Famed for his striking good looks, acting talent and wildly successful salad dressings, this legend wasn't afraid to break the Hollywood mould, writes Helen Gent.

As the Mississippi heat pressed in, the young man poured himself a whisky and sank into the sofa. The amber liquid melted on his lips, and he could feel the tension rising, enveloping him in a cloud of anger and desire. Across the room, a pouting, curvaceous brunette ran her hand across the fabric of her silk slip, letting her fingers linger by her stockings. But he refused to look at her. Between them, an empty whisky bottle stood on the table, a metaphor for their vacant, childless marriage, and suddenly she couldn't stand it anymore. "You know what I feel like," she cried. "I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof." His mouth curled into a cruel smile, he lifted his glittering blue eyes and turned to face her. "Then jump off the roof, Maggie. Jump off it."

From the moment Paul Newman swaggered onto cinema screens playing mean, moody and mixed-up Brick Pollitt opposite Elizabeth Taylor in 1958's Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, his future was sealed. The one-time door-to-door salesman found himself catapulted to international stardom. Hit after hit followed - from Cool Hand Luke to Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid - making Newman one of Hollywood's most famous actors.

With his striking features and luminous blue eyes - which Time magazine once noted made "men's eyes mist over and women's knees go wobbly" - Newman's success was undoubtedly tied to his sex appeal. But he loathed being a sex symbol and regularly wore disguises to avoid hordes of female fans.

It wasn't his only un-Hollywood trait. Unlike many stars, Newman's personal life was virtually scandal-free. Married to his second wife, actress Joanne Woodward, for 50 years, his only transgression was that he fell in love with her while already a married father of three children. His worst flaw, according to fellow heartthrob Robert Redford, was his penchant for pranks and dirty jokes. "It wouldn't be so bad," groaned Redford, "if he didn't keep repeating them over and over."

An actor with a conscience, Newman supported gay and civil rights long before it became fashionable. He was also one of America's most generous philanthropists, donating millions to charity, including $12 million to more than 700 charities in Australia and New Zealand, through his Newman's Own Foundation. He was an accomplished racing driver and director. And he made a mean salad dressing, too.

Born on January 26, 1925, Paul Leonard Newman grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, with his older brother, Arthur Jr, and parents Theresa and Arthur, who owned a sporting goods store. Newman displayed an early interest in theatre, but by the time he left high school, he was unsure what he wanted to do in life.

After a stint as a door-to-door salesman and a few years in the navy, he enrolled in economics at Kenyon College in central Ohio. But life took an unexpected turn when Newman - who joked that he graduated "Summa Cum Lager" - was booted off the college football team after a drunken fight. With "nothing better to do", he auditioned for a campus play, and soon switched to drama.

After graduating in 1949, Newman joined The Woodstock Players, a prestigious theatre group in Illinois, where he met actress Jacqueline Witte. They married the same year, and on September 23, 1950, their son, Scott, was born.

By then, Newman's father had died, and the 25 year old returned to Cleveland to manage the family shop. Frustrated with small town life and "out of no burning desire to act, but to flee from the store", he shifted to Connecticut to study at the Yale School of Drama in 1951. After a year, Newman left school and moved to New York to try his luck on Broadway.

Too poor to live in Manhattan, Newman travelled from Staten Island to the city to meet casting agents, before returning home to sell encyclopedias door-to-door. But his hard work paid off. In 1953, after starring in a couple of minor TV roles, Newman landed a part in a Broadway production, Picnic, where he was hailed as "one of the most promising personalities" of the year. He also began studying at the prestigious Actors Studio (where James Dean, Steve McQueen, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino trained).

With leading-man looks, it didn't take long for Hollywood to come calling and, soon after Picnic debuted, Warner Brothers offered Newman a five-year contract, worth $1000 a week. It looked like his big break - until his first film, a Biblical epic called The Silver Chalice, flopped in 1954, with critics labelling him a "poor man's [Marlon] Brando". Devastated, Newman placed an ad in trade magazine Variety apologising for his performance. He was also incensed by the unfavourable comparisons to Brando, for whom he was often mistaken early on. Ever the prankster, Newman claimed to have signed about 500 autographs reading, "Best wishes, Brando".

But Newman's breakthrough came the following year when he landed the lead in Somebody Up There Likes Me, which was released in 1956. The critics loved it. But as the actor's career came together, his personal life started to unravel. Ever since meeting the pretty, pixie-faced Joanne Woodward while working on Picnic, he'd been falling in love with her. Gradually, they spent more and more time together, and Newman was torn between his feelings for her and his commitment to his family, which now included daughters Susan and Stephanie.

Stressed, he began boozing heavily until, in July 1956, he was arrested in Long Island for drink driving, according to Susan Netter, author of Paul Newman And Joanne Woodward: An Unauthorised Biography (Sphere Books). A night in jail was his wake-up call. Newman decided to separate from Jacqueline and enter therapy. (Years later, he'd say: "What measure of serenity I have is the direct result of analysis.") On January 29, 1958, he and Woodward wed in Las Vegas.

That year, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof premiered. So, too, did The Long, Hot Summer. Dressed in boxers and starring opposite his soon-to-be new wife, director Martin Ritt described Newman as having a "great fuckability quotient". But Newman was wary of being typecast as a pretty boy and, the following year, he paid $500,000 to be released from his Warner Brothers contract. "It kept me poor for several years. But it was the best financial transaction I ever made," he later said.

In 1961, he starred in The Hustler, followed by Hud, Harper and Cool Hand Luke. In the latter, one scene was shot five times before the studio bosses were satisfied Newman's trademark blue eyes featured prominently enough.

