Paul Newman, a screen hero for more than half a century and the head of a philanthropic food empire for the past 25 years, has died, it was announced Saturday. He was 83.
Surrounded by his family and close friends at his farmhouse near Westport, Conn., Newman succumbed Friday after a long battle with cancer, according to a statement from publicist Jeff Sanderson.
Famed for his intense blue eyes, his love of car racing and one of the coolest demeanors ever to heat up the silver screen, Newman was nominated for Oscars ten times.
But perhaps his proudest accomplishment, besides his 50-year marriage to actress Joanne Woodward, was starting Newman's Own, which since 1982 has made popcorn, spaghetti sauce, lemonade and salad dressing and has donated more than $250 million to charities selected by Newman himself.

Career Highs

With more than 80 films and TV productions to his credit, Newman's career spanned generations. His first Oscar nomination was in 1959 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and his most recent was in 2003 for Road to Perdition.
The son of a sporting goods storeowner, the Ohio native enrolled in Ohio's Kenyon College after his 1946 discharge from the Navy. He married for the first time in 1949, then moved wife Jackie and their young son Scott east, where Newman attended the Yale Drama School and, later, the New York Actors Studio.
Dramatic TV roles came his way, but it was his Broadway debut in 1953, as the sexy stranger in Picnic, that led to a Warner Bros. Hollywood contract and his first movie – the 1954 toga epic The Silver Chalice, which even he considered one of the worst movies ever made.
Still, the looker more than redeemed himself in two screen adaptations of Tennessee Williams dramas, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof costarring Elizabeth Taylor, and Sweet Bird of Youth, with a highly charged Geraldine Page.
In 1957, Newman and Jackie, with whom he also had two daughters, divorced. The next year, he married Woodward, with whom he eventually had another three daughters. 

By the '60s Newman had hit his stride with such career-defining roles as the leads in The Hustler, Hud and Cool Hand Luke. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, followed by The Sting, made him and screen partner Robert Redford the hottest male stars of the '70s.
Newman won an Oscar for The Color of Money, in 1987. Exactly 20 years later, he announced his retirement from acting, saying, "I'm not able to work anymore ... at the level that I would want to. You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention."
Among his final roles was the voice of Doc Hudson in the 2006 animated movie Cars.

Charitable Investments

In 1988, Newman and Woodward established the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, named for the outlaws in Butch Cassidy. The camp permits seriously ill youngsters to enjoy the great outdoors – at no cost to the kids or their families.
"I'm a cynical S.O. B.," Newman said when the camp opened, in Ashford, Conn. "But I have a sense of wonder here."
After his retirement from acting, Newman, who was based in Westport, Conn., remained active in his charity work (in 2007, he donated $10 million to Kenyon College) and his food business, and even started theater directing for the first time.
Besides Woodward, Newman's five daughters and several grandchildren survive him. His son, Scott Newman, died following an accidental drug overdose in 1978. In his memory, Paul Newman instituted the Scott Newman Center for drug abuse prevention. 

BODY OF WORK

Wife Joanne Woodward said the first time she saw Newman, he was "too pretty for words." His chiseled face proved a magnet for moviegoers, too, as the actor grinned and bared it through Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Harper and The Long, Hot Summer – to name a few.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

Though they first became acquainted while working on the Broadway play Picnic in 1953, Newman and Woodward wouldn't fall in love until reuniting on the set of The Long Hot Summer. Following a divorce from his first wife Jackie, Newman and Woodward tied the knot in Las Vegas on Feb. 2, 1958, starting what would be one of Hollywood's longest-lasting unions. When asked why he never strayed, the actor famously said, "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?"

ON THE SET

A twist of fate landed Newman his breakthrough role as pouty but tough boxer Rocky Graziano in 1956's Somebody Up There Likes Me – the movie James Dean had signed on to make before his untimely death. Newman (pictured on the set) came out swinging, with the New York Times calling him "funny, tough and pathetic in that slouching, rolling, smirking Brando style."

SPEAKING OUT

The actor became an outspoken political activist in the '60s, rallying behind 1968 Democratic Presidential hopeful Eugene McCarthy. His activism led Newman to be named to Richard Nixon's infamous "enemies" list. Unruffled, Newman – then still without an

DADDY'S GIRLS

Newman makes it a family affair in 1974, filming a television special with his wife and daughters Melissa and Clea. The actor had three girls with Woodward (including the oldest, Nell), and two, Susan and Stephanie, from a previous marriage to Jacqueline Witte.

GONE TOO SOON

Newman's only son, Scott – here with his father in 1972 – died of an accidental drug-and-alcohol overdose in 1978. Of their relationship, Newman said, "I had lost the ability to help him ... we both backed away." In his memory, the actor started the Scott Newman Center, a Torrance, Calif., drug-abuse prevention facility.

FAST TIMES

Newman picked up the racing bug when making the 1969 film Winning. "I'd like to assume the role of elder statesman, taking walks in the woods and going fishing," he told PEOPLE, "but here I am, forever strapping myself into these machines."

