Why Paul Newman Didn’t Win an Oscar Until 1986
There are few Hollywood icons on par with Paul Newman. Starting with his career breakthrough in 1956’s Somebody Up There Likes Me, Newman’s name quickly became synonymous with thoughtful, serious acting, and an Oscar win seemed inevitable. He was first nominated for Best Actor in 1959 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof but lost … and then lost … and then lost some more.
Newman was nominated seven times before winning on the eighth, picking up a Best Actor trophy for The Color of Money in 1987. The prior year, he has been given an honorary Academy Award, which is usually given to actors at the end of their careers. Considering that his early career peer Marlon Brando won his first Best Actor Oscar in 1955, why did it take Newman more than three decades to take home a little gold man of his own?
Newman’s nominations
Everett Collection
Newman picked up Best Actor nominations for some of his most iconic ’60s roles, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler (1962), Hud (1964) and Cool Hand Luke (1968). He capped off the decade with his first ever nomination for Best Picture for Rachel, Rachel (1969), a film he directed starring his wife, Joanne Woodward, who also got a Best Actress nomination. Each time he was nominated, he lost, to an array of stars ranging from David Niven to Sidney Poitier.
After a ’70s slump, Newman experienced an ’80s comeback, and picked up two more Best Actor nominations back-to-back, for Absence of Malice (1982) and The Verdict (1983) — which he lost, back-to-back, to Henry Fonda for On Golden Pond and Ben Kinglsey for Gandhi, respectively. It was beginning to seem like no matter what he did, Newman couldn’t catch a break from the Academy voters.
“My best work is down the pike”
In acknowledgment of his abilities (or perhaps because the Academy was feeling guilty over his steady losses), in 1986, Newman was given an honorary Academy Award for “many memorable and compelling screen performances” — an honor more typically given to actors at the end of their careers. Though he was 61 at the time, Newman was obviously not winding down his career — he said in his acceptance speech that he hoped “that my best work is down the pike in front of me.”
Newman finally won … but he wasn’t there to see it
In 1987, Newman was nominated yet again, for Martin Scorsese‘s The Color of Money. “It’s been a long time,” Newman said in 1987 of his Oscars journey. “It’s like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years, and then it’s, ‘well, here I am.’ And you say, ‘so … now what’?” Later in the same interview, he claimed, “I’ve been there six times and lost. Maybe if I stay away, I’ll win.”
In fact, he didn’t attend the 59th Academy Awards — so when his name was finally called from the podium, it fell to director Robert Wise to accept in his place.
Wise didn’t even get to say whatever speech he had prepared — after beginning “Paul wanted everybody to know that after coming here for seven other occasions like this …” Bette Davis cut him off, giving her own tribute to Newman and Wise. Music then began playing them both offstage.
Newman received two more Oscar nominations before his 2008 death — a Best Actor nod for 1995’s Nobody’s Fool, and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for 2003’s The Road to Perdition (he also received the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994). But while the Oscars are a big part of the story people like to tell about Paul Newman, they may not have meant very much to the man himself. As he told an interviewer shortly after his 1987 win, “I think at this stage of my life [racing cars is] probably more important [than acting]. And there are not that many films to do and there are a lot of good cars to drive.”
Remind 
1961
January 2021
We set our time machine to 1961 and get a whiff of America’s shiny new-car smell.
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