Actor was always his own man

Yet despite enormous success in both endeavors and a vile distaste for celebrity, the Oscar-winning actor never lost the aura of a towering Hollywood movie star, turning in roles later in life that carried all the blue-eyed, heartthrob cool of his anti-hero performances in Hud , Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid .

The 10-time Academy Award nominee died Friday at age 83, surrounded by family and close friends at his Westport farmhouse after a long battle with cancer, publicist Jeff Sanderson said Saturday.

In May, Mr. Newman dropped plans to direct a fall production of Of Mice and Men at Connecticut's Westport Country Playhouse, citing unspecified health issues. The next month, a friend disclosed that the Ohio native was being treated for cancer.

But true to his fiercely private nature, Mr. Newman remained cagey about his condition, reacting to reports that he had lung cancer with a statement saying only that he was "doing nicely."

As an actor, Mr. Newman got his start in theater and on television during the 1950s and went on to become a legend held in awe by his peers. He won one Oscar and took home two honorary ones, and had major roles in more than 50 films.

"There is a point where feelings go beyond words," Butch Cassidy and The Sting co-star Robert Redford said Saturday. "I have lost a real friend. My life -- and this country -- is better for his being in it."

Mr. Newman sometimes teamed with his wife and fellow Oscar winner, Joanne Woodward, with whom he had one of Hollywood's rare long-term marriages.

"I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?" he told Playboy magazine when asked whether he was tempted to stray.

They wed in 1958, around the same time they both appeared in The Long Hot Summer . Mr. Newman also directed her in several films, including Rachel, Rachel and The Glass Menagerie .

Mr. Newman was just as likely to play against his looks, becoming a favorite with critics for his convincing portrayals of rebels, tough guys and losers. New York Times critic Caryn James wrote after his turn as the town curmudgeon in 1995's Nobody's Fool that "you never stop to wonder how a guy as good-looking as Paul Newman ended up this way."

Mr. Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon's "enemies list," one of the actor's proudest achievements, he liked to say.

He and Ms. Woodward bought an 18th century farmhouse in Westport, where they raised their three daughters, Elinor, Melissa and Clea. Mr. Newman had two daughters, Susan and Stephanie, and a son, Scott, from a previous marriage.

In December 1994, he told Newsweek magazine he had changed little with age.

"I'm not mellower, I'm not less angry, I'm not less self-critical, I'm not less tenacious," he said. "Maybe the best part is that your liver can't handle those beers at noon anymore."