A.E. Hotchner: "Paul and Me" (Doubleday)
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-03-29/ae-hotchner-paul-and-me-doubleday
Actor Paul Newman and writer A.E. Hotchner
courtesy A.E. Hotchner
Author A.E. Hotchner's intimate account of his remarkable fifty-three year friendship with Hollywood icon Paul Newman. The two met on a television project in 1955. Many decades later, they started Newman's Own food line as a prank and watched it grown into a major charitable enterprise.
Guests
A. E. Hotchner
novelist, biographer, editor, playwright and co-founder of "Newman's Own" food products, author of "Paul and ME: 53 Years of Adventures and Misadventures with My Pal Paul Newman"
Comments
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I had to share my own connection with Paul Newman and it really testifies to what a wonderful man he was.
I was a newly wed, we were just out of the Marines adn starting our life. My husband was a mechanic -he built race cars, Datsun Roadsters, he ordered parts from a company in Connecticut and Washington State. I was in college. My husband passed out at work adn eventually had brain surgery, which determined a brain tumor. He was given 3 -10 years, we were devastaed.
Just 2 months after his surgery, he was hit head on totaling his sports car. The insurance company offered him $500! We were already facing $20,000 in medical bills and I was a wreck. I wrote to both companies asking if they would help me convince the insurance company that the car was valuable.
Both companies sent long detailed invoices covering many years of parts purchases but the company in CT included a letter from Paul Newman!!!! He said that looking at photos and invoices, he said the car was worth way more than $500.
I stupidly sent everything to the insurance company and didn't make copies. We received a check for $15,000!!! This was in 1984, that was a lot of money back then and we were able to pay off our medical bills and he was able to get a new car.
The insirance company kept the letter from Paul Newman LOL
No one asked him to do this, but her knew a VietNam veteran, who was just diagnosed with terminal brain cancer needed hep and he stepped up! I never even knew he was connected to the company.
My husband has been gone for over 20 years now, and I hope they are racing together up there somewhere.
One of the listeners to this program asked about Paul Newman's religious beliefs. I am sure that A.E. Hotchner knows best about this subject, being his close friend for so many years. But I am just writing to tell you that Paul Newman's name is listed as a "Famous UU" on the Unitarian Universalist national organization's web site, along with several other performers such as Pete Seeger, Rod Serling and Christopher Reeve. So, maybe this means that he associated with his local Unitarian chuch even if he was not a member? True or not, in the way he lived his life, he would have fit in perfectly with this non-dogmatic, socially liberal church.