Hollywood Flashback: When Paul Newman Made Doing Good Delicious
Paul Newman had a memorable 1982, as the year not only saw the release of legal drama The Verdict, which earned him one of eight career Oscar noms for best actor, but also the launch of his food company, Newman’s Own. The screen icon, whose lone competitive Oscar win came for 1987’s The Color of Money, and author A.E. Hotchner, his neighbor and friend, co-founded the brand known for giving all after-tax profits on items like salad dressing, popcorn, pasta sauce, salsa, frozen pizza and wine to Newman’s Own Foundation, a nonprofit benefiting food insecurity and other youth-focused causes. Since its launch, the company has donated more than $600 million to charity.
Six years after founding Newman’s Own, the star started the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp — a reference to his 1969 classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — for kids with serious illnesses; the organization is now known as SeriousFun Children’s Network and operates recreational camps across the globe.
“Paul founded Newman’s Own at the young age of 57, but well before that, he was already an activist and philanthropist,” Newman’s Own Foundation president and CEO Alex Amouyel tells THR. She notes that, prior to founding the company, Newman had attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington, advocated for gender pay parity on his projects and was named a U.N. delegate on disarmament: “From the beginning to the end, he really continued with a vision of giving back.”
Each Newman’s Own product features an illustration of him, although he was not initially hot on this concept. “When the idea came up, I said, ‘Are you crazy? Stick my face on the label of salad dressing?’ ” Newman had said. “And then, of course, we got the whole idea of exploitation and how circular it is. Why not, really, go to the fullest length, and the silliest length, in exploiting yourself and turn the proceeds back to the community?”
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Amouyel knows that cinephiles will continue to appreciate Newman, but that his philanthropic efforts likely represent his most lasting legacy. “For the new generations, it’s his commitment to philanthropy and to good business which endures and is very much something that millennials and Gen Z care about when it comes to working for and buying products from companies that seek to do good,” the exec says. “In that sense, Newman’s Own is more relevant than ever.”
This story appeared in a standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
