Paul Newman The Man Behind the Baby Blues Read online

  "You can't help feeling sorry for guys like Newman. They have too much to lose if they make one false step. Look what Confidential did to Tab Hunter. Whenever Joanne Woodward came up, Newman became all macho. He was sad in many ways. Having to pretend to be what he wasn't. But most of us Hollywood hunks in the 1950s had to do that."

  Matinee heartthrob Jeffrey Hunter

  "Hell, guy, you just can't seem to realize what's happening. You're the new kid on the block. Every gay and every horny broad in Hollywood wants to go to bed with Paul Newman. You're doing pretty well for a married man. I've always had this belief that if a married man played it right, he can have more fun than single blokes."

  Rod Steiger

  "Paul Newman has the potential of becoming a magnificent actor if he ever gets through this complex he has about playing boy-macho."

  Joan Crawford

  "Even Newman's baby blues couldn't lure the women away from those TV boxes. We should have stripped him down more and shot the film with him half naked. That day will come for movies, I predict."

  Robert Wise, lamenting the failure of the Paul Newman film he directed, Until They Sail

  "Mr. Newman, Mr. Newman! Would you like to see my body?"

  Sandra Dee, at 14

  "I never got around to screwing Paul Newman, although I certainly intended to. He had as much sex in the 50s as I did, but whereas he got away with it, I didn't"

  Rock Hudson

  "Newman is just as much of a narcissist as Gore Vidal, but he disguises it completely, and, like the most skilled of actors, puts up a mask to confuse the world. I suspect he will go far in an industry that is all about illusion. There is no self-awareness in this handsome young man at all. He is an obvious homosexual, but does not dare admit that to himself. He's a selfish rogue while pretending to be benevolent, supporting all the right causes. He has a facile charm but no depth. In spite of the hot sun out here, he already knows that California is a cold, harsh land. He does not want it to hurt him. So what will he do? What must he do? He will inflict emotional pain on others, therefore avoiding the pain of having the blows strike him first. I predict Newman will turn into a cardboard figure. There will be no reality to him. He can't be real. A tragedy, really. But, this is, after all, Lotusland."

  Anais Nin

  PAUL NEWMAN

  "I'm really a very ordinary guy. Sure, I drank whiskey a lot. For a while, it really screwed up me up. There are periods in my life in which I don't take any particular pride. I'm not very good at revealing myself. I cover for it by telling terrible dirty jokes."

  OTHER BOOKS BY DARWIN PORTER

  Biographies

  Merv Griffin, A Life in the Closet

  Brando Unzipped

  The Secret Life of Humphrey Bogart

  Katharine the Great: Hepburn, Secrets of a Life Revealed

  Howard Hughes. Hell's Angel

  Michael Jackson, His Rise and Fall (What Really Happened)

  And Coming Soon:

  Steve McQueen, King of Cool (Tales of a Lurid Life)

  Film Criticism

  Blood Moons Guide to Gay & Lesbian Film (Volumes One & Two)

  Non-Fiction

  Hollywood Babylon-Its Back!

  Novels

  Butterflies in Heat

  Marika

  Venus

  Razzle-Dazzle

  Midnight in Savannah

  Rhinestone Country

  Blood Moon

  Hollywood's Silent Closet

  Travel Guides

  Many editions of The Frommer Guides to Europe, the Caribbean,

  California, and parts of America's Deep South

  PAUL NEWMAN

  The Man Behind the Baby Blues

  His SECRET LIFE EXPOSED

  Another Hot, Startling, and Unauthorized Celebrity Biography by

  Darwin Porter

  THE AUTHOR DEDICATES THIS BOOK TO THE SOURCES WHO CONTRIBUTED TO ITS COMPILATION:

  Janice Rule

  Eartha Kitt

  Sal Mineo

  Anthony Perkins

  Robert Francis

  Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo

  William Inge

  James Leo Herlihy

  Lana Turner

  Maila Nurmi

  Shelley Winters

  Geraldine Page

  and countless others.

