Discovered 2 years ago in the family warehouse and recently released is the book “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man” – this is the fate of the memories guarded by Hollywood legend Paul Newman with the help of his close friend Stuart Stern.
Both are now deceased, but Söderlund, the youngest of the actor’s five daughters with the iconic blue eyes, opens a new prism through which his father’s personality can be read.
Paul Newman and screenwriter Stuart Stern conducted a series of interviews over a span of 5 years – about childhood, career, family and fame. The two collect a huge volume of notes, but for unknown reasons they eventually give up. After their deaths – Paul Newman in 2008 and Stern – in 2015, information on the thousands of pages of interview transcripts has disappeared. They are said to have been burned. Until 2 years ago, when it was revealed that they were found in the warehouse of his widow Joan Woodward. And recently – and edited in “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Person”.
The book paints a blunt picture of a tormented star who doubts herself and reflects on her alcoholic father, obsessive mother, her first marriage, her failures as a father and her excessive drinking. Reading the manuscripts was difficult for Newman’s daughter, who learned “a lot” about her father that she didn’t know. “She is very cruel,” she says.
So what surprised you the most?
“always worried”
At one point in the book, Newman says he is “always worried” about “not being good enough”. And she wonders how much of his career depends on him or on how he looks.
The actor explains in his memoirs: “It’s hard for someone like me, who has always had this horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that his success simply came from being lucky enough to be born with a certain look. “ Soderlund says his father wanted to be treated as more than just a good-looking boy.
“It was heartbreaking, he felt that, no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t get anywhere: that is, he wouldn’t be able to get past that pretty face and those pretty eyes.”
In the 1970s, Newman formed a very successful on-screen relationship with Robert Redford. The two have been making films and have been looking for the right script to make another film together for many years. But the book reveals that the two were not true off-screen friends at the time. “You can’t count on Redford,” Newman says. “You’re never sure it’ll be there. It’s just an insult.”
Söderlund believes that any tension is due to different ways of working.
In the book, Newman also hints at the tensions in his relationship with Woodward. He once said of her marriage: “I have a steak at home. Why do I have to go out for a burger?”
Yet there are hints of betrayal in the memoirs. “We have had problems”he says to a friend. “It wasn’t all flowers and roses.”
“Oh, there was tension”confirms Soderlund. “I’m sure it wasn’t an easy task being married to him. But I think the impressive thing is that they worked very hard to be together. I give them a lot of credit for going through some really tough times and coming out of the other. stronger and better part. My father wouldn’t breathe his last breath until my mother held him in her arms. “reveals.
“Difficult decision”
Söderlund remembers a father who “worked a lot, so he was often away”. He adds, “When he was home, he was a big boy. It was when I was little. He liked playing with you and throwing you in the pool. It was fun. But he wasn’t reliable.”
In the decades since the conversations were recorded, Soderlund says Newman “worked hard on himself” and “felt a lot better as he got older.” He says the decision to publish the memoir, filled with so many intimate revelations and surprising insights, was a “difficult decision”. But in the end, she and her sisters decide to follow her wish. “It’s something he wanted.”
As Newman himself says: “I want to leave some sort of record that clears things up, creates holes in the mythology that has arisen around me, breaks some of the legends and keeps piranhas at bay.”
“Something to document the time I’ve been on this planet with some accuracy.”
