Robert Redford was the pretty one, James Dean the tragic one, Steve McQueen the rugged one and Marlon Brando was the wild one. But Paul Newman was the perfect one; beautiful but also masculine, with such a pretty surface that had obvious depths beneath. He was as good playing the tough guy (Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) as he was at emotional vulnerability (The Verdict, Road to Perdition), and no one had more instant, can’t-look-away screen charisma (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Color of Money).
On top of all that, his 50-year marriage to Joanne Woodward was famously happy and his philanthropy was so extraordinary that when he died, the Economist wrote that he was “the most generous individual, relative to his income, in the 20th-century history of the United States”. As I said, perfect.
