Surely every film lover can picture it: Paul Newman, alongside Robert Redford, in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two bandits, perched on a cliff-edge, the sunset fusing red and yellow behind them, deliberate their fate.

Surely every film lover can picture it: Paul Newman, alongside Robert Redford, in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two bandits, perched on a cliff-edge, the sunset fusing red and yellow behind them, deliberate their fate. “I can’t swim!” cries the stubborn but lovable Redford as Sundance. Cue Newman’s hysterical laughter, his twinkling blue eyes, and his cheeky, playful response: “Why you crazy? The fall’ll probably kill ya!”

As it turns out in the film, the jump doesn't kill either of these persistent outlaws. Instead, it represents one more shot at deeating the inevitable. The law eventually catches up with this pair just as time, last weekend, finally caught up with Paul Newman.

This beloved giant of the silver screen died late last Friday at the age of 83, after struggling for more than a year with cancer. His good friend and previous co-star, Redford, admitted, “there is a point where feelings go beyond words. I have lost a real friend. My life - and this country - is better for his being in it”. Indeed not only America, but the entire world has been robbed of a true star, a personality that has graced our screens for the best part of six decades.There is no doubting that Paul Newman is a legend of cinema. As if his acting abilities aren’t testimony enough, his bright, mint-blue eyes, his superbly chiselled jaw and his handsome, twinkling grin are what make Newman’s performances lovable, beautiful and memorable: pure perfection.

Newman’s transition into stardom wasn’t easy, with the likes of Marlon Brando and James Dean providing stiff competition. In 1954, Brando won Best Actor for his performance in On the Waterfront while Dean, who directly competed against Newman for his role in East of Eden, was nominated for an Oscar the following year. When asked if such competition was intimidating, Paul Newman responded with the modesty that we have come to expect from him: “I felt like an amateur in the company of professionals,” he told Prevue magazine in the late 80s. Newman’s humble style is certainly manifest in his audition for East of Eden, in which he stands next to James Dean for the scrutinising cameras and bashfully giggles in his co-auditionee’s presence.

Newman’s first screen roles were, in fact, very much in the Brando mould – neurotic, mirthless, mumbling and bolshy. Like Brando, he played Tennessee Williams’s anti-heroes in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1958, and Sweet Bird of Youth, 1962, for which he received the first of his Oscar nominations; at one stage he was even labelled the new Brando. Yet this label wouldn’t last for long. Paul Newman wasn’t to be a second to anybody, he was to be himself, completely and utterly.

Within a few years, a new and more distinctive character began to emerge – a male whose macho demeanor and tongue-in-cheek bravado concealed sexual fears and social inadequacy. He moved miles away from the feminised sensitivity of Dean and the unruly showmanship of Brando. In The Hustler, 1961, Hud, 1963, and Cool Hand Luke, 1967, Newman displayed a mixture of strength, devilment and vulnerability which appealed to movie-goers. As “Fast” Eddie Felson in Robert Rossen’s The Hustler – a role that he would later revisit in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (1986) – Newman is superb as he balances his own playful energy with Eddie’s arrogance.  Furthermore, his performance as the sweaty yet elegant Luke in Cool Hand Luke has proven to be an all-time favourite amongst fans and film lovers, the role marking the introduction of Sixties counter-culture tough guys: the rebel prisoner as joker and martyr. The scene in which Luke eats 50 eggs is memorable. Surely no man can eat 50 eggs? Luke could. Paul Newman probably could.

In 1969, Newman and Redford united to produce one of the most popular screen Westerns ever made, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Mixing adventure with romance and comedy, this film exploits Newman’s ability to flirt with the camera and to twinkle his blue eyes as if they had never been twinkled before. He is sexy, lovable and hilarious in this film. He is more than cool, he is super-cool. He is the best friend everyone wishes for. Redford certainly agreed; following the success of Butch Cassidy, the two collaborated once more in The Sting (1974). Winning seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, this film is one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed movies of all time. Set in the 1930’s, the intricate comedy caper sees Newman as a veteran con man, an amusing and intelligent character that only his own charm can bring to perfection.

Indeed, unfailingly  intelligent, whole-souled performances in a shower of  critical and popular successes have earned the Cleveland-born actor a secure place in the big-screen pantheon. Despite being awarded an honorary lifetime award by the Academy in 1989, it is somewhat of a shame that Newman won his first Oscar for his less-than best performance in The Color of Money in 1987 - after being nominated no less than eight times. The Academy’s late effort to truly commemorate Newman’s acting record hardly provided good compensation for fans, if any at all.

Yet Newman didn’t care much for grand gestures in the world of celebrity. He was embarrassed by the attention that fame brought upon him: “It’s so hard to convince people, but what everybody sees up there on the screen has absolutely nothing to do with me. They believe that’s me, but it isn’t! It’s somebody else – something a writer concocted and some director splashed up there and some editor neatened,” he declared in an interview not too long ago. Paul Newman’s modesty stayed with him throughout his career; he always remained a reluctant sex symbol and superstar.

Instead, his energy went into a series of charitable initiatives. As he got older, he headed a food company, Newman’s Own, and produced a series of sauces and dressings which were sold under the motto, “Shameless exploitation for the common good”. All of the proceeds from these products funded charity work, mainly aimed at alleviating the suffering of young children with chronic illnesses. Previously talking about his charity work, Newman declared that it allowed one way for ‘being a celebrity to become useful’. Today he is not only remembered as Hud Bannon, or as Butch Cassidy, but also as a great philanthropist and family man. Robert Forrester, vice-chairman of the Newman Foundation, described the actor’s heart and soul as “dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all”.

Paul Newman has set the bar high, perhaps too high, for the actors that appear on our screens today. In an interview from the 80s, Newman himself admitted that an aspect of cinema was fading: “The business has changed drastically – the cost of making a picture, the price of failure, the emphasis on blockbusters, the tendency of young movie-goers to see one film five times instead of seeing five different ones, the effect of television on artistic appetite, the shrinking of attention spans, the management of films falling into the hands of accountants and lawyers. Talented writers and actors are burning out faster.”

Actors of Newman’s calibre, both on-screen and off, are hard to come by these days. Newman’s style and attitude represent true originality and true individuality. What is more, they embody a rare star-quality that effortlessly shines onto our screens. Emblazoned with modesty, he once said, “my life has been a series of fortunate accidents.” Thank goodness for his life, and thank goodness for those accidents (not that we believe him), because Paul Newman sparkles, and the beauty of cinema is that he always will.