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In the new book Head Over Heels: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman: A Love Affair in Words and Pictures, Melissa Newman tells the story of one of Hollywood’s true romances. Told from the perspective of the daughter who lived it, the book is an intimate portrait of the couple, using the images that captured their lives together and their love for each other.
The couple first met while working on the Broadway show Picnic. Newman was married at the time, but the actors made quite an impression on each other nonetheless. Woodward once said that Newman first appeared to her “like an ice-cream soda ad; Newman was charmed by the blonde from Georgia. The two wed in 1958 and remained married for 50 years, until Newman died in 2008.
In 2002, their daughter, Melissa Newman, and her husband bought the house her parents had purchased in Connecticut in 1961. (Her parents moved next door.) In the years since, she has excavated and edited a collection of images chronicling her parents’ marriage. “It’s been fascinating,” she says, “to be an insider to my parents’ artistic process as well as the nuances of their relationship. The two things are inexorably intertwined.” Here she explains the story behind eight of her favorites—images that capture the chemistry behind on of Hollywood’s truly golden couples.
My sister Nell, Beverly Hills, 1960
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There is always something a little mysterious about mothers, especially when one is very little.
My mother had natural childbirth with all of us, at a time when doctors were strapping women to gurneys, knocking them out, and using forceps so they could make their tee times. She nursed all of us, which was frowned upon in the ’60s. She was a scrubber and closet organizer, made ’70s health-food bread and cheese soufflé. She needlepointed entire carpets, sewed tutus, and schlepped us to ballet lessons. She embraced many causes. She taught acting and ran a theater. She traipsed to the races, gnashing her teeth, and knitting furiously, while my father flung himself around at 200 miles per hour. She once told me that the best way to paint a ceiling was naked with a shower cap on.
And she was also this: an Elegant Movie Star, an Oscar winner when my father was barely on the radar. This is a photo of our Glamorous Mama, not the one who has just finished washing the dishes.
Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles, 1960
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No one captured the intimacy of my parents’ relationship better than the screenwriter Stewart Stern, a close friend of my father’s. He was not only a lovely photographer, but a wonderful archivist who saved all of his negatives in tidily labeled envelopes, which I stumbled upon, tucked away, in the family office. Several of the images peeked into the absolute dawn of their relationship. Here, Stewart disappears behind his camera while my parents cling to each other, they whisper, they laugh. The images foreshadow the inevitable. There was absolutely nothing to be done. They were hooked.
There was a great deal of sneaking around. And there was, undeniably, collateral damage. No denying the story began in a minor key.
My editor Andrew Kelly and I decided to put the whole sheet of negatives into the book and include one on the cover. And another one on the back. And a few more for good measure. We got a unanimous thumbs-up from the publishing team.
Los Angeles, 1962
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The only kind of horse my mother really liked to ride, although she made a brave attempt to learn to ride real ones just to keep up with us. (She really wanted baby ballerinas, but she got cowgirls instead.)
Beverly Hills, 1967
My father was probably at his most comfortable with a frosted beer in one hand and a pool cue in the other, hanging with guys who required little more than friendship and honest competition on the racetrack. Children were another conduit to his looser self, he could practice his natural tendency to be very silly in good company. Like all parents who continue to evolve, he turned out to be a pretty exceptional granddad. I have never seen him so happy as when he was in a sandbox with our sons playing with matchbox cars, or encouraging them to make Jenga towers with the silverware at fancy French restaurants, while my mother and I faux-scowled at him across the table. The best compliment I ever received from him is that my husband and I “broke the cycle of bad parenting.” Which is another way of saying he and my mother were human, and no one is born with instructions printed on their bum. This photograph is one of two—one is serious, the other not so much. You can see I am deliriously happy at the attention.
The Bahamas, 1967
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This photo has hung in the kitchen for as long as I can remember. It’s the kind of thing you can get people to do for you when you are a movie star. To think of it is one thing, but to actually go through the trouble of doing it is another. My sister pointed out to me that she is standing behind him holding a very large tuna that she caught. She was about 12. She is still an exceptional angler.
On location while directing Rachel, Rachel, Danbury, Connecticut, 1968
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The image says so much. In 1968, my father directed my mother in Rachel Rachel, a deeply heartfelt film about a repressed schoolteacher. There are extensive letters between the writer Stewart Stern and editor Dede Allen lamenting my father’s reluctance to film this scene. He described it as “unnecessary,” or “too literal,” but personally, I think he was just jealous. I really do. It was certainly the closest he ever came to directing his wife in a sex scene.
I actually like to imagine my father being jealous. There were a few times as a teenager I was aware of men snooping about. My mother had cofounded a particularly virile ballet company in the ’70s full of some very pretty, very naughty men. They hung around a lot. I overheard some wishful thinking on their part. I’ll never know for sure, but if she had caught a little candy on the outside, I would have cheered her on. She deserved it! She put up with a lot. The saving grace? She could rest assured that of all the women in the world, there were none that my father found so endlessly fascinating. As an actress, she was the pinnacle for him, and that’s why he loved to work with her. That’s what kept her proud through the rough times. As a woman, she never ceased to be his comfort and his inspiration. In the end, they were absolutely each other’s island.
Westport, Connecticut, 1988
Here is the mother I know. The one who would shoo everyone out of the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner so she could clean the entire kitchen and be alone. And, yes, she washed dogs and babies and dishes in the same sink (as did I). And denied it in public. The sink is still there, and we only replaced the faucet just last year. Visible on the right is Carolyn Murphy, who deserves her own book.
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