« Grim Milestone Watch, Week 7: Obama Mails It In | Home | Drifting Prayers: My Rosh Hashanah Eve with the Rebbe »

September 29, 2008

The Whale and the Amoeba: Paul Newman and Me

One benefit of a career in journalism is that it brings you occasional brushes with greatness. I had that in my career, none more memorable than a few minutes with Paul Newman. For 11 years we shared the same zip code -- 06880 -- but I met him only once. I encountered Old Blue Eyes, my fellow Westportonian, thanks to my work as East Coast Editor of Video Store magazine.

While members of the video trade press rarely traveled in the exotic circles of those covering theatrical movie releases, occasionally we'd get to partake of those thrilling press junkets that drummed up (invariably positive) press for a new release. That happened with "Nobody's Fool" in 1994. I got to see the movie, then joined other video-trade journalists for tightly choreographed, friendly group interviews with actors and and directors; these group interviews were technically known within journalistic circles as "gang bangs."

I don't remember many details of my time with Newman; I might have mentioned something about Westport. But we were both there, his blue eyes, my hazel eyes flitting around the table. He was very good, hoarse of voice, and plainly he held our attention. We never met again -- I got laid off by the magazine a year later -- but I always treasure the memory of our brief encounter.

Oh, and one of the other interviews was also memorable. The movie also starred Melanie Griffith as Newman's love interest in the film. Unlike Griffith, she came across as very ill-at-ease in the interview, and even had her high-octane publicist, Pat Kingsley, in the room in case any of the sheep-like trade press got rambunctious. We never did (no questions about Don Johnson!), and Griffith could rotate to the next group of ink-stained wretches with her composure intact.

Update: Vanity Fair magazine had a long piece about Newman in its September issue, planned before his passing. Read it here.

Van | 09/29/08 at 06:40 AM | Categories: Life and how to live it

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.keshertalk.com/cgi-bin/mtb.cgi/6755

Comments

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? Yes No

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style and URL links.
My spam filter rejects any word containing "sex" and "poker" - use asterisks like so: "p*ker")