I have to admit, trapped in my own selfish world, I didn’t even know that Butch was ill, but, since June, he had been battling lung cancer, which finally took his life Friday. Half of the pair that made up the best movie duo ever to reach the screen, he and Robert Redford appeared only in two films, both by the same director (George Roy Hill) and both unbeatable (”Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting”). When asked, years ago, why the pair never did another film together, Newman replied, no one had asked them.
Apart from these couple of films, Newman has appeared in nearly countless favorites of mine, including “The Hustler”, “Cool Hand Luke” (one of those rare films I can watch over and over without tiring of), “Absence of Malice”, “Slapshot” and the severely underrated “Hudsucker Proxy” (”Pants…” having fallen into the lexicon of things I say when I suddenly remember something crucial).
I can’t even put into words how much Paul Newman will be missed. He’s just one of those icons that you expect will always be there, on the sidelines, emerging every so often when he’s got something to say. Instead, here are a few trailers from his greatest moments on screen:
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