7 Reasons Paul Newman Was The Ultimate All-American Dreamboat

Saving the World with Salad Dressing

In an interview with the New York Times around the time he launched Newman’s Own, initially a salad dressing company that now also makes everything from popcorn to cookies and lemonade and donates all profits to charity, Newman said he got into the salad dressing business because he needed a new “power base.” Why you might ask? Behold:

When Reagan became President. I discovered I had been end-played and that the power base I formerly operated from no longer existed. I realized that to be effective I would have to enter the world of business, and this is it.

You can read up about Newman’s Own and buy the products in many supermarkets (usually featuring Newman’s face in his delightfully dorky, golden-age grandpa-goals period somewhere on the label), but I can not highly recommend enough that you track down this beauty, which features pun-filled pictures of Newman “preparing” various recipes.

It’s a cookbook and an encyclopedia of dad jokes all in one, and my copy easily ranks among my top 10 favorite thrift store finds.

Doting Husband

Newman’s marriage to Joanne Woodward is the stuff of Hollywood legend. Just look at this excerpt from an Esquire interview in 2000, when Woodward enters the room:

“This is my lady,” Newman says, introducing us, and the gravel in his voice is gone. His voice is rich and warm and full of joy.

I’m not a particularly mushy person (I laughed my way through The Notebook last week), but photographs of Newman and Woodward together turn me into a puddle of heart-eyed goo.

Politically Active

“Being on President Nixon’s enemies list was the highest single honor I’ve ever received. Who knows who’s listening to me now and what government list I’m on?”

Newman was a liberal Democrat, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. He was on Nixon’s list of enemies (and proud of it, see quote). Newman’s Own has special initiatives geared towards veterans (and we already covered that Newman was a veteran himself), but he was an early and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War.

He campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in 1968, and though he managed to gather a lot more valuable press attention for the senator, the efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Famed writer Gore Vidal, a friend of Newman’s, suggested he run for Congress himself, but Newman refused to entertain the idea, responding, “I don’t have the arrogance, and I don’t have the credentials.”

Not Actually Perfect

Of course, Newman was an actual person. Meaning he had flaws, made mistakes. Being a mere fan, I only know Newman the icon. But nonetheless, it’s safe to assume the real man was much more complicated. His 50-year marriage to Woodward might be one of the closest things Hollywood has to a fairytale, but in the haste to present a picture of happy fidelity, many gloss over the fact that the marriage was Newman’s second. The first, to Jackie Witte, ended in divorce just a year before Newman and Woodward tied the knot.

I’m not a gossip columnist, so I’m not about to speculate about that or any other potentially less-perfect-than-advertised aspects of Newman’s personal life, but just realistically, no one goes through life without screwing some stuff up, no matter how good or great a person he or she may be. Nonetheless, Newman is an all-American icon who has left a lasting legacy impacting everything from supermarkets to the silver screen.

The Infamous ‘Car Wash Scene’ from Cool Hand Luke

One of my favorite later movies of Pauls, Slap Shot

Knife Fight in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Paul & Joanne on What’s My Line?

Related: James Dean and Paul Newman in Rare Footage