Farewell Mr Newman!

The first time I heard of Paul Newman was in an article on Oscars. It talked about how his performance in 'The Verdict' as an alchoholic lawyer was tipped for best actor (Oscars 1982) only to loose in the end to a certain Ben Kingsley for his role in Gandhi as Mahatma Gandhi. A role which Sunny Deol played rather well in the Bollywood film 'Damini'.

Newman was a phenomenal actor and his 8 best actor Oscar nominations speak volumes about the actor. It's another story that his nominations rarely converted into actual trophies. He did win one finally in 1986 for his role in the Tom Cruise starrer 'The Color of Money'. His greatest quality that a journalist on BBC spoke of today, was to reinvent himself and be relevant to the times. This can be easily made out from the fact that he received his first academy nomination for best actor in 1958 for 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' and the last nomination for best supporting actor in 2002, forty-four years later, for 'Road to Perdition'.

As for me he will forever be the Butch Cassidy of the 1969 classic western 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. The moment his name comes up my mind goes back to that one favourite scene from the movie where he's riding a cycle with a girl and the beautiful number 'Raindrops falling on my head' playing in the background.

Thank you Mr Newman for the smiles that you brought to moviegoers like me from around the world. We will miss you!