By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Internationally known actor, philanthropist, political activist, racing car enthusiast — and Westporter.

Paul Newman, who lived in town about 50 years before his death in 2008, would be celebrating his 100th birthday this year on Jan. 26.

He was often seen around town, shopping or dining with his children and grandchildren, on stage at the Westport Country Playhouse where his wife, Joanne Woodward, was the artistic director, and mingling elsewhere with fellow residents.

Now, to mark the centennial of his birth, Newman is being honored for his generosity and philanthropic projects that distributed millions of dollars not only when he was alive, but to this day.

Newman’s Own, the Westport-based business that Newman and writer A.E. Hotchner, a fellow Westporter, founded almost as a prank and now donates its profits to charities, is honoring Newman on Monday by launching “Paul Newman Generosity Day,” an event celebrating Newman’s legacy of giving.

In accounts by people with memories of Newman’s life in Westport, he is recalled as a down-to-earth, generous man, who had a good sense of humor.

“Mischievous” was the word Arlene Gottlieb, the Newmans’ next-door neighbor for many years, used to describe him. “He was a wonderful neighbor. … He was just wonderful – one of the most wonderful, kind, people. … We were very happy to live next to them,” Gottlieb said. She recalled that she and her husband, David, were invited to celebrate New Year’s and other parties at the Newman home.

One day, Gottlieb recalled, Newman knocked on their door with a wine bottle, and said, “ ‘I have some salad dressing here that I want you to try,’ and we did — it was wonderful.”

Another day, “Paul was over hanging on the fence … ‘I’m looking for our dog,’ ” which got loose on the Newman property, he told the Gottliebs.

“We found the dog and brought it to them,” Arlene Gottlieb remembered. “That night we went to New York to see a play Joanne [Woodward] was in — the dog was in it.”

Another Westporter who also remembers Newman’s “mischievous” side was Hotchner in his book, “Paul and Me,” published after Newman’s death.

“Paul Newman was direct and honest and off-center and mischievous and romantic and very handsome,” wrote Hotchner, who died in 2020.

Miggs Burroughs, the well-known Westport artist, did graphic design work for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which Newman helped to found for children with medical challenges.

Burroughs recalls that he “got the full scope of his generosity and commitment to helping those in need.”

As with many other local non-profit projects, Newman and Woodward helped to support Project Return, a congregate housing program for homeless women in Westport, by donating autographed and hand-painted birdhouses for the group’s signature fundraising campaign. Burroughs was sent to the Newman home on short notice, he said, to take photos of the couple with birdhouses.

“The photos turned out to be one of the last that were taken of them together. Paul seemed a little frail and passed away a year or so later,” Burroughs said.

Another person with remembrances of Paul Newman near the end of his life is John Hogan, the driver for both Newman and Woodward from the early 1990s to 2008.

“I took him to Sloan Kettering [hospital in New York City] — the last visit he made,” Hogan said.

Over the years, he drove both Newman and Woodward back and forth from Westport to airports, regional theaters and, especially, in and out of Manhattan. He also took them to local destinations, such as restaurants in Westport, he said. Many Westporters can say they saw Newman and his children at the former Westport Pizza on Main Street and other popular dining spots and shops.

“He was just a very casual person,” Hogan said. Newman enjoyed games of badminton with players in Westport, and auto racing, both at Lime Rock Park in the upstate town of Lakeville and in Arizona, Hogan said. The “Paul Newman Straight” at Lime Rock was dedicated in his memory in 2022, according to the Lime Rock website.

“He loved old cars and used to like to make them go faster — putting an engine from one car into another,” Hogan said.

But the trait for which Paul Newman is best remembered locally is generosity — his gifts to Westport groups and to organizations helping children, as well as to support causes and people not publicly disclosed.

For instance, the recent obituary of Westport resident Margaret Clark Henkel included a photo of Newman and Woodward who had helped with the acquisition of the Wheeler House for the Westport Historical Society, now the Westport Museum for History and Culture.

One anecdote exemplifying his generosity took place in the office of the Westport News in the early 1980s when he made contact with the newspaper to get publicity, but not for himself. 

He called an assistant to the editor and introduced himself over the phone, “Hello I’m Paul Newman.” 

“And I’m Robert Redford,” answered the skeptical assistant, who promptly hung up.

Newman, who eventually was able to set up an appointment with the editor, was looking for coverage of an event he was planning to honor the contractor building a barn on the Newman property. The man had cancer.

The barn is still there, according to the former neighbor Arelene Gottlieb, and is used for parties, activities and family gatherings.

A big part of the legacy of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, besides their acting achievements, is the decades-long impact by charities they founded and/or supported. These inlcude:

Hole in the Wall Gang Camp: “Creating fun and friendship” for children with serious illnesses and their families, the camp was founded in Ashford in 1988 by Newman. Its programs now serve more than 20,000 children each year at multiple locations.

Serious Fun Children’s Network: A network Newman helped establish as an extension of his mission to “empower kids facing serious medical challenges to find joy,” now includes 30 independently owned camps in the U.S. and abroad, including Ireland, Israel and France.

Newman’s Own Foundation: A nonprofit with headquarters in Westport, it supports organizations that improve the life of children facing adversity and was founded by Newman in 1982. The business began after he and A.E. Hotchner created a salad dressing, which set the stage for a business selling a range of food products, with profits devoted to charities benefitting children.

Westport Country Playhouse: Newman’s wife, actress Joanne Woodward, was the theater’s artistic director from 2000 to 2004, and was instrumental in renovating the facilities. Newman performed on the playhouse stage in a 2002 revival of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” which was later moved to Broadway. 

The Newman-Poses Preserve: Now part of the Aspetuck Land Trust, the parcel of land donated by Newman includes property sold to the town by Lillian Poses, a neighbor and friend of Paul Newman. The preserve, 307-313 Bayberry Lane, offers diverse natural features, with hiking trails maintained by the land trust.

Save the Sound: The Connecticut-based nonprofit works to save endangered coastal environments and protect Long Island Sound and its tributaries. It has been a recipient of Newman family funds. 

Westport Farmers Market: Founded by Newman and chef Michel Nischan in June 2006, the market was initially held in the parking lot of the Westport Country Playhouse, where the Dressing Room, the men’s farm-to-table restaurant, was located. The farmers market now takes place weekly at the Imperial Avenue parking lot during the summer and at Gilbertie’s on Sylvan Lane during winter.

Over the years, other local charitable endeavors have been supported by foundations set up by Newman and his family.

Some members of the Newman family still live in Westport, including daughter Melissa, an artist and musician, who introduced two books about her father and her family to Westporters in the last two years.

They include her father’s memoir, “Paul Newman, The Extraordinary Life of An Ordinary Man,” which she discussed at the Westport Country Playhouse in November 2022. And “Head Over Heels,” a book she wrote chronicling her parents’ love story, introduced in October 2023 at the Westport Library.

“We felt that Westport took very good care of our family. The town was very protective,” she said in “Head Over Heels.”

“It’s nice to see him being honored,” Melissa Newman wrote in a recent note to the Westport Journal. 

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.