Paul Newman On My Mind

Paul Newman has been on my mind lately. He has cancer and when I stand at check out counters, I read about his days at home in Stamford, Connecticut, with Joanne Woodward, his wife of over 40 years. In his photos these days, he looks really old and really sick, yet he's still handsome.

Paul Newman has been so much on my mind that I moved "The Young Philadelphians" and "From the Terrace" to the top of my Netflix queue. I wasn't disappointed. As a young man, he was gorgeous. Women talk about his blue eyes. What I love is the look in those eyes and I am lost as soon as he breaks into a smile. His smile is cocky, self deprecating and sexy, all-knowing and innocent, playful, hungry. Shall I go on? Paul Newman has always been insanely attractive since way back when. I was swept away by his presence in "Hud." When he stood at the edge of Patricia Neale's bed with a piece of straw in his mouth...well, it doesn't get better than that.

I love Paul Newman because he and Joanne Woodward fell in love so many decades ago and he says he's never strayed because, "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?" He calls Joanne Newman his 'voluptuary.' What woman wouldn't want to be called a 'voluptuary' by a man that beautiful?

Another reason that Paul Newman crossed my mind this evening is that I used Newman's Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette on my salad. With his daughter, he's been making and selling this salad dressing for over 26 years. In these 26 years they've earned over $200 million, the profits of which Newman's Own Foundation gives to countless charities worldwide. His website tries to explain their success, "How to account for this massive success? Pure luck? Transcendental meditation? Machiavellian manipulation? Aerodynamics? High colonics? We haven't the slightest idea."

Now, here's the thing about Paul Newman and his salad dressing: he is a grammarian. The label on his bottle says '50% Less fat and 50% Fewer Calories.' You don't find many folks these days who know when to use the word 'few' instead of the word 'less.' Even the NYT has changed its ways and uses 'less' when they should be using 'fewer.' It grates on me when I read or hear 'less peaches' or 'less miles per gallon' or whatever.

Because, if memory serves, one uses the word less if the quantity described cannot be counted: less memory, less love, less trouble. And if you can count what is being described, one uses few or fewer: fewer gallons of gas, fewer heartbeats, fewer wars.

Few people make that distinction these days. But Paul Newman does on every bottle of salad dressing. If one of the sexiest men on this earth can be grammatically correct, charitable and in love with his wife, how about the rest of us? How about less empty talk and fewer broken promises?

I wish Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward a few more good days together. I wish he didn't have cancer and wasn't suffering. Perhaps it would be a good thing to get copies of 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' 'Cool Hand Luke,' 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,' 'Exodus,''The Hustler' or the infamous 'Hud,' and then settle back to watch Paul Newman when he was the most beautiful man on earth.