Playboy Interview: Paul Newman

Hollywood's legendary masculine idols are gone; potent box-office names like Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Tyrone Power and Gary Cooper are remembered largely by their legacy of celluloid on "The Late, Late Show." And such heroes of another generation as Cary Grant, who hasn't made a movie in three years, is old enough to qualify for Social Security. Almost by default, Paul Newman now stands conspicuously alone as the male sex star of American films. His rugged, chiseled face and coolly seductive presence lures women of all ages away from their television sets--except when his films are on--and into the nation's movie theaters. Comprehensive exhibitor surveys and personal-opinion polls verify that the Newman charisma prevails as that of no other actor on this side of the Atlantic. In a New York restaurant not long ago, a well-dressed matron of the type who normally would never even approach a star, much less ask for an autograph, stumbled into his table, blushed, stammered, shook her head and finally murmured, "I just couldn't help it. I had to keep staring at you." And a sophisticated publicity woman at Time Inc. confessed at a cocktail party, "I simply can't watch him on the screen. He's too much."

The undeniable sexual chemistry between Newman and his female fans is catalyzed by the complex, sinewy roles with which he has become identified in the course of his 14-year, 26-picture career. The often-one-dimensional matinee idols of past decades would have avoided his rogues' gallery of mixed-up good-bad guys, but Newman has made a host of contrary characters pay off handsomely. Four of them have earned him Academy Award nominations: pool shark Fast Eddie Felson in "The Hustler"; the impotent Brick in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof": Hud Bannon, the skirt-chasing, beer-swilling, arrogant antihero who tools his Cadillac convertible around a small Texas town in "Hud": and "Cool Hand Luke," the happy-go-lucky decapitator of parking meters who eats 50 eggs to win a bet on a Southern chain gang.

With the exception of his portrayal of a Greek slave in "The Silver Chalice"--Newman's first picture and one that he would rather forget--he plays characters who pursue success (in "The Young Philadelphians" and "From the Terrace") and women (as the laconic private eye in "Harper," the ambitious drifter in "The Long Hot Summer" and the predatory gigolo in Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth") with the same casual cockiness.

The roots for such impressive performances are nowhere visible in the mundane highlights of his first 25 years. Son of a prosperous Cleveland sporting-goods-store owner, Newman was raised in the exclusive suburb of Shaker Heights. After high school, he enrolled at Ohio's Kenyon College; but following the outbreak of World War Two, he quit to enlist in the Navy. Selected for Naval Air Corps Officers Training, he was sent to Yale University; but because of partial color blindness, he flunked the physical and wound up serving three years as a radioman third class on torpedo planes crisscrossing the South Pacific. After the War, he returned to Kenyon and was graduated with a bachelor's degree in English. The class yearbook, he recalls, immortalized his lifelong and celebrated thirst for beer by noting that he had received "magnum cum lager" honors. This penchant for beer, as it turned out, was partially responsible for his becoming an actor. With several other members of Kenyon's football team, he got into a barroom brawl; after they were sprung from jail, two were expelled from school and the rest--including Newman--were kicked off the team and put on probation. Having nothing better to do with his spare time, he decided to try his hand at acting in school plays.

Hooked, he signed up for several seasons of summer stock in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and winter stock in Woodstock, Illinois, after graduation. But the death of his father in 1950 interrupted Newman's incubation as an actor and he reluctantly returned to Cleveland to run the family store. The world of business bored him, however; and after liquidating the enterprise, he entered the Yale School of Drama, from which he earned a master's degree. Within three months after graduation, he landed a featured role on Broadway in William Inge's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Picnic" and was immediately stamped by critics as "a young Marlon Brando." During "Picnic's" 14-month run, he met one of the understudies, an intense young actress from Georgia named Joanne Woodward. In the ensuing years, they continued their friendship while studying with drama coach Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio--citadel of the Method approach to acting. And after they co-starred in "The Long Hot Summer," based on several Faulkner short stories, Newman divorced his first wife (actress Jackie Witte) and married Joanne in 1958. By the time she had earned an Oscar for her schizophrenic role in "The Three Faces of Eve," Newman was already in the forefront of America's naturalistic actors--on the stage as well as on the screen.

Today, at 43, he enjoys the status of a superstar. His pictures annually earn him a niche among the top box-office performers; and he makes as much as $1,000,000 per film, plus a hefty percentage of the profits. But his celebrity status often attracts the kind of manhandling recognition he doesn't appreciate. To avoid the gawkers and autograph hounds, he frequently dons such disguises as false beards and sunglasses when venturing out in public. A jealous guardian of his personal privacy, he prefers to seclude himself with his wife at their permanent retreat, a 200-year-old carriage house situated on two and a half acres of wooded land along the Aspetuck River in Westport, Connecticut (where they live with their three children, plus his three children from the first marriage, on frequent visits). In this rustic setting, he prowls the grounds wearing chinos, T-shirt, loafers and a beer-can opener strung around his neck.

But he hasn't been content merely to sit around in kidney-shaped swimming pools guzzling brew, nor to rest on his laurels as an actor. Early in 1968, his career assumed a new dimension when he directed his first full-length motion picture, "Rachel, Rachel," on location in Connecticut and New York. Neither he nor his leading lady, Joanne Woodward, took any salary for this self-produced labor of love. While he was still supervising the splicing of completed scenes in a Manhattan projection room, his passion for politics and his disillusionment with the present Administration prompted him to involve himself in the Presidential campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy. In addition to participating in television and radio endorsements of the candidate, he has journeyed on speech-making forays to New Hampshire, Nebraska, Indiana, Oregon and Wisconsin on virtually every weekend since the spring. But this is not his first political band wagon: A liberal Democrat, he had also campaigned diligently for both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson prior to their elections. And his interest in other contemporary issues is neither recent nor limited to partisan politics. Unlike some of his show-business peers, he took a firm stand on civil rights--joining in many marches and demonstrations--long before such militant involvement was fashionable in the movie colony. And some time ago, he embarked on a six-week crash program to absorb everything in print on atomic testing, thermonuclear war, fallout, survival, retaliation and Cold War defense. Emerging from his studies an articulate antiwar advocate, he was soon drafted into McCarthy's peace cause--and into a hot new spotlight. It was at this crossroads in his career that we decided to approach the actor-activist for this exclusive interview.

Following a series of preliminary conversations in Los Angeles with journalist Roy Newquist, Playboy interviewer Richard Warren Lewis joined Newman in Indianapolis just after he had addressed a parking-lot rally in behalf of McCarthy. In contrast to his normally devil-may-care appearance (columnists have voted him regularly to the "Worst Dressed List"), Newman was wearing a conservative gray suit and dark tie--but not his customary weekend beard. Despite his fabled intake of the poor man's bubbly, there was no evidence of a beer belly on his muscular 158-pound physique, which he keeps trim by chopping wood, playing tennis and taking daily sauna baths. Although he had once renounced cigarettes, he was again smoking more than two packs a day. Lighting up a cigarette, he observed that he had defaulted $3500 to friends who wagered he would be unable to permanently resist tobacco.

"After signing autographs, with uncharacteristic patience, for the last of his Indianapolis partisans," Lewis told us, "Newman hustled me onto a jet (he was scheduled to appear on the 'Tony Award Show' in New York that night), eased into his seat, whipped out a McCarthy button and pinned it to my lapel. Thus reassured that I was a friend, he talked at length during the flight to Kennedy, on a helicopter trip to Newark Airport and on a hair-raising drive to New York, strapped behind seat belts in his souped-up Volkswagen. We finally settled in his Manhattan apartment on East 50th Street, where he stretched out on a couch and propped his feet on an antique coffee table while we completed our marathon conversation over several bottles of--not surprisingly--beer. Since the subject was much on his mind, we began by asking him about his involvement in Senator McCarthy's campaign for the Democratic nomination."

