Newman's Own Fans

This morning I learned the world has lost the wonderful Paul Newman. It's the end of an era for me. I discovered Paul Newman on New Year's Eve, 1964. I remember it well because I was spending the night in Pasadena at the home of my cousin and new best friend, Dru. Aunt Bettie, Dru's mom, was planning to go out to a party that evening with her boyfriend, Ralph. Dru and I had to decide between going to an early movie or hanging out at home with her grandmother who lived with them. We loved Gram, but chose the movie. Naive 9th graders, we selected a Jerry Lewis film called "Boeing Boeing." It was part of a double feature. The other movie was "The Prize," starring Paul Newman and Elke Sommer. We had never heard of it, so we arrived late. All it took was one close-up of Paul Newman's blue eyes for Dru and me to fall instantly in love. Forget Jerry Lewis, we just waited for the next showing of "The Prize" and watched part of it again, till we knew we needed to be home.

It was dark as we walked along Colorado Blvd. back to Dru's house. There were lots of revelers cruising by on their way to the Rose Parade Route. We talked about Paul Newman and how gorgeous he was and how great the movie had been, even if it was scary at times. We were so involved in our movie review that we didn't notice a car following behind us, close to the curb. When we did realize the car was trailing us, we screamed and started to run. We heard a car door slam and a voice yell, "Dru, stop, it's me, Ralph." Apparently Ralph had decided to come out and look for us to be sure we made it home safely, but he didn't want to interrupt our walk home, so he was just following in his T-bird. He didn't interrupt, but he did scare us so much that we were almost too tired to TP the next door neighbor's home in honor of the New Year. When we finally went to bed, we dreamt of Paul Newman.

For about a year, my love life was all Paul Newman all the time. Dru was into him too. We found out he was filming a movie in Pasadena and stalked him for days. We fashioned ourselves the young groupies in the Peter Sellers' film, "The World of Henry Orient." Unfortunately we never got close enough for an autograph. Then our worlds changed thanks to REAL boyfriends; but the crush never went away, even after all that salad dressing and spagetti sauce. We still love Paul Newman today. And we'll mourn his passing.