The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

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Actor Jeff Daniels reads Newman’s recollections, capturing his insecurity, melancholy introspection and bracing honesty. He found it boggling how women eventually found him to be such a sex symbol, as he couldn't get a girl to even talk to him until after he had been discharged from the military. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. John Rubinstein reads Stern’s contributions, while Ari Fliakos reads other male voices (including directors Sidney Lumet and George Roy Hill), and Emily Wachtel and January LaVoy read the various women in Newman’s life (including Joanne Woodward, Patricia Neal, and Piper Laurie).

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is revelatory and introspective, personal and analytical, loving and tender in some places, always complex and profound. The manuscript was tossed aside, perhaps burned it was thought, and did not resurface until after Newman's death from the darker corners of a storage unit. He also believed he had a learning disability due to his difficulty in school and later memorizing lines for plays and movies, but he was never diagnosed.Although there are tales of filming "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Hud" and "The Sting", Newman is more interested in discussing such serious issues as his alcoholism. But his book hardly mentions roles like these; instead, he ridicules “this goddamn movie star with blue eyes cast as a half-Apache in Hombre”. His second marriage, to the actor Joanne Woodward, whom he met as his career was taking off, brought about his transformation into “a sexual creature”; the couple “left a trail of lust” in public parks, swimming pools, rental cars and at home in a place they christened their “fuck hut”. That’s good to hear, but it’s easy to see why he decided back then not to publish the agonised testimony.

Those baby blues led to my major infatuation on my part and even to this day, I consider Paul Newman to be a celebrity crush. She became a symbol of his bottled-up emotions and low self-esteem, and success did little to wash away those feelings. Along came a golden-haired newcomer, Bob Redford, and Sundance became his iconic role) as a little thing was in no way diminished with this raw, rough cut of a life. As for acting, he said, it “gave me a sanctuary where I was able to create emotions without being penalized for having them.Back in 1986, Paul Newman decided he wanted the truth out there about his life and started working on his memoir. Still, it's a fascinating portrait of an actor of preternatural beauty who worked extraordinarily hard at his craft. Why was it that you wanted to shoot me so badly that you had to keep coming back and irritate me, invade my space, and just do one more thing to make your presence felt? But after his death in 2008, 14,000 pages of transcripts were discovered in his musty Connecticut basement and in a storage locker; these have now been cut and pasted into an autobiography, supplemented by contributions from colleagues and family members. My very sincere thanks to his family, friends, and coworkers - and to everyone else involved in the production of this outstanding combination autobiography/biography.

Luckily this book included his friends, family and co stars opinions because they all thought he was a great guy if a little bit stand-offish. Throughout Newman's account of his life (narrated very well in audio by Jeff Daniels), there is a sense of real loneliness, at feeling like he wasn't always in control of his own life, and that he resented the intrusion of fame. You get a lot of real insight into him as a person, and it's clear that this project comes after a lot of self-reflection and consideration. Like the alcoholic husband he played in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Newman relied on liquor to ease him into a merciful numbness. I always had the sense I cater to appearances, that I drink too much, that I don't know how to define myself, so that I can't define my children, either - all of these negatives in my life.

His complicated childhood and fraught personal life as a young man imprinted him early with a need to be seen and yet fiercely guard his true self.