Throughout the history of the Academy Awards, many a winner conquered their statue not because they were the best of the year, but because they had a grand filmography in need of golden recognition. Career Oscars are a bittersweet sort of honor, though. On one hand, it feels just to see living legends rewarded with Hollywood's most coveted trophy. On the other, the win sometimes comes from such a minor work it doesn't feel representative of the artist's true genius. In terms of acting prizes, Paul Newman is one of the most flagrant cases of a winner that was rewarded for his career rather than the merits of one performance. By the time he won a competitive Oscar, he had been nominated seven times already and had even won the first of two Honorary prizes. He might have agreed with those judgments, considering he wasn’t even present to receive the statuette.
At least, that's what most people seem to believe about the great star's Best Actor trophy for 1986's The Color of Money…
The sequel to 1961's The Hustler is an easily negligible footnote on most of its maker's histories. Despite being shot with awesome brio by Michael Ballhaus and sharply cut by Thelma Schoonmaker, this is one of Martin Scorsese's most modest efforts. It brings together Tom Cruise and Paul Newman, two generations of Hollywood stardom, with little fanfare or self-importance. While one may appreciate the snazzy virtuosity of masters of cinema lending their craft to a small affair, some of the people involved seem to be working on autopilot. Unfortunately, Newman's one of those unfortunate individuals.
Reprising the role of Fast Eddie Felson, a pool player of mythic skill and hustling ambition, the actor plays up a sense of effortless cool peppered with hints of a curmudgeon's frustration at the arrogance of youth. Very seldom does Newman dig into the psychology of Eddie and it seems as if Scorsese is happy to let him coast. Only occasionally, when confronted with screen partners such as Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio or Forest Whitaker does he come alive. It's then that we get glimpses of what could have been a performance on par with his nervy work on the '61 movie, suggesting the self-aware passions of an addict in love with the grift.
Those few morsels of inspiration don't make for a satisfying win. In the same year, Bob Hoskins rose above all the other Best Actor nominees for his work in Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa, and then there are the great performances that weren't even nominated like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly and Erland Josephson in The Sacrifice. That said, when would a Newman victory have felt deserved? We already mentioned his first go-around as Fast Eddie, but allow us to present five other nominated masterworks worthy of the Academy Award in the actor's filmography.
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958)
This film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play removes a lot of what makes the original text interesting, defanging it in the process. It's a bit of a mess, with 50s conservative values tensely battling with a story of complicated sexual dynamics. Fortunately, the cast is extraordinary and manages to bring to the forefront some of the hard edges that were sanded off for the big screen. Newman, in particular, invokes his character's psyche with bullying intensity. He is an inchoate miasma of loss and betrayal curdled into all-consuming contempt for others and himself. Lost in alcoholic self-loathing, this is a wreck of a man that still pulses with sexual energy, making the screen sizzle with his smolder.
Newman would have certainly been a more interesting winner than David Niven for a near-supporting turn in Separate Tables.
HUD (1963)
Paul Newman was an actor whose presence was always characterized by movie star charisma and a magnetic sex appeal. In Martin Ritt's Hud, the actor puts these aspects of his persona on full display but twists them into something malevolent. The titular Hud is a destructive force of aggressive masculinity, but both the other characters and the audience seem preternaturally drawn to him. Maybe it's the fact there seems to be a hidden core of decency hiding within his vileness, one that the man chooses to ignore, preferring to give himself to his animal urges and their cruel permutations. If ever a movie star better weaponized their screen presence, I haven't yet watched their movies.
One wouldn't want to take away Sidney Poitier's historic win for Lilies of the Field, but Newman is the Best Actor of 1963. Poitier would have been a better winner in '67, for instance, when he was bizarrely snubbed for his work in the Best Picture-winning In the Heat of the Night.
COOL HAND LUKE (1967)
Speaking of the '67 Best Actor race, Newman, once again, proves to be the best option among the Academy's nominees.
Directed by Stuart Rosenberg from a screenplay based on Donn Pearce's novel, Cool Hand Luke is a strangely beguiling convolution of Christ-like parable and a portrait of mid-century virility. Holding it all together, Newman once again makes good use of the particularities of his star persona, calibrating them according to the demands of a complicated role that must be human and symbol at the same time. His most impressive scenes, however, are ones where the actor simplifies the complexity of the screenplay, finding something achingly real in its prison life episodes, be it the silence of a son looking on his dying mother or the physical struggle of devouring 50 eggs in an hour.
THE VERDICT (1982)
After not receiving one single nomination throughout the 70s, Paul Newman returned to the Academy's favor with two back-to-back nominations in '81 and '82. We're here to discuss the latter one for Sidney Lumet's The Verdict, a disciplined character study in the shape of a procedural. Of all his directors, Lumet was probably Newman's most challenging collaborator, prompting the actor to go deeper than he initially planned. The result is a formidable bit of acting, full of details that add a sense of reality to every scene. The most impactful moment comes near the end, when Newman's character, an alcoholic lawyer, must give his final statements in court. This sort of scene has been done to death, but Lumet's version defines its platonic ideal, choreographing the camera in sync with his actor's steady rhythms and letting Newman dominate the screen as an orator that seems to be trying to convince himself as much as he is persuading the jury.
1982 featured a tight Best Actor race and it's certain many would choose to give the Oscar to Dustin Hoffman and his Tootsie or Ben Kingsley's Gandhi. That said, I can't help but prefer Newman's work.
NOBODY'S FOOL (1994)
By 1994, Paul Newman was already an Oscar winner, so the need to reward him was no longer pressing on the Academy's voters. That's partly why Tom Hanks won his second consecutive Oscar for Forrest Gump, while the veteran actor was left hanging.
Still, out of the Academy's vaguely uninspired selection of Best Actor contenders, Newman shines as the best in the bunch, only challenged by Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption. Nobody's Fool features one the actor's most relaxed works, so beautifully underplayed as to look effortless, like he's merely being in front of the camera instead of performing another man's life. However, a lot is going on for those who care to examine his craft, from the delicate tonal balance the script demands of its cast to the way Newman illustrates his character's past without ever having to spell it out with expository dialogue. It's graceful work, glorious in its apparent simplicity and affecting emotional registers.
It's safe to say that The Color of Money is Paul Newman's least impressive nominated performance. When we further consider his work in The Long Hot Summer, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and Slap Shot among other unnominated works, we can see that he did win for the wrong movie. Do you agree with this conclusion or would you have still awarded Newman in 1986 and only 1986 like AMPAS did?
You can stream The Hustler on Direct TV and HBO NOW, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Fubo, Hud is available on Hulu and Amazon Prime, Cool Hand Luke on Direct TV and Nobody's Fool is on Amazon Prime. Those movies, as well as the other titles mentioned in this piece, are all available to rent or buy from Amazon, iTunes, and other services.