[Q] Playboy: For the past several months, you've spent nearly every weekend campaigning tirelessly for Eugene McCarthy throughout the country. What made you become interested in his cause?

[A] Newman: I've admired the man for years--but I admired the hell out of him when he came out against Johnson. Then the McCarthy people called me and asked if I would be interested in taping some things on his behalf, so I went back and checked McCarthy's voting record. I was so fed up with the present Administration that I couldn't resist going to work for him. I found him to be a dedicated, courageous human being. It took guts to lay his cards on the table, to oppose a President who belonged to his own political party. It took guts to put himself on the line--the firing line. There were others who said we had to re-examine our position in Vietnam, who said there had to be an alternative to the war policy of the Johnson Administration--but he was the only one who dared to stake his political career on the strength of that conviction. Since then, others have taken up the cry, but McCarthy was there first. Here is a man who was willing to test the theory of democracy: Is the Government really of the people and by the people? When he won in New Hampshire and the Administration reversed its hard line and made a peace offer, he proved that it still is.

At the beginning, of course, it was regarded as only a token act of resistance--and consequently a lost cause. When I went to work for him, he stood alone. He had no machine. He had himself, his wife, their daughter Mary and one public-relations guy. When I went up to New Hampshire, there was a feeling that those who were against this war were cowards and probably traitors. The New Hampshire governor's office called us "fuzzy thinkers." But all the people who were supposed to have their finger on the pulse of American temperament were desperately wrong. I think McCarthy knew something, when we started out, that we did not know. I think he sensed the true dimensions of the country's confusion, dissatisfaction and disenchantment with this war--and with the way Johnson was running it. People didn't know what or why, but they knew there was something wrong in being told, every four months, that we were winning in Vietnam, at the same time another 200,000 troops were being thrown in. It didn't make sense. But McCarthy's opposition to the war and to Johnson also seemed, on the surface, to be unpopular. But now that Johnson is negotiating, now that there's hope for meaningful talks--thanks to the public pressure created by McCarthy's victory in New Hampshire--the climate changed almost overnight. In just a matter of three weeks, everything reversed itself. Now it's a popular position to be a dove, to oppose our Vietnam policy. Suddenly we're considered patriots and humanitarians. That's really incredible to me.

[Q] Playboy: What do you tell voters on the hustings about McCarthy?

[A] Newman: I tell them about the courage of the man. I tell them about his dedication and integrity as a Senator. I tell them that his credentials are better than anybody else's. And I tell them that he can win; after all, he hasn't lost an election in 20 years.

[Q] Playboy: How closely have you examined his voting record in the Senate?

[A] Newman: Closely enough to know where he stands with labor and the farm movement and the Vietnam war.

[Q] Playboy: Did you know that he has voted to maintain the controversial oil-depletion allowance?

[A] Newman: No, I didn't.

[Q] Playboy: Many political commentators feel that his performance as a legislator has been a singularly undistinguished one. How do you answer that charge?

[A] Newman: I think his record has been very distinguished. He's cosponsored a lot of bills and his basic performance, in both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, has been to motivate the various bodies to examine alternative policies. Senator McCarthy's influence on the Senate has been considerable. He may not be very flamboyant, but that doesn't decrease his contributions.

[Q] Playboy: Apart from his Vietnam stand, what leads you to believe that he's a man of courage?

[A] Newman: He was one of few men in public life who ever dared to confront Joe McCarthy at the height of his career. He was the first man in Congress who was willing to go up and debate Joe. He's a tough, dedicated, thoughtful, graceful human being. The wonderful thing about Gene McCarthy is that he's so many men and of such depth. He's a historian, an internationalist, an economist--and a poet. A touch of the poet isn't bad, you know. It's a fascinating thing to watch him walk into a room. His presence doesn't stop all conversation or electrify people, but when he starts to talk, it's absolute magic. In a matter of minutes, he commands respect and admiration--and it's a kind of respect that pays the ultimate compliment: no pawing, no clawing. How great it would be to have a man with style and dignity in the White House again--someone who was not part of image politics, machine politics; a man who doesn't owe anybody anything.

[Q] Playboy: As a political realist, you must know that the odds against such a man's winning his party's nomination are extremely large.

[A] Newman: Well, I think there's real hope, because one senses that the machines are beginning to crumble. Party bosses just aren't able to hold onto votes anymore. I don't think an endorsement by somebody like Walter Reuther means anything to the rank and file. The patronage period and the age of the bloc vote are on their way out.

[Q] Playboy: In 1964, you campaigned for Lyndon Johnson in Atlantic City, serving as master of ceremonies at a Young Democrat rally in Convention Hall. You also co-hosted a fund-raising party with Lynda Bird Johnson at the Ford estate on Long Island. What impressed you about Johnson at that time?

[A] Newman: I campaigned for Johnson in 1964 because I thought he was the better of two men. That didn't mean that I felt he was the best man for the job. My vote for Johnson and my campaigning for him were really a protest against the policies of Goldwater. But that kind of vote and that kind of commitment don't mean anything. As history has shown, nothing positive can come out of a negative vote.

[Q] Playboy: How do you assess Johnson now?

[A] Newman: Johnson's campaign platform in 1964 said that he wasn't going to escalate the Vietnam war, that he was going to be concerned about the convulsions in our cities. At that time, it seemed to be far better than Mr. Goldwater's position. But I was disenchanted with Johnson very early in the game; particularly with his Vietnam policy, a policy so duplicitous that it's going to be difficult for us to negotiate peace with any kind of trust on the other side--or on ours, for that matter.

[Q] Playboy: The President's bitterest Vietnam critic--and one of Senator McCarthy's rivals for the nomination--is Robert Kennedy. How do you feel about his qualifications for the Presidency?

[A] Newman: He's a very concerned human being about the course of American society. And he's certainly concerned about the Vietnam war. His credentials are good. I just think McCarthy's are better. Where he's got it over Kennedy is that he started out with only conviction and guts and scored a resounding personal achievement. I tell voters who know about Cool Hand Luke: "Let's face it, there is in McCarthy no failure to communicate." The other thing I say is that Bobby Kennedy can't eat 50 eggs.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about the kind of campaign Kennedy's been conducting?

[A] Newman: I don't think it accomplishes anything to run a campaign based on innuendo and cutting people up and getting your shots in. I also think he might have entered the race a little more gracefully; and there is something a little too theatrical about Bobby's oratorical technique--even about his presence. But I suppose I should be grateful for that. Did you know I stole the character of Harper from Bobby Kennedy? The way Bobby listens, at least the one time I've been with him, is very peculiar; there's an odd quality about it. He seems almost inattentive. If you didn't watch him very closely, you'd think he wasn't listening. It's not that there isn't contact; he's really honed in and sharp. But it's not just listening. It's mulling and evaluating; while you're talking, you can see him preparing his rebuttal. It kind of puts you off until you get used to it. I thought that was a nice bit of business for a private detective.

[Q] Playboy: Since Johnson announced his intention of trying to make peace, have you cooled off at all about McCarthy?

[A] Newman: Absolutely not. Regardless of whether or not Johnson was sincere about refusing to run again, we must stick with McCarthy. But now that a peace offer has been made, there are some interesting political possibilities in the offing. If there is a settlement in Vietnam before August--a settlement with some kind of honor for both sides--Johnson would go into the convention as a peace President and there might be a genuine draft for him to change his mind about retiring. I don't think anybody could resist a really honest draft to be President. And despite his disclaimers, I don't think there are many people in the United States who want to be President more than Lyndon Johnson.

