"You keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're good at."

I don't know.  Hud was probably his best role, but lots of people would say it was Cool Hand Luke.  He was excellent as Fast Eddie Felson, though.  In The Hustler.  Color of Money was just something of an encore.  I think he should have won the Oscar for his portrayal of Frank Galvin in The Verdict.  And the job he did as Sully Sullivan in Nobody's Fool was about the smoothest transition from leading man to character actor that Hollywood's ever seen.

And I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Harry Frigg, which was probably the first movie I ever saw him in and is probably why I've always thought of him as a great comic actor rather than a romantic leading man.

But to me his defining role, the character he will always be in my imagination, is Butch Cassidy.

I think I still have all his lines memorized.

Butch: If he'd only pay me as much as he paying to make me stop robbing him, I'd stop robbing him!

Butch: What happened to the old bank?  It was beautiful.

Bank guard:  People kept robbing it.

Butch:  Small price to pay for beauty.

Logan: Sundance, if when it's over, he's dead, you're welcome to stay.

Butch:  Listen, I don't want to sound like a sore loser, but if when it's over I'm dead, kill him.

Butch (as he and Sundance prepare to make their last stand):  Wait a minute.  You didn't see Lefors out there?

Sundance:  Lefors?  No.

Butch:  Good.  For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.

Paul Newman died yesterday.  He was 83.

Butch (several times): I've got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.

Comments

[Claire]

I've always loved the bifocals quote. I'm terribly sorry to see him go.

[OutOfContext]

This news does not make me nearly as sad as the news that he was no longer able to act because of his illness. I mourned him then.

[Chris The Cop]

Coolest of the cool - made Richard Gere look like Jim Nabors. Made Robert Redford look like a community theater hack (except maybe in The Sting, the closest thing to a perfect picture, I can think of--godDAM that was a fun picture). On yeah, pretty authentic cop in "Ft. Apache: The Bronx," too. One of the only actors who I can say I'll miss. Makes me want to start my own blog, just so I could ramble on about him for a couple of posts (Lance - you showed EXTREMELY admirable restraint in keeping yours as short as you did. Classy of you to let the movie and and script do the talking...)

[Mike Schilling]

There's an anecdote about the real Butch that William Goldman couldn't fit into the screenplay. Picture how great Newman would have made this.

Scene: Butch Cassidy, outlaw and the world's friendliest, most charming man, is in a Utah jail.

Governor of Utah: Butch, I'd like to pardon you.

Butch: I'd like that too, Governor.

G: But you have to make me a promise. If I let you go, you've got to give up being a criminal.

B: I can't accept that deal, governor, but here's what I can do: if you pardon me, I'll never commit another crime in Utah.

G: It's a deal.

[actor212]

Cinemax was playing Butch Cassidy yesterday when I heard the news.

There are some things in which the universe is still in tune.

[SV]

Harry Frigg!

One of my all time favorite lines from the movies comes from Newman as Harry Frigg, in a exaggerated German accent:

Cheez und Krackers! Zomebody's playing 'ookey!

(You have to see the movie to understand just how awesome that line is.)

[bay]

So beautiful, but, like they said, he knew it was an optical illusion, wasn't much fussed. He was so grateful to be lucky, I like that.
Read his old friend's note, Gore Vidal, saying he was simply more mature than the others, not to mention, modest, but that has more to do with above note.

[KLM]

"You keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're good at."

The line I use with my children when they are particularly ingenious with their excuses. We are lucky to have lived in a world with Paul Newman. But don't forget "Sometimes a Great Notion." Henry Fonda, Paul Newman, Lee Remick,and Richard Jaeckel were perfect in a Ken Kesey movie.

[KLM]

"You keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're good at."

The line I use with my children when they are particularly ingenious with their excuses. We are lucky to have lived in a world with Paul Newman. But don't forget "Sometimes a Great Notion." Henry Fonda, Paul Newman, Lee Remick,and Richard Jaeckel were perfect in a Ken Kesey movie.