Paul Newman was honored as one of the recipients of the 2025 Great Ohioan award, joining this year's other honorees Dorothy Dandridge and Clark Gable.
The late Hollywood icon was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in January 1925 and raised in nearby Shaker Heights, spending his life there until he joined the Navy and then moved to New York City to make it big as an actor.
Local Columbus station WBNS 10TV spoke with Molly Kreuzman, program director for the Ohio Goes to the Movies initiative, about honoring the great actor and also receiving his daughter with Joanne Woodward, Melissa "Lissy" Newman.
© Getty ImagesPaul and Joanne's marriage
Melissa, now 63, spoke tenderly about the legacy her father left behind, and also his enduring love for Joanne, who recently turned 95.
Joanne and Paul made up Hollywood's most famously faithful couple, first meeting in 1953 during a production of Picnic on Broadway. In 1957, the Cool Hand Luke actor divorced his first wife, Jackie Witte, to marry Joanne in 1958.
The couple were together for five decades, until Paul's death in 2008, and earned the adoration of fans for their deep devotion to each other and their desire to work together often as well. Here are some of Hollywood's other long-lasting couples...
The secret to their love story
"My father never stopped being fascinated by my mother," Melissa said of the relationship between the two. "He just spent his entire life trying to find projects to prove to the rest of the world how extraordinary she was."
In 2023, Melissa released the book Head Over Heels: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman: A Love Affair in Words and Pictures, a photo book that captured their tender love story over the decades in several unseen photos.
© Getty Images"I really wanted to create a book that explored that relationship," she explained. "The complexity, the beauty of their relationship." The book also includes several love letters they wrote to each other, and includes the work of celebrated photographers like Richard Avedon, Sid Avery, David Sutton, Bruce Davidson and many more.
"We used a lot of photographs that no one's ever seen before," Melissa added. "We had an amazing response from photographers and photographers' estates [that] wanted to be involved in it."
© Getty ImagesPaul the philanthropist
She also spoke of her father's charitable work, particularly with SeriousFun Children's Network, which is now actively run by her younger sister Claire "Clea" Newman. The nonprofit comprises a global community of camps and programs for seriously ill children, founded by Paul in 1988
"He felt absurdly lucky," Melissa recalled of her father, who would've celebrated his 100th birthday this January. "He said he wanted to acknowledge the presence of luck in his own life and the brutality of the absence of luck in other people's lives."
© Getty Images"He was all about contributing to the common good. I always say that, if I had to have movie stars for parents, I'm glad I got the ones that I got." Joanne has receded from public life over the past decade, last making an appearance in 2013. She primarily lives in Westport, Connecticut, in her and Paul's 19th century home.
