Paul Newman, Kenyon College, '49: A wonderful tribute, in words and photos, from the College

[DeepModem Mom]

The College's site has a wonderful tribute, with a video of Newman, and photos of him as a student, some in student drama productions, and as a visiting teacher and benefactor. As in so many areas of his life, he was an active and supportive alum, and was beloved by the Kenyon community.

Link to Kenyon's tribute page: http://www.kenyon.edu/x42571.xml

"Paul Newman belonged to the world, but he held a special place at Kenyon, where he first made his mark as an actor, and where he left a long legacy in the form of steady, generous support, culminating in a recent $10 million gift for scholarships.

Newman died on September 26 at the age of 83, a movie star who reached beyond the big screen to take on roles as an activist, entrepreneur, race car driver, and philanthropist. The personal force fueling those enterprises was familiar to the generation of students and professors at Kenyon in the years just after World War II. They knew 'P.L.' as a young Navy veteran who discovered, on their insular, all-male campus, not only a vocation but also a capacity to command attention and admiration through whimsy, charm, mischief, and verve, as well as talent.

A 1949 graduate who majored in 'speech' (the field that covered drama) and who appeared in at least nine Kenyon theatrical productions, Newman said on many occasions, 'I owe Kenyon a great deal.' Five Kenyon presidents spanning nearly half a century in the College's history have been able to say the same of him. Beyond regular gifts to the Kenyon Fund and a stream of unpublicized contributions for a wide variety of projects, Newman helped fund the James E. Michael Professorship in Playwriting, created the College's most prestigious acting awards, lent his prestige to the Kenyon Festival Theater, and returned to campus in 1978 to direct the first production in the new Bolton Theater. The $10 million endowed scholarship fund was announced during the June 2007 launch of the College's current campaign.

'Kenyon is extraordinarily proud of Paul Newman,' said President S. Georgia Nugent. 'Not only because he was a great actor — which he certainly was. But because he was a great actor who made a unique and visionary choice to become a great philanthropist, reaching out to help others. Today, Hollywood's young stars very often take up philanthropic causes, to address some of our society's ills. Before the example of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, that social commitment on the part of media figures was unknown....'"


Paul Newman (top left) on the stairway in Chase Tower of Peirce Hall at a Dance Weekend in the late 1940s.