[Q] Playboy: If the war is settled by convention time, do you think McCarthy still has a chance of winning the nomination?

[A] Newman: Yes--if the people want to reawaken a sense of pride in what this country is supposed to stand for; if they want to rid themselves of the feeling that the times are out of control, that there is nothing they can do to influence events; if they want to bury the politics of patronage and begin participating in their own Government again. McCarthy's is a one-man fight to shake this country from its lethargy--but he's supported by the people's army.

[Q] Playboy: Your last campaign tour--in 1965, on behalf of your friend Gore Vidal in his unsuccessful bid for a Democratic seat in the House of Representatives--got a good deal less publicity than your support for McCarthy. Didn't you draw any crowds?

[A] Newman: Sure--for all the good it did. Try running for Congress in Upstate New York--with or without a movie star in tow--and see where it gets you. We had the biggest single political rally ever at some town north of Poughkeepsie--1400 people. Joanne was there. I was there. Ina Balin was there. Gore spoke. The next day, in the town's major newspaper, there was a story on page nine--two inches long. It didn't mention that I was there or that Joanne or anybody else was there. It didn't even mention Gore's name. It just said "the Democratic candidate" spoke. The Republican incumbent, of course, made the front page.

[Q] Playboy: Vidal is about to begin writing the screenplay of his latest novel, Myra Breckinridge. There's been a good deal of conjecture in Hollywood over what actor would be most suitable for the title role--a character who undergoes a change of sex. Who do you think it should be?

[A] Newman: It would have to be an actress.

[Q] Playboy: You wouldn't consider yourself a candidate?

[A] Newman: I think I'll pass that one up.

[Q] Playboy: Though not, perhaps, as a prospect for the lead in Myra Breckinridge, your name crops up frequently in the fan-magazine gossip columns. Are they on your reading list?

[A] Newman: I've seen fan-magazine articles about Joanne and me that have made me want to puke. The most banal language--and the fucking nerve to put it in quotes attributed to me!

[Q] Playboy: Many of those articles seem to offer little more than clichéed rehashes of your life story. Would you like to set the record straight?

[A] Newman: Sure. I was actually born the son of a poor Indian renegade who struck oil on the reservation in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Right in the back yard. My mother was a poor, invalided lady. I had to read poetry to her by the hour. My father was dead. At the age of 13, when I started selling Fuller brushes, I was supporting the family. When I was 17, I ran away from home and became a merchant seaman aboard an Iranian tuna fisher. Got laid at the age of 14 by a young Eskimo girl--which is why I've always had such a fond feeling for Eskimo Pies ever since. Soon I learned the old Speedy Gonzales trick of double parking in front of whorehouses. Never got a ticket. Subsequently, I became a lumberjack, a driver of nitroglycerin, an admirer of Brigitte Bardot and one of the great popcorn cookers in the business. Later, I was discovered by Erich Von Stroheim, actually in his latter years, who recommended me with some fervor to Walt Disney. The rest is history. I did my first work as a narrator in cartoons, playing Dumpy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After that, my career blossomed and I graduated to porno pix. There are some of those floating around that my wife doesn't know about.

[Q] Playboy: Thanks, Paul. That biographical put-on is a good example of your satirical attitude toward the star syndrome. Most insiders consider your souped-up Volkswagen an equally irreverent thumb of the nose at Hollywood status symbolism. Is it a kind of reverse snobbery?

[A] Newman: Partly, I suppose--but the main reason is that I'm a Volkswagen nut. I became addicted to them in 1953, when they were the only sensible automobile to have in New York--small car, easy to park, dependable. Then people started kidding me about it: "Why are you driving that underpowered thing around?" I wasn't inclined to give up the Volkswagen, but that bugged me--so I put a Porsche engine in it. But that was only the beginning. Then, piece by piece, I added Porsche brakes, Porsche rims, Dunlop super sport tires, anti-sway bar up front and Koni shocks and Porsche clutch and Porsche transmission. People think I've got a Volkswagen with a Porsche engine, but it's really a Porsche with a Volkswagen body. It took me three years to escalate it to where it is.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you and your wife show up in the Volkswagen at a black-tie Hollywood bash for Princess Grace a few years ago?

[A] Newman: I drive the car wherever I go. As we arrived at The Bistro that night, people outside applauded when they saw this bug pulling up amidst all those Cadillacs and Rolls-Royces. But I've never been terribly concerned about status one way or another. I don't reverse it for any particular purpose. I've always felt there were certain unnecessary things about Hollywood: public relations, being seen, going out to night clubs, having your picture in the newspaper, the whole bit. I've never gone along with it. It just never interested me. I don't think I have more than seven suits right now--three in Los Angeles, two in Connecticut and two in New York. I used to have exactly one tie--black knit. Now that I've got seven suits, though, I've bought some more. I suppose I've got six ties now.

[Q] Playboy: Going Hollywood?

[A] Newman: Yeah, it finally gets to you. You finally capitulate.

[Q] Playboy: One of the most popular measures of Hollywood status is having a dish named after you at a restaurant such as La Scala or Stefanino's. Have you ever been so honored?

[A] Newman: Yeah, but I've forgotten the dish I was in bed with. God, it's all so ridiculous. That George Hamilton kind of hokum doesn't play so much a part anymore. Maybe it paid off for him, but I'm not your typical movie star. I can't even stand going to premieres.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Newman: All that grabby approbation makes me claustrophobic. I could understand it for U Thant or Gene McCarthy or someone else who's actively involved in steering the course of events. I can understand adulation on that level. In the early days of films, the movie star in this country replaced royalty. There was no royalty in this country, so movie stars filled the bill. They've been demoted since then, but they're still treated like beings larger than life. Well, I don't want to be part of supporting that fraud. That's why I've never made a personal appearance to promote a picture. In 14 years, I've been to a premiere of my own movie only once--an Actors Studio benefit for Cool Hand Luke.

[Q] Playboy: You made your first film within a year after you were accepted at the Studio, didn't you?

[A] Newman: Yes. I began my career most auspiciously. I had the privilege of doing the worst motion picture filmed during the Fifties--The Silver Chalice. Everybody thinks it was a disaster just because it was terrible, but I say it wasn't. It's like juvenile delinquency; if you can be the worst kid on your block, you make a name for yourself. How many other actors have you spoken to who can say with complete objectivity that they were in the worst motion picture made in the Fifties--a film that cost $4,500,000? That makes me very special. But when they ran The Silver Chalice on Los Angeles television three or four years ago, I took out ads in the newspapers apologizing for what was going to happen on channel nine that night. But it backfired. Everybody wanted to know what I was apologizing for, and the picture ended up with the second or third highest rating of any picture that station had ever shown on the idiot box. That's one of the great things you have to learn in this business. If you want to survive, you have to show your ass. You have to humiliate and embarrass yourself. You can't just walk in and play it safe.

[Q] Playboy: What was your reaction when you saw The Silver Chalice for the first time?

[A] Newman: I was horrified, traumatized; it's a good thing I was also drunk. It was in Philadelphia, where we were trying out The Desperate Hours. A friend of mine had come up from New York to see the play. Afterward, about ten of us went to this little all-night movie house to see my screen debut. We must have smuggled four cases of beer into that place. And we finished them all. This friend of mine, who had just recovered from hepatitis, couldn't drink. They had a musical going on afterward and he wanted to see it, so he stayed. We got halfway down the block when another guy realized he had left his gloves in the theater. So we went back. The usher shoved his light underneath the seats. There was this one guy sitting in the middle of four cases of empty beer cans. He looked like the guy who passes gas at a party.