  A world class American Icon

  Paul Newman 1925-2008

  CONTENTS

  A Disclaimer

  Chapter One

  Born on the Right Side of the Tracks 1

  Chapter Two

  Crotch Acting 35

  Chapter Three

  Skinny Legs in a Cocktail Dress 79

  Chapter Four

  Live Fast, Die Young 113

  Chapter Five

  A Tumbling Tumbleweed 151

  Chapter Six

  What Becomes a Legend Most? 193

  Chapter Seven

  Changing Partners and Other Loves 239

  Chapter Eight

  Hot Cats and Sweet Birds 285

  Chapter Nine

  The 4H Club: The Hustler Hud, Harper & Hombre 331

  Chapter Ten

  Winning Some but Losing More 377

  Chapter Eleven

  Cool Hand Luke Meets Butch Cassidy 411

  Epilogue 485

  Bibliography 487

  Index 491

  About the Author 521

  A DISCLAIMER FROM BLOOD MOON

  CLIMBING THE LAVENDER LADDER

  Paul Newman's Secret Life as a Bisexual

  In the opinion of many of his fans, Newman's emotional and sexual involvements with the women in his life (Monroe, Crawford, Taylor, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and perhaps most importantly, Joanne Woodward) are more compelling than the equivalent relationships he shared with men.

  But according to Darwin Porter, the full story of what Newman did as a means to his end in Golden Age Hollywood hasn't ever been fully revealed-until now.

  During a span of more than 50 years, insiders on Broadway and in Hollywood have spoken of Paul Newman's closeted life. Details about the megastar's bisexual history have been among the entertainment industry's worst-kept secrets.

  For decades, the underground press has included Paul Newman on their list of bisexual or gay stars, a list that included Rock Hudson, Roddy McDowall, Richard Chamberlain, Farley Granger, Tab Hunter, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, and countless others. "WAS PAUL NEWMAN GAY?" ran one headline. Yet another proclaimed: "DEEP INSIDE THE HOLLYWOOD CLOSET: RUMOR MILL IMPLICATES PAUL NEWMAN."

  Even during Newman's lifetime, Larry Quirk, the dean of Hollywood biographers, wrote about Paul Newman's "homosexual panic" and how he maneuvered his way "up the lavender ladder." Quirk was making veiled references to his casting couch interludes with playwrights Tennessee Williams (author of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof--its film adaptation propelled Newman to stardom) and William Inge (author of Picnic, the play that launched Newman's legend on Broadway).

  According to Darwin Porter, the secret life of Paul Newman reached the peak of its exposure and speculation during the 1970s, when Newman acquired the film rights to The Front Runner, a best-selling novel about a homosexual coach who falls desperately in love with his star (male) athlete.

  In his role as the film's producer, Newman originally offered the role of the athlete to Robert Redford, who refused to play a gay character, fearing that it would harm his image at the box office. Consequently, Newman negotiated with Cal Culver, America's leading gay porn star of the 1970s, to interpret the role. Cal, a friend and confidant of Darwin Porter, later revealed to the gay press that he had had
an affair with Newman. Additionally, Darwin's best friend, novelist James Leo Herlihy, had an affair with Newman when he was trying to persuade him to star as Joe Buck in the film version of his novel, Midnight Cowboy.

  Many of Newman's personal friends, particularly those from the Actors Studio, spoke privately over the years about Newman's sexuality. They included actress Janice Rule (who later became a psychotherapist, with a respected practice in New York City), Rod Steiger, Geraldine Page, Eartha Kitt (who was introduced to Newman via her best friend, James Dean), and "Vampira," (aka Maila Nurmi), TV-land's first Goth, and a famous personality of the 1950s.

