It's not often that you get to hear an iconic star tell his story from beyond the grave, but fans of Paul Newman will get just that opportunity next year.
Newman, widely known and beloved as an actor, philanthropist and entrepreneur, died of cancer in September of 2008, at the age of 83. Now, more than a decade on, his own account of his career will be published as a memoir by Knopf. Per The New York Times, Newman began recording his own oral history decades before his death, frustrated by numerous unauthorized biographies that were emerging. Those recordings have now been transcribed, and will form the spine of the as-yet-untitled memoir.
“What he recorded, and in essence what he wrote, was so honest and revealing,” Peter Gethers, an editor-at-large at Knopf, told the Times. “It showed this extraordinary arc, a guy who was very, very flawed at the beginning of his life and as a young man, but who, as he got older, turned into the Paul Newman we want him to be.”
The project was spearheaded by the screenwriter Stewart Stern, one of Newman's closest friends. In addition to interviewing Newman himself for the recordings, Stern also interviewed Newman's wife, children, close friends, and regular collaborators, producing a vast amount of material that will all be part of the memoir.
According to the Times, the recordings were all completed about a decade before Newman's death, and will chronicle his early life, his troubled relationship with his parents and with alcohol use, and the tragic death of his son, Scott, from a drug and alcohol overdose. In addition to exploring Newman's rise to fame, the book will reportedly also give a candid picture of his insecurities, including his jealousy of contemporaries like James Dean and Marlon Brando.
The memoir will be published by Knopf next fall.
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