[Q] Playboy: You made The Silver Chalice for Warner Bros. According to all accounts, you had a rather stormy relationship with that studio in the years that followed.

[A] Newman: You might say that. I originally signed a contract with Warners' at $1000 a week. By the time I bought out of my contract for $500,000 several years later, they were paying me a princely $17,500 a picture. They would lend me out for $75,000 and take the difference. One time, I remember, they reneged on an outside film they had promised me; so I told Jack Warner to go fuck himself--and this was very early in the game, when I really couldn't afford to tell him to go fuck himself. But I didn't really give a damn. When I later went back to the studio to do Harper, Warner came down the first week of rehearsals. I said, "How are ya?" Reaching into his coat pocket, he said, "You smoke cigars?" I said, "No, I only smoke people, Jack. You know that." He laughed, and the photographers came around, and there were pictures of Jack and me smiling together. A few Christmases ago. I sent out greeting cards to the people who know about me and Warner. On the front they said, "Peace on Earth." You turn the page and find that smiling picture of me and Jack together again, over the heart-warming line "Good Will Toward Men." The people who really know me realized that it was one of the great shots of the year and absolutely broke up dying with laughter. I sent one to Warner, too. He thought it was marvelous. What an extraordinary man. I've never known a greater vulgarian--not even Khrushchev; he calls my wife "Joan." On second thought, I'll have to take that back about his being the greatest vulgarian. He's only the second greatest. The champ happens to be another legendary Hollywood mogul--but he'll have to remain nameless. Do you want to hear a priceless story about him, though?

[Q] Playboy: Sure.

[A] Newman: Well, there are so many wild tales about this guy that you can't be sure which ones are true--but knowing him as I do, I suspect this one is completely authentic. Anyway, this mogul--let's call him Frebish--is walking down the street on his way to the studio commissary, and he spots this incredibly well-stacked chick sashaying out of a sound stage. He turns to one of his entourage who's tracking him down the street and says, "Who's that girl across the street over there?" The flunky tells him; she was soon to become a major sex star, whose name would be familiar to you, so I won't mention it. Let's call her Barbara Musk. "What does she do?" asks Frebish. "Is she a secretary?" "No, she's been under contract here for nine months. Mr. Frebish." So he walks over and says. "How do you do, Miss Musk. My name is Frebish and I have something to do with the running of the studio. I've watched your progress on this lot with a great deal of enthusiasm and admiration. I just thought you might like to stop by my office at about six o'clock tonight and we can talk over your career in greater depth." Well, that night, promptly at six, this broad shows up--and she's got this big, strapping muscleman with her. Frebish is terribly taken aback, but he chitchats for about five minutes and then says. "Tell me, Miss Musk. I'm just curious, but why did you bring your friend along?" She said, "Well, I thought if I was going to get banged, maybe Mrs. Frebish would like a little, too."

[Q] Playboy: Great story. Old-line Hollywood thinking prevailed to a very large degree at the recent Academy Awards ceremony. What was your reaction to the Academy's virtual rejection of such popular, excellent and innovative films as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Cool Hand Luke?

[A] Newman: That would just be speculation, but maybe it was because Warner Bros. had Camelot, Cool Hand Luke and Bonnie and Clyde up for awards; that might have split the vote. But In the Heat of the Night had the kind of civil rights message that people might well have been inclined to support as much as they would good performances. It was strange, though, that it was named the best picture; it's possible that there was bloc voting involved.

[Q] Playboy: The role played by bloc voting, economic considerations and industry sentiment--rather than artistic merit--in the selection of Oscar winners has been criticized increasingly in recent years. Do you think it's justified?

[A] Newman: To a great extent, yes. Winners aren't always picked on a nonmerit basis, by any means, but it happens so often that I'm genuinely surprised when the best actor and the best picture and the best director actually win an award. I think Joanne's Oscar, for example, really came from a ground swell. For some reason, the Academy members decided to vote for the best actress of the year.

[Q] Playboy: In many marriages between actors and actresses, especially in Hollywood, there is a continuous race to see who gets to look into the mirror first each morning. Has Joanne's accolade from the Academy--and the fact that you haven't gotten one yourself--caused any problems?

[A] Newman: No--but you know what I'd like to do? I'd like to win about 69 nominations--I think that's an interesting number--and at the age of 90, crawl on my hands and knees, ridden with arthritis, to pick up an Oscar. That would be kind of stylish. It's nice to be nominated, but I don't think my life will be incomplete if I never win an Oscar.

[Q] Playboy: Considering your distaste for publicity, it seems incongruous that you and Joanne would have consented, as you did a few years ago, to perform that hokey Hollywood ritual of immortalizing your footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater--both in one cement block.

[A] Newman: No man can go through life totally pure--but I was the only person who ever did it barefoot. There was really something nice about standing there with cement between my toes. When I'm in the old-actors' home and I've been forgotten, I'll always be able to look back and say, "Well, that was the week that was."

[Q] Playboy: Despite your antiestablishment approach to most Hollywood customs, you have a reputation for doing your homework--thoroughly researching your roles before stepping in front of the cameras. Do you discuss your characterization ahead of time with the screenwriter, or are you simply given a character and told how to play it?

[A] Newman: I never ask them to mold a character to my needs. It's a disaster when they start to tailor the part to fit the actor. If you're going to showcase, go to Vegas. But sometimes I ask them to mold a scene around a very specific intention. Like in The Hustler, the scene on the hill, where Fast Eddie talked about what it'd be like to be a pool player. I just knew that somehow that had to be tied in with the aspirations of everybody--bricklayer or ballplayer--to be somebody. No matter what he does, a guy has to get a big feeling from it. He doesn't have to be Secretary of State; if he gets a big feeling from whatever he does well, then that's the pay-off; that makes it all worth while.

If I feel that a character is close to me, my homework is minimal. I'm great at writing voluminous notes to myself on the back of a script. It all breaks down to the way the character walks or uses his hands, his motions and his movements. I think that once you get the physical quality of a character, the inner person comes by itself. In The Secret War of Harry Frigg, for example. I got the guy's walk down because a fellow in my squadron during the War used to walk a special way, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that Private Frigg should walk that way. You see, the actor's got to come to the part; the part doesn't come to the actor. Before I did Somebody Up There Likes Me, I almost lived with Rocky Graziano for two weeks. I'd meet him at ten o'clock in the morning and I wouldn't get home until four o'clock the next morning. We went down to his old neighborhood, went up to Stillman's gymnasium. But I could see he didn't want to talk about his family. So one night at the Embers, Bob Wise, the director, and I tried to get Rocky stoned so that he'd loosen up and talk about himself. The fact is that Rocky loosened us up. We told him our life histories. He poured us into two taxicabs. It was a funny evening. Anyway, I never did really absorb the character; though I certainly sponged a lot, I wound up being a Graziano rather than the Graziano.

[Q] Playboy: Do you always throw yourself so bodily into your parts?

[A] Newman: I try to. Before Hud, I lived in a bunkhouse in Texas for ten days. For The Outrage, I lived in Mexico for two weeks. I sniffed around, found out as much about the character and the locale as I could. But with Harper. I simply got drunk. I had read the script a few times and I was flying from Liverpool to New York when I started reading it again. I made certain specific and prolific notes, like "Funnier line here" or "What does his car look like?," just gathering in the idea of the properties--almost like painting the undercoating of the part, using a primer. I started drinking and making notes at 8:45; by 10:30. I was a little stoned and writing up a storm. By 12:50, I was blasted out of my skull; I could barely read my writing later, but it still made sense. I remember scrawling "Chewing gum" and "Do it detached." About 85 percent of my notes worked. So that character really grew on the flight from Liverpool to New York--boozily, but logically.

