RIP Paul Newman

Though not for the reasons you might think. Or maybe so anyway.

The first thing I thought of when hearing the news this morning was that my parents would be sad to hear the news. Some cultural figures, no matter how long lasting, how notable their continuing presence, are associated most closely with a time, place and generation, and while Newman continued to work ever more sporadically over time as I grew up and became aware of him, I was also aware that he was an inherited figure for me, somebody who had made his impact in earlier times, before I was born and in my earliest years.

Reading some of the comments over on ILX has been helpful — Drew Daniel, in a brief comment, noted, “His performances in “Hud” and “Cat on A Hot Tin Roof” have always meant a lot to me, his kind of masculinity is missing nowadays from Hollywood.” This seems as good a read as any, and other comments in the prepared obits now surfacing on the news sites mention his aptitude for playing anti-heroes, characters going against various kinds of grains. I think it’s interesting to note a potentially unconscious but extremely deft character choice on his part: whereas Robert Redford, perhaps his most famous acting partner thanks to the one-two punch of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, played a role glorifying the press in All the President’s Men, Newman ended up playing in Absence of Malice, a much different film. And this some years after having ended up on Nixon’s enemies list, something which Newman apparently took a lot of pride in (who could blame him? talk about a compliment!).

Butch Cassidy is I suppose my favorite film by him but as I said in turn on ILX, “I don’t have a defining performance in my head to draw on as being a favorite; I’d say he was more someone who transcended film if that makes any sense. Obviously his public profile vis-a-vis politics and philanthropy was a large part of that.” He wasn’t quite famous for being famous but he ended up pretty close — and for me it was, indeed, down to the salad dressing in terms of how I first really got to know him. It was introduced while I was living in upstate New York, and since Newman famously lived not too far away in Connecticut it felt like a bit of regional support, in a way. The eyecatching woodcut-style illustration of his face — his famously handsome, eye-catching calling card — was clearly meant to be the selling point above all else for the first time buyer.

But as was stated right from the start, the whole point of the Newman’s Own enterprise wasn’t to make a mint for himself — and with that first dressing as the start and a slew of other food products to follow, a nice combination between mass market and the kind of stuff that Trader Joe’s would eventually fully popularize, good down-the-middle efforts that weren’t hypergourmet but were no slouches either, he raised a huge amount of bank for a variety of causes. I’ve spoken before about my thoughts on charity but it strikes me that Newman’s approach wasn’t a bad one at all, and it would have been both personally and professionally satisfying to see it grow the way it has, and to know that it’s left in good hands.

Is my interest in food derived in part from all this? I wouldn’t say so, the initial seeds were already in place when I was smaller, but in retrospect I see now that the growth of Newman’s food interests from personal gifts to the enterprise that it is is something that comes from similar sources. One loves what one creates, so why not share? The killer motto of the company — “Shameless exploitation in pursuit of the Common Good” — says it all, with wit, knowledge and awareness, that the common good can be found both in the support to those in need the company stands for as much as in the good cuisine one can enjoy or contribute to.

This story from the Hartford Courant celebrates the food aspect of his life and work, and is worth a read. I’ll end with a quote from it, and a thanks to him for setting what strikes me all in all as a good example — to explore and create and try many things in life, and to not be defined simply by the one thing you are most well known for.

To a younger generation, Paul Newman wasn’t Butch Cassidy or Cool Hand Luke or Fast Eddie Felson. He was a witty guy who ran a food company that made popcorn, salsa and spaghetti sauce.

….

The actor was a hands-on director of the company, whether the task was taste-testing new products or presiding over the finals of a Newman’s Own recipe contest.

“He really loved good food, so he was really involved in the business,” said Kirsten McKamy, who worked for Newman’s Own for eight years. “He wasn’t just a figurehead; he came up with ideas.”

….

The chef marveled at Newman’s accomplishments not only in the arts but also in the fields of food, business, philanthropy and auto racing. “It’s almost unfathomable that one human can have that much reach,” he said. “But the interesting thing is, when you take all that away, he’s just a normal guy. He loves things like having a ham salad, riding a bicycle, ordering eggs over the counter at a diner. He loves the notion of Americana and America, in the sense of that Norman Rockwell time.”

Nischan, who spoke with great respect for the actor, said he was thankful for the opportunity to be witness to Newman’s ability to dream of new ideas, to articulate those ideas and to his sense of humor.

Speaking about Newman a few months before his death, McKamy also remembered the actor’s wit. Her boss was a man with a “very dry sense of humor” and who thought before he spoke. “He is a man of few words, but the words he comes out with are perfectly chosen.”

Would we were all so fortunate. It’s good to reflect on somebody who was, and didn’t keep it to himself. RIP, and thanks.

The influence of a line drawing and the life of a billionaire

Yesterday over at the LA Times site I noticed this story, a couple of key paragraphs of which I’ll copy here:

The joshing at a Manhattan gathering would have been nothing out of the ordinary except that the man pulling a worn blue blazer over his head in mock modesty was none other than the onetime billionaire, Chuck Feeney.

Never heard of him? No surprise there.

Over the years, the frugal 76-year-old has made a fetish out of anonymity. He declined to name his foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, after himself, registering the $8-billion behemoth in Bermuda to avoid U.S. disclosure laws. He lavishes hundreds of millions of dollars on universities and hospitals but won’t allow even a small plaque identifying him as a donor.

“We just didn’t want to be blowing our horn,” he explains in a rare interview at his daughter’s Upper East Side apartment.