  Tony Perkins, a friend of Herlihy's, privately admitted that he'd sustained a sexual affair with Newman when they both lived at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles in the 50s. The self-admittedly gay writer Gore Vidal spoke openly about his near-obsessional fixation on Newman during Newman's appearance in Gore's teleplay of Billy the Kid. And during one particularly complex point in their relationship, Paul Newman and his then "mistress," Joanne Woodward, shared a Malibu beach house with Vidal and his "husband," Howard Austen. Throughout that chapter of their lives, all four members of the menage remained "artfully nonspecific" as to the direction of the emotional links going on within that beach house.

  Sal Mineo, another friend of Darwin's, confessed to having sustained a sexual affair with Newman that began on the set of Somebody Up There Likes Me. Sal confessed his undying love for Paul to yet another author, Larry Quirk, who published this then-first-time news in a book released by Taylor Publishing Company. Later, an unauthorized feature story on Newman revealed that Jackie Witte (Newman's first wife) threatened to leave him when she learned about his affair with James Dean.

  Brooks Clift, another of Darwin's friends, revealed the details of an affair that his brother, Montgomery Clift, had had with Newman. And actor Frank McHugh, a close friend of Spencer Tracy and a member of the hard-drinking "Irish Mafia" of Hollywood, claimed that he accidentally walked in on Newman and the recently deceased actor Jack Lord, catching them together "in an embarrassing position." Newman, Lord, and McHugh were each at the time filming a teleplay together.

  For more on the startling details associated with the bisexual side of the actor whom no one seemed to be able to get enough of, Blood Moon hereby presents Darwin Porter's newest biography.

  Best wishes to all of you, and many thanks.

  Danforth Prince

  President, Blood Moon Productions

  Chapter One

  Born on the Right Side of the Tracks

  "Over my dead body will a son of mine go into the theater An actor? Are you out of your fucking mind? Do you want to lie on a casting couch for every cocksucker from Broadway to Hollywood? I'll tell you what will happen to you. The same thing that happens to every pretty boy sentenced to prison in Ohio. "

  In Shaker Heights, Ohio, a young Paul Newman had finally confessed what his mother had known all along. One day he'd go to New York to become an actor.

  Arthur S. Newman was to die in 1950, never living to see his son become one of the legends of motion pictures. His father had predicted failure for his son, warning him that he'd end up in the gutter, walking the streets of New York's Bowery, begging for a handout.

  The elder Newman would have failed as a prophet. It was his son, Paul Newman, the actor, who in the decades to come would distribute millions of dollars worth of food for homeless, starving children.

  On January 26, 1925, Paul Leonard Newman was born in Cleveland Heights, an affluent suburb of Cleveland itself.

  "It was cold as all three tits on a witch the day my son was born," Arthur Senior later said. He arrived at the hospital in black leather boots, having plowed through snow more than three feet deep. It was fourteen degrees below freezing, the weather made even worse by the cruel winds blowing off Lake Erie.

  In bed, Theresa presented her husband with an eight-pound baby boy. "Here is our incredibly beautiful son with the loveliest blue eyes God gave a man since Adam walked on the face of the Earth. My dream was to have a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby boy."

  Most babies have cloudy eyes, but Paul's reportedly were a piercing shade of blue from the moment he popped out of the womb.

  Arthur Senior looked at the baby more skeptically. "I don't know who he takes after. The men in my family all had black eyes."

  A year later the family moved into a spacious, eleven-room home at 2983 Brighton Road in neighboring Shaker Heights, a suburb even more affluent than Cleveland Heights. A German Jew, Arthur Senior was a second-generation American. His wife, Theresa, had arrived at Ellis Island in New York at the age of four, coming from Hungary. The year before Paul was born, she'd given birth to another son, Arthur Newman Junior.

  Theresa told her new neighbors in Shaker Heights that her younger son was "my pride and my joy. I love my older child too. But he's daddy's boy. Paul belongs just to me."

  Sarah Cohn, a distant relative of Arthur Senior, was harshly critical of the way Theresa was bringing up her younger son. She frequently complained to Arthur. "Theresa is trying to make a girl out of him. She won't let him get one spot of dirt on his clothes before she bathes him and dresses him in finery. She even perfumes him. Didn't perfuming babies go out of style with Louis XIV? I must admit, though, that he's cute as a button."