[Q] Playboy: How else do you prepare for a part?

[A] Newman: I usually give the studio two weeks of free rehearsal to set things. Torn Curtain is the only picture I've made since 1956 that didn't involve rehearsal, but that was partially my fault. I'd been in a motorcycle accident and my hand was banged up pretty badly. I hit a puddle and lost the back end. I did that in a Formula III racing car, too. It's a funny sensation; you just sit there and watch the rear end catch up with you and pass you. Twenty-four dollars' damage to the bike, but I had to have skin grafts on four fingers; no more finger close-ups on that hand. And I had third-degree asphalt burns. The next day, I sold the three bikes I owned. But I've always enjoyed speed. Before I got the sauna bath, it was a great way to wake up in the morning. Sometimes you just look for a way to relieve the pressure; having that old brute bike out on the front porch, getting on it after dinner and ripping across Mulholland Drive was great therapy.

[Q] Playboy: You were talking about rehearsals.

[A] Newman: Oh, yeah--I was going to say that rehearsal gives me a chance not to sit and intellectualize about a part but to get up on my feet and run through it, the same as I used to do for television shows. For television rehearsals, they used to put a little tape on the floor and say, "That's a wall," and they put four chairs together and said, "That's a bed," and you followed those outlines without resorting to too much intellectualizing. This kind of experience has helped give a certain solidity to what I finally do when the cameras start rolling. If you can rehearse a dozen key scenes with the other actors and get the style and the progression of the character, you've got the part licked.

[Q] Playboy: The early days of television--before the emergence of taped and filmed shows--were famous for on-camera mishaps. Did you have any yourself?

[A] Newman: I'll say. I remember once, in a military drama, when I had to salute another officer. The show went on, the moment came--and I had my fly unzipped. My shirttail was sticking out--just the shirttail, fortunately. But despite its perils, television dramas were exciting and vibrant in those days--because they were live. Men like Tad Mosel and Paddy Chayefsky and Max Shulman were writing for television, and they made it an inventive era. Call it kitchen sink, inner search, what have you--it was great. The trouble was, as it turned out, that what could have been good Broadway plays were burned out in a single night on Robert Montgomery Presents, Philco Playhouse, Studio One and the rest of them. That whole glorious period of television disappeared and nothing has come along to replace it.

[Q] Playboy: Since those early days, you haven't had much of a chance for experimentation. Perhaps as a result, many of your recent movies--Hud, Harper, Hombre, Cool Hand Luke--have tended to cast you in the same kind of role. Are you aware of these redundancies?

[A] Newman: My God, yes. There are few actors who can avoid that. Only the great, great actors have an inexhaustible source of variety. Brando, when he's really on, when he's interested, when he's involved, can do it. So can Olivier and Guinness. My wife, Joanne, can do it. But not me.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Newman: Because I'm running out of steam, that's why. Wherever I look, I find parts that are reminiscent of Luke or Hud or Fast Eddie. Christ, I played those parts once and parts of them more than once. It's not only dangerous to repeat yourself, it's goddamned tiresome.

[Q] Playboy: So why don't you stop accepting that kind of role?

[A] Newman: That's easier said than done. I haven't been picking my roles by design. I do the most challenging parts that I'm offered; I have to depend on what the screenwriters throw at me. The first thing I look for is the best script that's offered to me at the time I'm free to work. If an actor waited for beautiful scripts, he'd work once every three or four years; by that I mean scripts he can really dig, really get hopped up about. I look for a script that will make a distinguished picture of its type--a distinguished comedy, a distinguished drama, a distinguished melodrama. Then I look for some kind of originality in the character; I look, particularly, to find if it's someone I haven't played before. I think most of the pictures I've done have been pretty good. But all too often--and increasingly in the past few years--I suppose I haven't found as much originality in my parts as I've been looking for. Depth and detail, yes; but not too much originality.

[Q] Playboy: Of the parts you're talking about, which have you found most rewarding in this sense?

[A] Newman: I think the best work I've done was in The Outrage--a picture that never got any attention or real circulation at all. But there are so many different things an actor looks for and finds, in terms of satisfaction. If you're under contract and you're given a terrible script and make it at least mediocre, you can say, "This is a great achievement." It's actually no less of an achievement than a picture like The Hustler, which had a marvelous script and a great character with thickness and dimension. There was so much in that part that I went to the studio every day muttering, "I've got five different ways to play this thing." Playing Harper was a ball for the same reason--a character who would absorb any kind of dramatic invention I could give him. Same with Hud. Yet I come back, always, to Hud, because a great many sociological observations were implied in it, in addition to the dimension of the role itself. To me, Hud made the simple statement that people sometimes grow up at tragic expense to other people. It was a wide study of a particular dilemma of our time. I tried to give Hud all the superficial external graces, including the right swing of the body. I took out as many wrinkles as possible. I indicated that he boozed very well, was great with the broads, had a lot of guts, was extraordinarily competent at his job, but had a single tragic flaw: He didn't give a goddamn what happened to anyone else. That tragic flaw simply went over everybody's head--especially the reviewers'--and he became a kind of antihero, especially among teenagers. One review I'll never forget: It said that Hud was quite a marvelous picture. "The only problem," the reviewer wrote, "is that Paul Newman is playing the part, because basically, he has a face that doesn't look lived in." But Jesus Christ, that's exactly what made the bastard dangerous. The whole point of the character is that he has a face that doesn't look lived in. How could he have missed the whole point to such an extraordinary degree? At that exact moment, I realized I should stop reading reviews. And I haven't read one since. Critics don't know what the hell they're talking about, anyway. You get a big fat head if reviews are good and you go into fits of depression if they're bad. Who needs either?

[Q] Playboy: Some psychiatrists maintain, as we're sure you know, that actors are basically insecure people in a permanent identity crisis who need roles to play because they have none of their own. Do you think that description fits you?

[A] Newman: When I decided to go into acting, I wasn't "searching for my identity"; I didn't have grease paint in my blood. I was just running away from the family retail business--and from merchandising. I just couldn't find any romance in it. Acting was a happy alternative to a way of life that meant nothing to me. But I do agree that most of the actors I know are pretty badly screwed up. And with good cause. Especially the ones who have made it and then faded as a result of a very picky and vacillating public. If a man studies to be a lawyer, starts with a law firm and goes up two rungs, he can be fairly sure that even if he doesn't reach the tenth rung, he'll eventually get to the fourth or fifth if he's reasonably competent and hard working and, even if he's only mediocre, that he'll be able to hang on at number two until retirement age. But an actor starts out almost like a politician. He can be a very strong contender and all of a sudden--through no fault of his own--he's completely out of the race. So the business does not tend to build a very secure foundation.

You often hear it said that actors are children. Well, most of them don't start out that way; but unless they're very sure of who they are and what they want, the business soon turns them into children. The unnatural way they're treated--the adulation, the deification of externals--fosters narcissism and infantile self-preoccupation. Pat my pretty face, lower the brassiere strap a little; show off that beautiful body. Actors and actresses are fawned and hovered over, cajoled, flattered, primped. Everybody tries to curry their favor. They light you, powder you, cover your blotches, color your hair, tailor your clothes. And all of these things they do to make you more beautiful ultimately serve as a conspiracy against you not only as a human being but as an actor. Even if it doesn't destroy your humanity by stuffing your ego to the bursting point like the liver of a Strasbourg goose--all to make pâté de foie gras--that constant maelstrom of attention infringes on your concentration and dissipates your performance. Every two minutes, you've got to stop while they dust your eyebrow, spray a tabletop, rearrange a light, relocate a camera. It's as if you had to run the 100-yard dash from nine o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night--all in two-foot steps. It's on, it's off. On, off. Start the motor. Stop it. Start it again. Pretty soon your battery runs down--or you blow a fuse.