The whole story is of interest (and among other things explains the origins of a company I’d always idly wondered about on my trips overseas, Duty Free Shoppers aka DFS). But this quote, in particular, puts me in mind of a very quietly profound moment in my life many years ago that has stayed with me to this day.

As I’ve mentioned before, we moved a fair amount over the years when growing up — not constantly, but often enough to know the routines and the certain things to expect while on the road, or as was often the case waiting in Navy housing while our own house was being made ready. Once it was a Quonset hut over at Mare Island, but a spot we ended up at over the years was the Navy Lodge at North Island Naval Air Base, which forms the northern and larger half of Coronado Island (the southern being the actual town itself). I’d say we only stayed there a total three to four times, but we did so often enough that I can remember the (to me) rare views of looking well down Ocean Beach towards the Hotel Del or being able to walk from ‘home’ to the beach by means of four steps or so. It was just a motel for Navy folks and their families, and served a purpose that I am happy for.

As is so often the case, there was a Bible to be found in a desk drawer of the room — and of the many hotels and motels I’ve seen, more often than not it’s thanks to the Gideons (I still remember being intrigued at the discovery of the Book of Mormon in a motel in Alberta when I was nine as part of a visit to Montana to see my mom’s parents). But sometimes it was another Bible and during this stay in particular, which I’d place either in 1981 or 1982, it was something I’d encountered briefly before and since — the Good News Bible.

Wikipedia’s entry on this particular edition, allowing for the caveat as always that it is just that rather than a final authoritative history, outlines some of the reasons why this edition might have caught my eye — having been generally familiar with abbreviated kid’s versions of the Bible while growing up, this one was meant to cover the whole thing, but in a fashion that would be easily readable and immediately appealing. A key reason, to quote that entry, is this:

Unlike most other translations, the GNT contains line drawings of Biblical events with a snippet of text. The line drawings were done by Annie Vallotton. However, Vallotton is credited with doing the drawings only in certain editions of the GNT — in others, the drawings are simply credited to “a Swiss artist”. There are introductions to each book of the Bible.

This BBC profile discusses Vallotton a bit, as well as provided some examples of her work — and even if you’re not fond of the results, you can probably sense why they do work, and they actually work for me still. The vocabulary for art discussion as such is not my area of expertise, but what we see in her is a balance of practicality (this is, after all, meant to be commissioned work for cheap mass production — black and white line drawings are therefore perfect for this) and surprising grace and detail. The most common feature about her figures is another reason for their general appeal — their facelessness, where merely ovals with the barest of details stand in for faces or even caricatures a good amount of the time, at other points showing only eyes. Rather than being off-putting, they allow a viewer to fill in the blanks, however appropriately — a wise decision, I’d say.

One verse, in particular, provided one illustration that has always remained with me. I am not sure of the exact verse, but I believe it is Matthew 6:2, various translations of which you can find here — the general intent of the verse is clear enough, to quote the first provided: “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men.”

Vallotton’s illustration, whether of this or of a similar verse elsewhere, shows a background of a crowd of people watching the event in the foreground — a man kneels, his face marked only by eyes and eyebrows, showing him to be sad, beaten down, wretched, wearing torn clothes. He’s receiving a handout of money or something similar from someone clearly well-off, well-fed — and who is not looking at him, but looking to the crowd instead, his eyes amused and pleased, his mouth a smirk.

Subtle? No. But pointed and memorable? Certainly, or why else would I recall it? (I’ve seen it a few times since then, but it’s been some years since I have.) And something about it has always stayed with me, as an admonition and as a pointed reminder — when one helps out those who are less fortunate, or gives something back, why is it done, and what are you trying to do? In its own straightforward way, the illustration encapsulates a slew of issues rather than necessarily providing a final answer — for charity is not simply a matter of giving alms to the poor, the point of the verse itself notwithstanding.

Wrestling with the issue of giving, charity, using one position to call attention to issues, these are all things I’d not feel qualified enough to discuss in detail here, or, honestly, I would feel embarrassed about, for the reasons I’ve just touched on. To talk briefly through my own lens as I can, then — everything from the monumental spectacle of the Band Aid/Live Aid/USA for Africa efforts in the mid-eighties to far lower key familial advice and examples to considerations of how best to raise consciousness on issues in a way to bring attention to abuses and injustices feeds into my thoughts on this matter. Hovering over it all has been that image of the man who gives in order to win attention for himself rather than because he seeks to do good — and often my thought turns back to the question, to borrow from a proverb, on the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish, of one-time assistance versus helping someone stand on their own feet — or, alternately, the difference between donating money and donating time.

I could go on. I don’t think there’s an easy answer to how one should best conduct oneself on these fronts, and I’m of the firm belief that some people are more ready and apt to assist in ways that others cannot, and that square pegs cannot be forced into round holes — the tenor, the nature, the place of what we give back, how we give it back, what we hope results, is a crazy-quilt patchwork, not a hard and fast rule. Yet Vallotton’s illustration stays with me, and so I say nothing about what small efforts I have done over the years beyond the bare statement of acknowledgement.

But seeing Feeney’s approach, noting how he has made his own decisions, clearly deals with questions and apparent contradictions and resolves them in a way that might not be perfect but are meant to address what he sees as important, I recognize someone at a great remove who is still a kindred spirit given this small point of indirect contact. What more I could do, what I have done so far, these are the things I would rather wrestle with privately rather than put on display. Presumably Feeney would love nothing better, and that it takes a public story to put it all in the open, and there to puzzle over and reflect on, just makes it that much more tangled. And human, and understandable.