  "I'll make a man out of him if it's the last thing I do," Arthur Senior vowed. "Compared with how I grew up, the kid lives in the lap of luxury. I never really knew my father. He died when I was only a baby. I came up through the school of hard knocks. But look where I am today."

  Even in the middle of the Depression that fell on the world in 1929, Arthur Senior provided generously for his family, giving them not only a luxurious home in an upmarket neighborhood, but seeing that they had meat on the table every night when much of America was waiting in breadlines.

  As a teenager, Arthur Senior had been a pioneer in radio broadcasting. In 1917, he joined with his older brother, Joseph Newman, to found NewmanStern, a retail sporting goods business.

  Even though sales were down in the early 1930s, the store still made a reasonable profit at the end of every year. In later life, Paul would deny his rather affluent early life, claiming he was the son of poor immigrants, which he was not, of course.

  Sarah recalled that both Arthur Junior and Paul were the best-dressed boys in Shaker Heights. As they grew older, their father gave them fifty cents a week in allowance. But Theresa supplemented their income by presenting each of her children with a crisp five-dollar bill, which she took from the family's food budget. Many families in those Depression-laden days didn't even have five dollars a week to spend on groceries.

  Paul had at least thirty different shirts, each of them starched and pressed. He wore a different one for every day of the month, beginning the wardrobe shift when a new month arrived. "With his blond hair and those blue eyes, he was a sight to behold," Sarah said. "Every woman wanted to pick him up and kiss him. The men restrained themselves, pinching his cheeks instead. Perhaps that's why his cheeks looked rosy red all the time."

  "As a kid, I was split into two different personalities," Paul once told playwright Tennessee Williams in Key West. "Dad wanted me to be a tomboy, a great athlete, a commercial gent. My mother appealed to my sensitive side-the artist, the poet. She was the one who urged me to read every book I could find and to expand my mind. The character of Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was perfect for me. All my life I was split into two different directions. One side of me wanted to live life with my dead friend Skipper in the play, the other side was tempted to fuck the living shit out of Maggie the Cat and be the heterosexual stud most of my fans wanted me to be."

  "Dad liked to deny things to my brother and me or make us work hard for them," Paul said. "Take baseball mitts. The boys at school had shiny mitts purchased from the Newman sporting goods store. Arthur didn't get a new baseball mitt until he turned ten. Dad made me wait until I was eleven."

  Years later, Paul and his older brot
her, Arthur Junior, were rivals competing for their father's affection. "At night over dinner, I heard nothing but praise for Junior's accomplishments," Paul said. "His prowess on the athletic field. He had more muscles than I did. He was a great swimmer. Good at football. A baseball hitter from hell. He could outrun me. He was everything in a son my father wanted. I got no praise at all from my dad. He was cold and distant. He once said at the dinner table that my mom should dress me like a girl, since that's what I was growing up to be."

  Although Arthur Junior and Paul got along in later life, and even worked together, Paul once claimed that when they were growing up, their sibling rivalry was belligerent.

  "Even though I was a short, scrawny, ninety-eight pound weakling in the ninth grade, I had my brother beat by an inch or two-at least in one department," Paul once confided to actress Shelley Winters one drunken night in Greenwich Village. "That is, to judge from the look of things. I never took measurements, of course."

  Theresa, who had been born a Hungarian Catholic, had converted to Christian Science when Paul was five years old. She converted Paul to her religion before he entered the first grade, but her husband, as a German Jew, remained hostile to Christian Science.

  She was hardly a fanatic and, unlike the tenets of her faith, allowed both her sons to have proper medical care. Later in life, his religious training seemed to have had little effect on Paul: "Most of it sounded like a lot of crap to me," he said.

  It was Theresa who instilled in Paul the vision of becoming an actor. "Nothing would thrill me more than taking a train to Broadway to see my son's name in lights," she said. "I think he has the possibility of becoming the next John Barrymore-and even better looking."