[Q] Playboy: How do you fill the endless waits between scenes?

[A] Newman: Various ways. Sometimes I play poker. Once, when Martin Balsam and I were on location in Arizona for Hombre, we had to wait hours for the wind to let up one day. To kill the time, we decided to classify fucking. We got all the psychological classifications. There was sport fucking. There was mercy fucking, which would be reserved for spinsters and librarians. There was the hate fuck, the prestige fuck--and the medicinal fuck, which is, "Feel better now, sweetie?" It just goes to show you what happens when you're stuck on location on the top of a mountain. Your mind wanders slightly.

[Q] Playboy: While we're on the subject, you might be interested to hear the results of a recent poll of playboy's secretarial staff on their sexual preference among movie stars: You were the winner by a landslide. From all accounts, that opinion seems to be reflected by the majority of the country's female moviegoers. As a capable and serious actor, how does it make you feel to be considered the country's number-one male sex star?

[A] Newman: I suppose I should feel flattered, but to think that after Hud and Cool Hand Luke and all the other pictures I've done and all the parts I've dug into, I come off as the guy women would most like to go to bed with--it's frightening. You break your ass for 18 years working at your craft and a lady comes up and says, "Please take off your dark glasses so I can see your blue eyes." If I died today, they might write on my tombstone: "Here lies Paul Newman, died at the age of 43, a failure because his eyes turned brown." It's really awful. I'd like to think there's a mind functioning somewhere in Paul Newman, and a soul, and a political conscience, and a talent that extends beyond the blueness of my eyes--and my capacity for bedroom gymnastics.

[Q] Playboy: Yet the public--particularly women--tends to associate you with the sexy wise-guy parts you play. Don't you have anything in common with such cool studs as Hud?

[Q] Newman: Absolutely nothing. All I do is inhabit the characters I play. They have nothing to do with me personally. The major character trait of Hud is the fact that he had no kind of hook into the community. In the final analysis, he was a very selfish and egocentric human being. He wouldn't be campaigning for McCarthy. Nor would he give a damn about anybody else's civil rights but his own. But let's not just talk about me and my roles. The same is true of any good actor or actress. Take Joanne in Rachel, Rachel, the first full-length film I've directed. Study that virginal face and that tightly controlled smile and the pinched way in which she carries her body. It's got nothing to do with the lady when she gets home and takes off the make-up. The same is true of me. It's going to be interesting to find out what the public reaction to Rachel, Rachel is, because that picture is probably more me than anything I've ever done.

[Q] Playboy: In what way?

[A] Newman: It says something I've always felt needed to be said but never had a chance to say. It singles out the unspectacular heroism of the sort of person you wouldn't even notice if you passed him on the street. The steps the characters take are really the steps that humanity takes--not the Churchills, not the Roosevelts, not the Napoleons, but the little people who cast no shadow and leave no footprints. Maybe it can encourage the people who see it to take those little steps in life that can lead to something bigger. Maybe they won't; but the point of the movie is that you've got to take the steps, regardless of the consequences.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of steps are you taking now in your own life?

[A] Newman: I don't know that I'm really taking any. Friends tell me how marvelous it is that I'm taking the big step from acting to directing. But there's very little difference between the two. It's still a communal experience. At its best, the relationship between the actor and the director involves the use of two minds instead of one. If they mesh, it's a give and take, where you end up not knowing who triggered what--but the result is a better picture. I do think, though, that the director can make the film his medium to a degree an actor can't--by being incredibly perceptive about his actors and the inner relationships of the characters in the picture, about economy in acting, in breaking down a script and finding the major beats and giving the actors a physical presence. But too many directors try to dominate the medium by striving to achieve emotion through mechanical effects. I've seen many cases where the rigidity of the technical approach has deprived the public of what could have been truly great scenes. I think a director can heighten effects by the interesting use of his camera, by the appropriate and tasteful use of music; but camera tricks and a loud musical score don't add up to cinematic art all by themselves.

[Q] Playboy: You've been planning to direct a feature film for years. What made you decide to do Rachel, Rachel?

[A] Newman: I read the script, felt it would be great for Joanne, and recommended it to her. Then I began to feel that certain improvements could be made in it. Finally, I began to get so involved with it that I decided I had to direct the damn thing myself. It's all a bit like the Vietnam war and how it came about--initial participation in an advisory capacity escalating into total involvement. But the whole thing was absolute agony. I lined up the production, financed it, cast it, hired the production crews, spotted locations and shot the entire film, all in five weeks. Every day there was a series of crises, and the days lasted 14 to 15 hours, seven days a week. I thought it would never end.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get along with the cast and crew?

[A] Newman: I called them all together on the first day and confessed that I was a virgin and told them I wasn't sensitive to criticism and that they would be able to make suggestions--once--on a given point. They did--sometimes more than once; but we got along fine.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have a feeling of De Millean power when you said "Action" for the first time?

[A] Newman: No, just a lot of clanging knees, sweaty palms and bitten fingernails. You can measure the degree of my tranquility by the length of my nails.

[Q] Playboy: It really spoils the image. Maybe you could use Fabulous Fakes.

[A] Newman: They'll have to take me the way I am. The hair's getting a little gray and the nails are getting a little short.

[Q] Playboy: Was there any friction between you and your wife during the filming of Rachel, Rachel?

[A] Newman: Oh, yeah. We had several squats and squabbles--big ones. There are never little ones in our family. But it had nothing to do with work. In terms of actually working, Joanne and I never had one harsh word in that entire period. It was really amazing. We were working on a scene and at one point she got up and said, "I just can't do it." I said, "OK. Show me what you want to do." So she showed me--and it was better than the way it was written. The marvelous thing about our working together is basically that we trust each other.

[Q] Playboy: Is your marriage as successful as it's reported to be?

[A] Newman: Well, as I just pointed out, it's not always fine and dandy--it involves two people with very different approaches and attitudes to things--but I think it has a certain thickness to it. We go through periods where we think we're bad parents and periods where we think we see each other only as reflections of ourselves--all the usual jazz. But there's affection and respect and a good deal of humor. We've also been very fortunate in that we haven't had to be separated all that much. I must say that it's due as much to Joanne's intelligence as to my insistence. When we did Exodus in Israel, for example, we simply took everything with us. She's had many opportunities to go abroad or on location by herself, and she's turned these offers down in order to stay with me; she's done this to the detriment of her career, I'm afraid; but it's helped to keep us together.

We're not public people and I think that's helped, too. We entertain at home, usually very small groups of people for dinner. But last year, when Gore Vidal returned from Rome, Joanne said to me, "Let's have a big party for Gore. He hasn't seen hardly anyone since he's been back." I said, "All right, you have your big party and I'll be one of the guests. I'll play pool the whole goddamn night." Steve McQueen was there. So were Arthur Loew, Rock Hudson and Marty Ritt, among others. But it really wasn't my cup of tea. McQueen and I finally wound up playing 14 racks of pool. One of the columnists wrote, "The Newmans threw a party last night. They've been here for ten years and they finally threw a party." That's how social we are. Even if we were social, we wouldn't have time for it. When you're raising three children continuously and six part of the time, and you've got a couple of houses to run and you want to do it yourself and you still want to have a career, it's kind of tough to remain in good standing with the beautiful people. In other words, it's not a glamorous Hollywood marriage. Sometimes, in fact, we have the feeling that we're being tugged and pulled and put upon and exist only for other people and not for ourselves.

