There were few people in the last century quite like Paul Newman. Academy Award winner. Champion race car driver. And by almost every account, one of the finest human beings Hollywood ever produced.
Sally Field summed it up perfectly after his passing.
“Sometimes God makes perfect people, and Paul Newman was one of them.”
Elizabeth Taylor put it just as beautifully.
“I loved that man with all my heart. He was goodness, kindness, and pure integrity. Knowing him, being his friend, was as golden as the sunset and a privilege I’ll never forget.”
But here is the thing about Newman that gets overlooked between all the film credits and racing trophies. The man did not think he was naturally gifted at any of it. Not acting. Not athletics. Not writing. Not directing. Not even painting garden porches, as he put it.
He said so himself:
“I had no natural gift to be anything, not an athlete (not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches), not anything. I’ve worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.”
That humility is what made one of his quotes so memorable. He once said, “The best thing you can give yourselves is the gift of possibility.” For a man who felt he had no natural advantages, those words carry real weight.
A Bottle of Salad Dressing That Changed Everything
The story of Newman’s Own is one of the most unlikely in American history. Newman and his friend A.E. Hotchner once made homemade salad dressing to give away as holiday gifts. That small, generous gesture grew into something enormous.
Newman’s Own (which sells everything from salad dressing to frozen pizza) has donated more than $600 million to charity since 1982. The company continues giving today, long after Newman’s passing.
Newman never wanted to be remembered as a star. He once said:
“I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried, who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life.”
He also left behind a handful of other lines worth sitting with:
- “Those who are most lucky should hold their hands out to those who aren’t.”
- “We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster.”
- “A man with no enemies is a man with no character.”
- “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.”
Newman started with salad dressing and a desire to give. He built a legacy that still reaches people around the world. That is what possibility looks like when you actually believe in it.
Not a bad reminder, any day of the week.