{"id":2174,"date":"2008-08-13T11:45:19","date_gmt":"2008-08-13T11:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html"},"modified":"2008-08-13T11:45:19","modified_gmt":"2008-08-13T11:45:19","slug":"the-final-days-of-paul-newman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html","title":{"rendered":"Paul Newman: A True Hollywood Mensch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paulnewmanpicic.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/imgs\/paulnewmanpicic.jpg\" width=\"180\" height=\"226\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>Though most of the celebrity news over the weekend focused on two celebrities who died somewhat unexpectedly, I was saddened by another, far quieter, announcement about a celebrity&#8217;s health status last week.  Movie legend and philanthropist Paul Newman has been battling cancer and it has now been reported in several media outlets that <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/thedishrag\/2008\/06\/paul-newman-is.html\" target=\"_blank\">he has stopped treatment<\/a> and has returned home to live out his final days.<br \/>\nNewman has always guarded his privacy vigilantly so, of course, the star has not confirmed this report&#8211; much like he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/newsOne\/idUSN1037414920080611\" target=\"_blank\">didn&#8217;t confirm his original diagnosis<\/a> of cancer a few months ago, though the news was leaked by a friend.  Still, a picture of  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/tvshowbiz\/article-1040012\/Ailing-Paul-Newman-looks-frail-pushed-wheelchair.html\" target=\"_blank\">Newman in a wheelchair<\/a> surfaced earlier this month, and it lends credibility to the sad reality that we may soon lose one of Hollywood&#8217;s true noblemen.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nI have always admired Newman&#8217;s acting, of course, but I have admired far more the way he has handled his celebrity with humility, dignity, and integrity.  Newman has donated over $250 million to charity through his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newmansown.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Newman&#8217;s Own<\/a> brand, but never put his family up for sale to the magazine that was the highest bidder as some kind of fundraiser. He has stayed married to the same woman for fifty years in an era when most celebrity relationships don&#8217;t last longer than a few months. He has even made getting older look sexy and cool as he raced cars until just a few years ago.<br \/>\nIn digging around the Internet, I found an interesting post on Newman over at jewcy.com calling <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewcy.com\/tags\/paul_newman\" target=\"_blank\">Newman a mensch<\/a>. Seems the actor has identified himself in the past with his Jewish roots from his dad&#8217;s side of the family. The article didn&#8217;t explain the &#8220;mensch&#8221; reference, and although I have heard the Yiddish word before, I didn&#8217;t know exactly know what it was. The American Heritage Dictionary defines mensch as &#8220;A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose.&#8221;<br \/>\nSo now I know.  Newman is a true mensch among men in Hollywood and my prayers are with him and his family<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though most of the celebrity news over the weekend focused on two celebrities who died somewhat unexpectedly, I was saddened by another, far quieter, announcement about a celebrity&#8217;s health status last week. Movie legend and philanthropist Paul Newman has been battling cancer and it has now been reported in several media outlets that he has&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities","category-movies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Paul Newman: A True Hollywood Mensch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Paul Newman: A True Hollywood Mensch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Though most of the celebrity news over the weekend focused on two celebrities who died somewhat unexpectedly, I was saddened by another, far quieter, announcement about a celebrity&#8217;s health status last week. Movie legend and philanthropist Paul Newman has been battling cancer and it has now been reported in several media outlets that he has&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-13T11:45:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/paulnewmanpicic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kris Rasmussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Paul Newman: A True Hollywood Mensch","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Paul Newman: A True Hollywood Mensch","og_description":"Though most of the celebrity news over the weekend focused on two celebrities who died somewhat unexpectedly, I was saddened by another, far quieter, announcement about a celebrity&#8217;s health status last week. Movie legend and philanthropist Paul Newman has been battling cancer and it has now been reported in several media outlets that he has&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2008-08-13T11:45:19+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/paulnewmanpicic.jpg"}],"author":"Kris Rasmussen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/the-final-days-of-paul-newman.html","name":"Paul Newman: A True Hollywood 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