[Q] Playboy: What do you do for privacy?

[A] Newman: We have an apartment in New York we slip away to now and then. And at our house in Beverly Hills, we have a billiard and dressing room, out by the swimming pool, where we spend a good deal of time unwinding. I remember we were staying there right after I lost the Academy Award for The Hustler. I was really hurt by that one. I thought old Fast Eddie was a fairly original character. Anyway, being the perfect therapist. Joanne dragged me out by the hand to the garage. We had a little hideaway out there really away from the family. She said, "We're going to take a little caviar and a little champagne out there and watch a very bad show on television." We never got around to the show.

[Q] Playboy: To have remained married to the same woman for ten years is unusual enough in your profession, but to do so without rumors or gossip-column items even hinting at an extramarital affair in all that time is almost unique. How have you managed to resist the temptations?

[A] Newman: I know this is going to sound corny, but there's no reason to roam. I have steak at home; why should I go out for a hamburger?

[Q] Playboy: Does Joanne think you're as sexy as your female fans find you?

[A] Newman: If I tell her to go drop dead on a particular afternoon, she doesn't think I'm too sexy. But under ordinary circumstances, she does--and vice versa.

[Q] Playboy: You and Joanne spend most of your time between pictures--and political campaigns--at your home in Westport, Connecticut. Would it be nosy of us to ask why you call it Nook House?

[A] Newman: When we bought the house and we came back to Los Angeles, I hadn't seen the older kids for a while. We were describing the place to them. They said, "My gosh, it sounds marvelous." We had been trying to think of a name for it. Suzie, who at that time must have been nine, said, "Well, it sounds like it's got a lot of nooks and crannies in it. Why don't you call it Nook House?" I said, "Nook House it is," knowing full well that someday some dirty old man would ask me the question you just asked.

[Q] Playboy: Sorry. Your bed at Nook House has been described by Tennessee Williams as 19th Century Bordello. How would you characterize it?

[A] Newman: Well, I've never seen a brass bed as big as this one. Three could sleep in it very comfortably. We found it in New Orleans. We figure it must once have stood in a cathouse; there'd be no other reason to make a bed that big.

[Q] Playboy: What sustains you and Joanne at Nook House--apart from your well-known penchant for popcorn?

[A] Newman: There are people who eat to stay alive and others who stay alive to eat. I put myself in the first category. I am not a sensualist concerning food. But Joanne is rather a good cook; she makes the best hollandaise sauce I've ever eaten. And no one quarrels with my hamburgers or my celery salad: chopped-up hearts of celery, a little olive oil, a little cold water, some wine vinegar and a lot of salt and pepper. It's justifiably famous.

[Q] Playboy: The area in Connecticut where you live has been widely publicized in the past several years for police raids on teenage sex, booze and pot parties. You have a 17-year-old son, Scott, a high school senior. As a parent, what do you advise him about such subjects?

[A] Newman: Either we're going to have to legalize pot and confiscate booze or confiscate pot and legalize booze. It should be one way or the other. I've tried pot and it doesn't move me, so I guess I tend toward booze. But maybe meditation is the best answer for a person trying to get either outside or inside of himself. It's unfortunate if one has to do that with booze or drugs; I would like to see it self-initiated and self-fulfilled. Ultimately, of course, a man must be satisfied to live inside his own skin, to recognize and accept his flaws and strengths to be able to function as a free agent without having to escape himself. But even on this level, there's no question that marijuana is less harmful than liquor, if it doesn't go beyond that. It doesn't make sense that I can go to a public bar for a couple of martinis and not get arrested, while those who choose to sit around minding their own business and smoking pot are risking a misdemeanor charge.

[Q] Playboy: Under Federal law it's a felony.

[A] Newman: That only underlines my point. The use of marijuana must be legalized, standardized and regulated Federally. But it's up to the kids to either change the laws or abide by them.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel the same way about the kids who have gone to Canada to avoid the draft?

[A] Newman: It really depends on whether each individual has a deep-seated aversion to killing--religious or otherwise--or whether he's the kind of person who goofs off from any kind of responsibility. But whatever their reason for running away, something's got to be done to make them want to come back. I would create a climate of amnesty. There are other ways that a man can serve his country without killing for it. Perhaps we could double the usual term of draft service in noncombatant jobs--with the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Peace Corps or the VISTA program. I think we should all spend time in service to our country, but I don't think anybody should have to fight for our country, "right or wrong." If it's wrong to fight, it's wrong to kill. Killing people is never going to save the world from communism--or for democracy.

[Q] Playboy: Are you a pacifist, then?

[A] Newman: It depends on who you're fighting--and why. I can't say that I'm flatly against killing under any circumstances. I would kill in defense of my own family. I could kill in self-defense, I suppose. And I could kill if somebody invaded my country. But to kill Vietnamese, to slaughter them wholesale, in an undeclared war against other Vietnamese halfway around the world, at the request of a corrupt puppet regime that doesn't reflect the will of its own people--that I couldn't do. That kind of war I consider not only illegal but immoral. Which brings us back to why I've involved myself in the campaign to nominate Senator McCarthy.

[Q] Playboy: Along with several other prominent movie people who have become activists in the antiwar and civil rights struggles, you've been criticized in some quarters for using your fame to sway public opinion on matters with which you're not equipped to deal. How do you feel about that attitude?

[A] Newman: I've seen a lot of Senators--Eastland, Passman, among others--who have a much greater sway than they're entitled to. Who's to say who's an expert? Just because I can sway more people than I have a right to, does that mean that I'm not entitled to my opinions or to voice them? The world situation affects us, as movie people, as much as it does anyone else. Naturally, we've got to be careful about using our disproportionate "image power" to sway public opinion by speaking out on the issues. But you've got a choice. Do you abdicate the responsibilities of citizenship merely because you carry a Screen Actors' Guild card? Or do you dig deeply and become as knowledgeable and expert as you can and speak your piece and hope your weight is being thrown on the right side? As a feeling, thinking American, I have to get involved. The times are too crucial, the priorities too urgent, for anyone to stand aside.

Kindly people sometimes come up to me and say, "Why take a chance? It can't help you professionally to get involved." My response is, "Kiss off!" Of course it can't help me. If you speak up--no matter what you say--you're going to make enemies. But a man with no enemies is a man with no character. So you've got to decide whether you care more about your own self-interest or about your deeply felt convictions as a human being.

[Q] Playboy: If you feel as strongly as you say about the issues of the day, why don't you run for public office?

[A] Newman: I think if I really got serious about it, I could run for Congress and probably make it--but it would be a tragedy for the nation.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Newman: I just don't think I have the equipment--not that this total lack of preparation has bothered some actors. Like Ronald Reagan, whose views on foreign policy are so antiquated and simplistic as to be open to derision. If he had a slogan, it would be "Pave Vietnam." No, I think I carry my credentials about as far as they can go by supporting those who are qualified for office. I have built up, in my profession, a certain amount of respect and a certain amount of power. To move into a profession in which I would have no respect, no power and very little savvy, I think I'd have to be a little bit crazy. And if I wasn't when I started. I would be by the time I was elected. I just don't have the temperament. I'd get too impatient with all the machinery. And I've got too short a fuse to survive the ordeal of a campaign; it's hard enough as a booster; it would be impossible as a candidate.

