Newman, Oldman, Deadman

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

How can that GOD of the cinema, Paul Newman, be dead? He is a Screen Immortal! Does that count for nothing anymore? (This is an important question, as I am a Screen Immortal myself. What's the point of my being an immortal if I can die just like ordinary nonentities, you know, like you?)

We were told that he was suffering from cancer for many months now, so we who loved him (Isn't that everyone?) must be glad he is out of the terrible pain he was in. They say he was gaunt. How is that possible? When did Paul Newman ever have a spare ounce on him? For a man who peddled popcorn and salad dressing, he was awfully damn skinny. I've seen fatter skeletons. He made Skinny hot. (Only on men. All you bony girls out there: eat something. You are not Paul Newman!)

Mmmmmmmmmmm.

What? Oh, I'm sorry.I got lost in a private fantasy for a moment. You see, fifty years ago, Paul Newman and Marlon Brando were It! They were The Top of the Line for sexy Hollywood hunks. Plus, they were also respected actors! How did that happen?

Just below them (Paul and Marlon were such tops!) were the second tier hot '50's boy toys, James Dean, Tab Hunter, and my darling little Sal Mineo.

Of the five of them, Tab may have been the least-highly regarded for his acting, but Tab has had the last laugh, because they're all dead, and Tab is still alive and well, and for a man in his mid-70s, still surprisingly hot, which is more than you can say for Tony Curtis.

(Why, I wonder, in bathing suit shots, does Tony always hide his crotch? Too much resemblance to a Ken doll perhaps? Not that I should be surprised to see Tony holding two bitches to his groin.)

Now I understand Tony's success working as a drag queen. He didn't need to tuck!

Robert Wagner is another handsome boy from the 1950s who is still drawing breath, and he was famously married to supremely sexy Natalie Wood, but he was always too bony when he took his shirt off. And of course, in his early career, he was Clifton Webb's "protegé".

And wasn't he the the fellow Marilyn Monroe once accidentally interrupted in flagranté, and said of him: "He'll be a star. He's fucking the editor." Well, maybe not, especially if he reads this. But please, what the hell is Robert and Tony and Rock Hudson and these other 1950s male starlets doing in this photo anyway? Playing poker? Playing Poke Him?

Wasn't I talking about Paul Newman? Well, when you have a topic as dispiriting as the death of Paul Newman, one tends to keep changing the subject. It's called "Avoidance."

Speaking of avoidance, I spent over 50 years trying to get into Paul's pants, but he kept giving me the brush-off. In fact, at times it was more like a hurl-off-and-flee-away. And what a flimsy, silly excuse he kept giving me. Get this; he kept claiming he was practising something called "Marital Fidelity." What the hell is that? A bizarre religious cult, like Shakers or Mormons? (Actually, while Mormons are big on Marital Fidelity, they allow men an unlimited amount of wives to be faithful to. Little Dougie's Mormon bishop great-great-grandfather, William Haney Hickenlooper, was faithful to all three of Dougie's great-great-grandmothers at the same time!) Paul Newman's bizarre insistence on only having sex with his wife seems to me like being Sexually Amish.

Paul would say to me of Joanne Woodward, while giving me the slip, "Why would I eat a hamburger on the road when I have steak at home?" Frankly, if you're feeling peckish while you're out and dinner is hours away, don't you hit McDonald's for a Big Mac or stop off for some pizza, no matter what is on ice in your freezer at the house? I usually have a fine wine waiting at Morehead Heights, but it's never stopped me from hitting a bar or 12 en route for a vodka martini to sustain me until I get there, even when I'm merely a block away.

And really, I'm willing to share. It's not like they were above some creative play. Look at this photo of a hot Newman Family three-way. Frankly, that extra bitch looks like a real dog to me!

And of course, in his memoir Palimpsest, Gore Vidal told of how, for a while in the 1950s, Paul, Joanne, and Gore all three lived together! Even The Mormons would have glanced at that askew. And Gore has remained close friends, "Family" if you will, with The Newmans ever since. How did they menagé that household? What was their "Design for Living"? Am I supposed to believe that Gore Vidal shared a home with one of The Sexiest Men Alive at that time, and never got up to bat? Or that Joanne was always included? She won an Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve; what about The Three Roommates of Malibu? Don't believe me? Check out this picture of Paul and Gore actually handling some impressively hung Italian hunk's balls! Those are some mighty impressive basket-balls!

Oh well, I guess if that's the way Paul swung away from Joanne (He did after all, only swear off hamburgers. He never said he was above a juicy hotdog slipped between fresh, hot buns.), I suppose I should be grateful I didn't end up married to him. But then, what woman wouldn't want to be married to Paul Newman? Well, one woman: Nancy Reagan. Lucky escape there --- for Paul!

Aside from being incredibly beautiful, Paul was also a really fine actor, who left behind an enormous list of great performances in fine films. The man had superb taste in scripts, and can't be blamed for The Silver Chalice, a particularly weird Biblical epic (I mean even weirder than most Biblical epics.) that he never stopped apologising for. He really could have let it go. Hollywood forgave him.

Anyway, Paul left us a tremendous film legacy. Like all movie lovers, his death has left me bluer than Paul's eyes, and they were the bluest ever. When I think of "Old Blue Eyes," I think first "Jack Benny," and then Paul. (Sorry. Sinatra to me was always "Chairman of the Bored.")

But Paul was only 83, barely out of diapers, or at least, not yet back into them. I'm 111, so 83 seems still boyish to me. What could possibly have given Paul a fatal cancer so young?

Puff, puff, puff.

Paul Newman is dead. My ex-husband Ernest Borgnine is still alive. Does anyone need further proof that there is no God?

Paul, you were what being a Movie Star was all about. Some did it as well, but nobody did it better. And that's The Verdict on Paul Newman.

Cheers darlings, if possible.

(The Newman Family suggests donations in his name to the Assn. of Hole in the Wall Camps. Information:http://holeinthewallcamps.org/)