October 7, 2008
A 50-year marriage: "Laughter and lust"
3 photos (below the jump) from the extensive Vanity Fair slideshow made up of photos from Patricia Bosworth's personal collection. Patricia Bosworth is a playwright and author, longtime member of the Actors Studio, and biographer of Montgomery Clift - excerpt of her magnificent here). There are two images in particular that really struck me: the one of Newman and Woodward putting their handprints in the cement outside of Grauman's ... You can see how the faces around them are vaguely serious, maybe even bureaucratic ... but the two of them are howling with laughter. It almost seems to be a private moment. Speaking of private moments: the second image in the slideshow I love with the passion of a burning supernova - is the two of them dancing together at home. Goofballs. But look at the fun they're having!
Bosworth's article about Newman in Vanity Fair can be read here. Small excerpt:
The first time I saw Paul Newman he was dancing with Marilyn Monroe. It was the summer of 1959 at a noisy Actors Studio party in New York’s Greenwich Village. I had just passed my audition and was being introduced to everyone as a new member by the Broadway producer Cheryl Crawford, one of the Studio’s heads.Nobody was paying me much attention—understandably, since they were all watching a barefoot Marilyn, in a skintight black dress, undulate around the living room with Newman, lithe and sinewy in chinos and T-shirt.
They seemed to be dancing with such rapture; they both kept changing rhythms and sometimes they walk-stepped to the beat. They didn’t dance for very long—maybe three minutes—but what a hot, pulsing three minutes it was! They broke apart, Marilyn gave a giggle and a curtsy, and Newman bowed and moved directly past me through the crowd to get a beer.
Speaking of the Actors Studio, there is also a link in the slideshow to one of my favorite pictures of Newman ever (it's one that shows up in many of the books I have at home) - the one of him in class at the Actors Studio, 1955.
Posted by sheila | TrackBack
His face in the second picture is killing me. The whole pose, actually. And is that woman -- I can't tell who she is -- dancing with a phone or an ice cream scoop??
Posted by: tracey at October 8, 2008 2:02 PMTracey - I know! His face! That woman with him is actually Joanne Woodward - quite a babe, right? - I think it's from 1962 or 63 - a couple of years into their marriage. Is she carrying a bone for the dog? Or an unconnected telephone receiver? I've been trying to figure out what it is, too.
But I love that this is a picture of them, on a night off, at home. Hahahaha
Posted by: red at October 8, 2008 2:06 PMI can't believe I didn't recognize her! I'm embarrassed! It doesn't look like her to me. The nose or something.
Posted by: tracey at October 12, 2008 8:16 PM