[Q] Playboy: Until you began stumping for McCarthy, you were very much involved in the civil rights movement. In view of the recent moves toward peace--and the deepening racial crisis--wouldn't you accomplish more by redirecting your efforts to the Negro struggle?

[A] Newman: Look, I can't do everything about everything. I haven't had a vacation in a year. I'm trying to get my finances straightened out. Right now. I'm mixing and cutting Rachel, Rachel. And I'm giving every minute of my weekends to the McCarthy campaign. Besides that, I'm working on three separate projects--one as an actor [his next film, Winning--Ed.], two as a producer. In my spare time, I'm also trying to raise a family. At some point, you have to say, "I give up." I just don't have the time to take on another cause.

[Q] Playboy: If you did, what would be the nature of your involvement in the civil rights movement?

[A] Newman: Well, there are two major areas we have to move ahead in. There's legislation, which is essential and important but which does very little to end actual discrimination; and there's participation, which offers meaningful and useful programs of self-improvement and self-determination to the Negro. Retaining Head Start, Middle Start, Late Start--these are programs that can really help people. The most important of all are the actual work programs, those that produce real jobs. It doesn't help a ghetto boy if our country has 80-percent open housing, because he can't get out of the ghetto. Twenty-two percent of the Negro population between age 16 and age 24 is unemployed. Jobs are what counts.

[Q] Playboy: So you don't think the recently passed open-housing law is significant?

[A] Newman: It's necessary but, as I say, what does it do for the kids in the ghetto? The new law may help a very small group of Negroes with good jobs, who can afford to go out and pay the rent or buy a house. But these people don't really need help. The programs that are going to be most helpful in actually eliminating sociological and economical differences between the races cannot exist while we continue to throw 30 billion dollars a year into the Vietnamese conflict; and that's only the 30 billion dollars you can see and count. I think we're also spending another 20 that isn't so visible. Something must be done to recapture the great pot of money and manpower that is being dissipated in a war that most realistic, hardheaded military minds concede is unwinnable. Lyndon Johnson might really have become a fine President, but he got bogged down in a war that finally blew his whole domestic program--the Great Society, which could have been the instrument of America's racial redemption.

[Q] Playboy: In April, Marlon Brando announced that he was abandoning his film career--and a starring role in The Arrangement--to devote his time to studying and working on Negro problems. How do you feel about his decision?

[A] Newman: I'm proud of him. I think he's trying to show that white people are not only serious but sincere about working for racial justice.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think he'll succeed?

[A] Newman: I don't know what you can give more than your full time. Brando has announced his total commitment to the task of opening the lines of communication between the races. Maybe he can serve as a sort of liaison between the white community and the militant black community. Communication has always been a major problem.

[Q] Playboy: Long before the current upsurge of racial unrest, you participated in the 1963 March on Washington. You also visited Gadsden, Alabama, the site of several racial incidents in the heart of the "black belt." Did you find conditions there as oppressive as in Marks, Mississippi, the focal point of the poor people's movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference?

[A] Newman: Not quite that bad--but it's a terribly depressed area. I heard the biggest double-talking bullshit from the head of the white Christian community down there. But the local Negro leadership wasn't much more enlightened. Out of that whole bunch we talked to in Gadsden, there was just one guy--a Negro doctor who owned the motel we stayed at--who really knew what was going on and cared enough to do something about it. The trouble is that most of the Negroes down there are not only brainwashed but uneducated. I talked to one of the SNCC workers down there, a very bright young man, who told me that the white kids graduating from the public schools in the South wind up with the equivalent of a ninth-or tenth-grade education, but the colored kids average around a sixth-grade education. It's been 14 years since separate but unequal education was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but nothing has really changed. And the same applies to jobs and housing; despite corrective legislation and judicial rulings and a decade of nonviolent demonstrations, de facto racial injustice remains almost as intact as it was 100 years ago. Is it any surprise that many Negroes have begun to despair of asking for their rights and decided that they'll have to take them?

[Q] Playboy: Do you condone racial violence?

[A] Newman: Of course not. If this crisis can be resolved by reason and by brotherhood, rather than by bloodshed, that would be the highest goal to which we could aspire. But if you look back into our history, that hasn't been the American way. We like to think of ourselves as a peace-loving people, but this country was born and raised in violence. We forget that the American Revolution was a terminal act of civil disobedience. All the way down through the years--the Indian wars, the New York draft riots of 1863, the labor riots of the 1920s, the Presidential assassinations--runs a deep strain of violence. The only thing that seems to be different nowadays is that there's a lot more violence without obvious motivation.

[Q] Playboy: Would you place the murder of Martin Luther King in that category?

[A] Newman: It seems fairly clear that it was the act of a white racist--but even if it wasn't, the implications are terrible to contemplate. If assassination is going to be a form of political expression in our country, I think it's time we checked out our whole social structure in what the magazines sometimes call "an agonizing reappraisal." Someone recently told me about his four-year-old daughter, who came into the family room when he was watching a film of Churchill's funeral. The little girl asked him what he was watching and he said, "It's the funeral of a very great man." She looked at the screen and asked: "Who shot him?" My God, what have we come to?

[Q] Playboy: Do you think it's possible to draw an analogy between contemporary violence and the success of such pictures as Bonnie and Clyde?

[A] Newman: There's a parallel, certainly, but I don't think motion pictures precede a phenomenon. They reflect it. Bonnie and Clyde was based on the story of a pair of bank robbers from the Thirties. So why did we wait until 1967 to dramatize it so graphically? Because of the climate of violence in America today. Violence on the screen is related somehow to the sense of anomie, of disinvolvement and purposelessness, that afflicts our society. Screen violence is an outlet for the kind of resentment we all feel toward the increasing inhumanity and impersonality of modern life. Vicarious violence--on the screen and off--gives us a chance to vent our hostilities against the symbols of authority that control us: big business, big government, Big Brother, the establishment, the power structure--whatever you want to call "them." Violence on the screen enables us to identify a target we can shoot at; almost any target will do. But life isn't so simple and accommodating. We can't find the bad guys for the same reason that we can't put our finger on the answer to what's wrong with our society. The things that are wrong are so complex and cross-pollinated--and so endemic--that the pressures of simply being and staying alive literally bend the mind. People say, "Oh, for the good old days"--but now they really mean it. Once, you put a potato in the ground and if it grew, you ate. If it didn't, you starved and that was the end of it. Survival was that simple. But survival today has become a problem of such infinite complexity that few achieve it except at incalculable cost to their spirit--and their sanity.

[Q] Playboy: Have you managed to survive without cost to your own spirit and sanity?

[A] Newman: Not completely; but if a man can overcome his own terror, he can function. By that I mean the terror of experience, the terror of communication, the terror of exposing one's self, the terror of your own mortality.

[Q] Playboy: Considering your own mortality, what do you want to accomplish with the remainder of your life?

[A] Newman: I just want to be able to function as a free agent, to be able to appraise things realistically and not in terms of my own hang-ups.

[Q] Playboy: What are your hang-ups?

[A] Newman: My greatest hang-up is the compulsion to produce and to come through; with every project, it's out of proportion. Other hang-ups are my inability to feel a sense of self-merit where merit is due, and in putting criticism in its proper perspective. Another problem is the fact that, like other actors, I live a tremendous fantasy life. It works very well in your acting, but you could be much more productive in your personal and professional life if you didn't create this dream world around you. Because it really is wasted time.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of fantasies do you create in your own dream world?

[A] Newman: I see myself addressing the United Nations, cleaning up Bedford-Stuyvesant--a million things.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you'll ever accomplish any of these things in real life?

[A] Newman: No, but I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried--tried to be a part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out. You've got to try, that's the main thing.