it, while those who really want to know the man behind the image and the legend will be compelled by Newman's raw, open, and principled self-portrait.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Newman's timeless allure will work its magic on readers.Kirkus Book Review
Raw reflections from a movie icon. From 1986 to 1991, Paul Newman (1925-2008) worked on what he called a project of "self-dissection," hoping "to try and explain it all to my kids." That project took the form of conversations with his close friend and screenwriter Stewart Stern supplemented by interviews with friends, family, actors (Tom Cruise, Patricia Neal, Eva Marie Saint), and directors (John Huston, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, among others) and illustrated with family photos. Journalist and publisher Rosenthal has edited Stern's transcriptions to produce a revealing memoir of a life marked by pain, grief, and regret. The son of a "dismissive, disinterested" father and a volatile, possessive mother, Newman grew up feeling like an outcast. Small, underweight, and a mediocre student, possibly because of a learning disability, Newman had no direction for his future. He gravitated to acting, worked sporadically, and decided to enroll in Yale drama school's directing program because he thought he couldn't depend on a career in acting. When he was accepted into the Actors Studio, he felt like an imposter, and insecurity dogged him. Compared to his second wife, Joanne Woodward, he considered himself a fraud. He failed as a father, too. "I don't have a gift for fathering," he said. "I never had a sense of my children as people." He felt guilt over abandoning his children with his first wife, especially his eldest son, Scott, who died of an overdose at age 28. Newman was candid about his own alcohol abuse. According to Woodward, he found peace in being, as Joanne Woodward notes, "dead drunk"--and in auto racing, where the risk and challenge felt like "something real and quite primitive." As for acting, he said, it "gave me a sanctuary where I was able to create emotions without being penalized for having them." Intimate reflections on an extraordinary life steeped in sadness. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
PAUL NEWMAN was an actor, film director, race car driver, and entrepreneur. A ten-time Oscar nominee, Newman won an Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money . He was also the recipient of numerous other awards, including a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. de Mille Award, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. His films 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, Road to Perdition, and Disney-Pixar's Cars , where he was the voice of Doc Hudson. As a race car driver, Newman won several national championships; he is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest winner of a professionally sanctioned race at 70 years old, finishing first in his class at the Rolex 24 at Daytona Beach. As a political activist and humanitarian, he raised and donated nearly $1 billion to many charities. Newman had six children and was married to Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward for fifty years. He died in 2008 at the age of eighty-three.There are no comments on this title.