WELL SAID

Speaking at the 1990 commencement ceremony at Sarah Lawrence College – where his daughter Clea and wife Joanne, who had been working toward a bachelor's degree for 10 years, were among the grads – the ever-devoted husband joked that he had dreamed a woman asked him, "How dare you accept this invitation to give the commencement address when you are merely hanging on to the coattails of the accomplishments of your wife?"

AWARD SEASON

After seven nominations and no Oscars, Newman took home an honorary Academy Award in 1986. A year later, he finally won Best Actor for The Color of Money – but wasn't present at the ceremony to accept the statuette himself.

SALAD DAYS

It started in 1982 with an oil-and-vinegar salad dressing, the signature offering from his Newman's Own grocery line. Since then, the business has expanded into popcorn, sauce and more and has raised an estimated $250 million – with all proceeds going toward charitable organizations. Said Newman (here at the company's 20th anniversary bash), it's "mutually beneficial recycling from the haves to the have-nots."

'GANG' LEADER

In 1988 Newman started the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp – named after the band of outlaws in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – in Ashford, Conn., as a getaway for children with cancer and blood-related diseases. "I didn't turn in my citizenship card when I got my screen actor's card," he once said.

EVERLASTING LOVE

Newman and Woodward never seemed to falter in their appreciation for one another, and became a symbol of lasting love in Hollywood, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in February. "Sexiness wears thin after awhile and beauty fades," Woodward has said, "but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat!"

 

MOVIES

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Playing Brick, a deeply unhappy man who'd rather drink than have sex with his wife (Elizabeth Taylor), Newman picked up his first Oscar nomination for the 1958 adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play.

THE LONG HOT SUMMER

Although they weren't wed to each other at the time they shot The Long Hot Summer (1958), this southern-soaked drama would be the first of more than a half-dozen films the actor and soon-to-be wife Joanne Woodward would costar in together over five decades.

THE HUSTLER

Newman scored both a box office and critical hit in 1961 playing a pool hustler who challenges champ Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) to a big money game. The black-and-white drama earned him a second Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

HUD

Newman was downright bad – as in amoral – when he portrayed the sexy louse of a title character in the 1963 contemporary western. But that doesn't mean he wasn't good – the brash role nabbed him his third Best Actor nomination.

HARPER

Joining the gumshoe game in 1966, the actor was the coolest of private detectives as Lew Harper, a role he'd reprise nine years later in The Drowning Pool.

COOL HAND LUKE

Tapping into the rebellious '60s zeitgeist, Newman scored a huge hit playing a prison inmate who refused to buckle to authority in Cool Hand Luke. Possibly helped by the fact that his baby blue eyes were perfectly complemented by his character's blue prison togs, the role earned Newman yet another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 1967.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

"I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals," Newman (with Katharine Ross) famously said in his partners-in-crime classic costarring fellow hunk Robert Redford. The 1969 comedic western, about a pair of real-life outlaws, was a box-office blockbuster that made a legend out of the actor and turned the younger Redford into a bankable star.

WINNING

Newman put his need for speed – off-screen, he was a skilled race-car-driving enthusiast and had the trophies to prove it – into Winning (1969), getting behind the wheel to play an ambitious pro driver aiming to make it to the Indianapolis 500.

THE STING

Cavorting about as a couple of con men during the Great Depression, Newman reteamed with Redford in The Sting (1973) and, again, the pairing proved box-office magic. And who can forget that ragtime score?

THE TOWERING INFERNO

In one of the sillier movies he ever made, Newman played an architect who helps rescue people when a fancy new skyscraper he has designed goes up in flames. At the time (1974), big-budget disaster movies were inexplicably in vogue. (Trivia note: O.J. Simpson plays a security guard in the movie.)

SLAP SHOT

The actor gave one of his sharpest performances as the carousing player-coach of a minor league hockey team stuck in a backwater town in Slap Shot (1977), a classic sports movie that is now sparking talk of a remake in Hollywood.

THE COLOR OF MONEY

After six acting nominations and an honorary Oscar, Newman finally took home the golden statue when he reprised his role as Hustler pool sharpie Eddie Felson in The Color of Money (1986), this time showing a talented newcomer (Tom Cruise) his way around the felt.

EMPIRE FALLS

As an elderly ne'er-do-well stuck in a small Maine town, Newman again played a character created by one his favorite novelists, Richard Russo, in the 2005 HBO movie Empire Falls. It was his second pairing with the Pulitzer Prize winner's work: He had earlier starred in the adaptation of Nobody's Fool (1994), which earned him yet another Oscar nod.

OUR TOWN

First he returned to Broadway and his theater roots to play the folksy Narrator, the Stage Manager, in a revival of Thornton Wilder's Our Town; then Newman gave an encore performance in a filmed version, which first aired on PBS in 2003.

ROAD TO PERDITION

For his chilling turn as an aging Mob boss in Road to Perdition(2002), costarring Tom Hanks, Newman snagged his last Oscar nomination – his tenth (nine for acting, and one for directing 1968's Rachel, Rachel) – this time for Best Supporting Actor. The role also would prove to be one of his last on the big screen.

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