An Unfiltered Look at the Private Lives of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
“How strange is it to grow up around all of these pictures,” Melissa Newman says. “They aren’t your run-of-the-mill family photos, there are shots of my father in a top hat and cane on a set somewhere, or my mother dressed up like a stripper. I understood that my parents were in the movies, but it was still odd to live with these images of them as other incarnations of themselves.”
As the child of two of the world’s most recognizable stars, Newman got used to seeing her mother, Joanne Woodward, and father, Paul Newman, playing characters who weren’t themselves, but those photos and their impact would stay with her and inspire her new book, Head Over Heels: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman: A Love Affair in Words and Pictures, out now.
It wasn’t just the people in the photos that spoke to Newman, however, but also the person behind the camera. “Stewart Stern was a screenwriter who wrote Rebel Without a Cause, Sybil and various other projects,” she explains. “He met my dad 12 days before my dad met my mom, and I think Stewart was incredibly jealous, but then he and my mother became best friends until his last moment on the planet. He was really important to my family; my middle name is Stewart, he was my sister’s godfather and my son’s godfather, too… He was such an important part of my life and my children’s lives, and he took the most intimate pictures of my parents, so early in fact that he actually chronicled their illicit affair.”
Here, Newman shares a selection of Stern’s images from the book and explains what makes each unique and important in its depiction of her family’s life outside the public eye. “This book celebrates the beauty and intimacy of what they had,” she says. “You come away feeling immersed in their relationship, and that was an unexpected joy of making this. Every time I go back and look at the book, I’m delighted.”
"This is a picture of my father singing to a cow, (or possibly reciting some compelling lines from a Tennesee Williams play). This serendipitous pairing was documented by screenwriter Stewart Stern who loved my parents almost as much as he loved… cows. Stewart happened to be, among numerous other things, a brilliant photographer."
"Stewart met and became enamored of my father 12 days before my father met and became enamored of my mother. After Stewart got over his initial jealousy, he also became one of my mother’s best friends. Their shared frustration with the complexity of loving my father was the glue that held them together. Stewart took some of the most stunning photographs of my mother, and I think this is one of them."
"My mother had natural childbirth and nursed all of her babies in the 1960s, against the conventions of the day. Thank you, Mom. She was also an early adopter of health food, and we grew up being fed handfuls of vitamins and spoonfuls of wheat germ and cod liver oil. That part was traumatic, but we have mostly recovered. I raised my own children on chicken nuggets and pizza, and they both became strapping young men—and excellent cooks. Go figure."
"Lovely little mementoes continue to pop up in the house. I recently found a handful of stunning candid shots in my mother’s office. They were spread out on a desk as though someone had been looking at them. We have no idea where they came from. This is one that made it into the book. The swing, with its 45 layers of spray paint and distinctive creak, still hangs on the porch. My mother was Picasso with a spray paint can."
"This photo is entitled 'Women I Like to Sleep With.' I know this because my father put a brass plaque on the frame that said exactly that."
"Back in the day, we used to put on our party tights to get on a plane. Here my parents are 'on holiday' in Greece. They look so elegant with their sunglasses and cameras. Like movie stars."
"My mother in Greece."
"Self explanatory if you have ever had a wedding–and maybe even if you haven’t."
"There exists a bizarre number of images of my father shaving. One of life's great mysteries. This one is from a series taken by Stewart Stern. There also happens to be a picture of Philippe Halsman (or his reflection, anyhow), jammed into a bathroom with both of my parents, as he photographs my father trimming his beard. Ever the goofball, I can only imagine it was my father’s idea."
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