Paul Newman, RIP

I had heard that Paul Newman was sick so I was prepared for his death. It still makes me sad.

Has there ever been a more entertaining actor than Newman? Although the total sum of his films seems to be kind of lacking (was he ever in a truly great movie?), when did you not want to see Newman in a film? The Sting. The Hustler. Nobody's Fool. Hud. All of these are great roles. The Hustler is probably his best film. Maybe it reaches true greatness. It is unfortunate that he won his Oscar for The Color of Money, which is pretty bad. But good for him. Two of his most classic roles, in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Cool Hand Luke, are in overrated films. But again, he was always entertaining, even in movies I didn't like very much. Even when he played a jerk, like in Hud, he was at least somewhat likable.

Newman's other legacy is the food products. Newman's Own products mostly aren't very good. They use way too much high fructose corn syrup and additives. But they occupy an interesting niche in food history. When Newman's Own salad dressing came out in the late 80s and early 90s, the only alternative was Kraft and Kraft-like products. Compared to the industrialized foods that were the norm at the time, this stuff sure seemed really good. Newman's Own eventually became pretty heavily corporatized and industrialized too. Maybe it always was. But it helped pave the way for better foods on our shelves. He deserves to be remembered for this as well, at least as a footnote.