Product Description
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 TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"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.
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of October 2022: Startlingly candid and revealing, Paul Newman’s memoir does not burnish his legacy so much as pierce the sixty years of movie-god mythology that wrapped itself around him. Swimming against the tide of Hollywood brand-building and image-buffing, his story—culled from hundreds of hours of transcripts—draws on insights from friends, family, and co-workers, and none of them is more brutally honest than Newman himself. The actor, race car driver, and philanthropist sifts through the good, the bad, and the ugly of a long life, from his pained relationship with his parents, to his prickly, complicated relationship with the fame and adulation that came his way. And he describes his wonder at a marriage which began as an extramarital affair, was nearly capsized by his heavy drinking, but ended up sustaining him. If the eyes are the window to the soul, Newman’s piercing blue eyes signaled boundless good fortune. This disarmingly revelatory memoir is an intimate introduction to the legend we only thought we knew. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Review
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time Magazine, Vanity Fair
"This is like eavesdropping on a dinner party filled with friends and colleagues all listening to and talking about the man sitting at the head of the table, Paul Newman. Honest, funny and often painful conversations which were found by his daughters and woven together into a fascinating memoir