Although Newman resented his sex symbol status, he understood its currency. Every morning he splashed his face with cold water to tighten his skin and he ran five kilometres a day. He also travelled with a portable sauna (once blowing a hotel's electricity supply when he plugged it in). By the late '60s, Newman was Hollywood's number two box-office drawcard, behind John Wayne. He commanded $1 million a movie and owned homes in Manhattan, Beverly Hills and Westport, Connecticut. But he eschewed the party circuit, preferring to spend time at his Westport home with friends, such as playwright Tennessee Williams, as well as Woodward and their daughters, Elinor (stage name Nell Potts), Melissa and Claire. Throughout his career, Newman often acted opposite Woodward (and directed her, too, most notably in 1968's Rachel, Rachel), but he was rarely cast alongside the Hollywood beauties of the day. When paired with Sophia Loren in 1965's Lady L, there was little chemistry. According to Daniel O'Brien, author of Paul Newman (Faber & Faber, $29.99), Loren found him vulgar - when she asked how his false moustache was attached, Newman apparently replied: "Sperm."

The actor also failed to spark with director Alfred Hitchcock on 1966's Torn Curtain. When Newman tried to discuss his character's motivation, Hitchcock reportedly shot back: "Your motivation, Mr Newman, is your salary."

Generally, though, his affable nature made him a popular coworker, with Sundance Kid screen-writer William Goldman describing him as "the least starlike superstar".

Off screen, Newman was a staunch anti-Vietnam war protester and took part in Martin Luther King Jr's famous civil rights march - which featured King's "I have a dream ..." speech - in Washington in 1963. "I didn't turn in my citizenship card when I got my screen actor's card," remarked Newman. However, his liberal leanings and his support for the Democrats earned him 19th position on disgraced President Richard Nixon's famed top 20 "enemies" list - a feat Newman described as one of his "greatest accomplishments".

Meanwhile, his other love was motor racing. Enchanted after playing a racing car driver in Winning in 1969, he spent six months every year competing, and in 1979, came second in the gruelling 24-hour race at Le Mans, France. Woodward tried to dissuade him by sticking photos of car crashes on their fridge, but Newman defended it as "my one addiction", and he was still racing at the age of 70.

By the mid 1970s, Newman seemed to have it all, and had become one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors (alongside Steve McQueen and Robert Redford).

Then on November 20, 1978, tragedy struck when his son, Scott, died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and prescription drugs, aged 28. Father and son had had a difficult relationship; Scott struggled with his parents' divorce and his dad's fame. Although Newman tried to get his son off drink and drugs, employing two full-time carers, he later admitted: "I lost the ability to help him. We were like rubber bands ... one minute close, the next separated by an enormous and unaccountable distance. I don't think I'll ever escape the guilt."

In 1980, the actor established the Scott Newman Foundation to help children with drug problems. It would turn out to be one of many philanthropic organisations launched by Newman, ensuring his legacy extended beyond movie theatres.

The best known of these endeavours had its inception in 1982, when he and his long-time friend, writer AE Hotchner, launched Newman's Own - a range of homemade salad dressings and spaghetti sauces. He'd been making his own dressing for years (Newman once took a salad into the men's room at chic LA restaurant Chasen's, washed it off, then dressed it with his own combination of vinegar and oil), and gave batches to his friends.

When a trial run at his local store - the owner only agreed to stock it if Newman put his picture on the product - sold out, Newman went into business. All profits from the company - about $250 million so far - go to charity. In 1986, he also set up a Wild West-themed camp for terminally ill children in Connecticut called the Hole in the Wall Camp, since replicated across the US and Europe.

By then, Newman was 61, and there was just one major honour that eluded him - an Oscar. That distinction came in 1987 for his role in The Color Of Money. But, having been nominated six times for Best Actor since 1959, Newman decided not to attend the ceremony. Asked later how he felt about winning, he replied: "It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents, and you say, ‘I am terribly sorry, I'm tired.'" Still, he was nominated twice more, for Nobody's Fool in 1995 and Road To Perdition in 2003.

Finally, in 2007, Newman retired from acting, saying, "I'm not able to work anymore at the level that I would want to. You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence and you start to lose your invention." He settled back to enjoy his remaining years with Woodward, the love of his life. Explaining why he'd never strayed from her, he once quipped, "I have steak at home; why should I go out for hamburger?" He was still cracking jokes when he was wheeled out of a New York City hospital in January 2008. Asked what he was being treated for, he dead-panned, "Athlete's foot and hair loss."

But on September 26, 2008, the legendary actor passed away in his beloved Westport home, at age 83, after a long battle with lung cancer (once a chain-smoker, he'd quit 30 years ago).

"He was a shining example of how to use global fame for the greater good, and most of all he was one of the great movie actors of this or any other age," said director Sam Mendes. Newman might have put it differently. As he once remarked, "I'm not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster."

Memories of Newman

When the actor passed away on September 26, 2008, tributes flowed in.
Kevin Spacey: "Paul Newman was a great, humble giant. He used his success to help others and did it without wanting a lot of credit. He should be an example to everyone in the acting profession."

Robert Redford: "There is a point where feelings go beyond words. I have lost a real friend. My life - and this country - is better for his being in it."

Sally Field: "I was blessed to have known him. The world is better because of him. Sometimes God makes perfect people and Paul Newman was one of them."

David Letterman: "Paul was a very fine actor and a really good race driver. But mostly, he personified humanity - always taking care of those who were less fortunate. For me, this will be his legacy."

Tom Cruise: "The first time I met Paul Newman was 25 years ago, when I went to audition for Harry & Son ... because he was so respected, so famous, so beloved, he was bigger than life to me ... but he always had a way of putting us all at ease."

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