The Quiet Passing of a Humble Actor

Amid the frenzied coverage of the U.S. presidential election and the ramifications of the credit crunch, the sad news of the death of actor Paul Newman almost slipped by unnoticed this weekend. I write about this in Beyond the Hype because for five years I have been staring at an article on my bulletin board from Entertainment Weekly about the humble and humorous way Newman described himself in his bio in the revival of "Our Town" on Broadway in 2003.

A fair bit of bluster makes up the typical actor biography in Broadway's venerable theater guide, Playbill. Paul Newman, whose resume is listed 18th among a cast of 23 comparative and total unknowns in the current smash revival of Our Town, took a decidedly more humble approach in penning his CV:

''PAUL NEWMAN (Stage Manager) is probably best known for his spectacularly successful food conglomerate. In addition to giving the profits to charity, he also ran Frank Sinatra out of the spaghetti sauce business. On the downside, the spaghetti sauce is outgrossing his films. He did graduate from Kenyon College magna cum lager.... Yale University later awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters for unknown reasons.... He is married to the best actress on the planet, was number 19 on Nixon's enemy list, and purely by accident has done 51 films and four Broadway plays. He is generally considered by professionals to be the worst fisherman on the East Coast.''

It's been a constant reminder to me that people of great accomplishment don't need to hype their capabilities. It's also brought a smile to my face every time I've seen the caricature that accompanied the short piece -- Newman eating his own pasta sauce -- about this great actor who was so gifted and such a great philanthropist, but who did it all quietly and well. He will be greatly missed.