Paul Newman turns on charm for premiere at Concord speedway

01:19 PM EDT on Thursday, May 25, 2006

By LAWRENCE TOPPMAN / The Charlotte Observer

6NEWS

Lowe's President Humpy Wheeler gave Newman a 1951 Toy Hudson as a thank you gift.

The 81-year-old actor walked past the crowd of yakking reporters, unhelped but unhurried, and contemplated his reflection in the door of a Hudson Hornet like the one that has his voice in "Cars."

Finally, Paul Newman turned to the 100 media types who'd gathered in the auditorium at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Wednesday afternoon. "Just wanted to make sure my pants were zipped," he announced.

Newman settled into a director's chair next to a round table topped with a cloth that was checkered like a victory flag. He coughed vigorously -- "allergy season" -- and, when someone handed him a bottle of water, took it gratefully. "I haven't had water since 1951," he mused.

Movie writers descended on Charlotte this week for two days of interviews, leading up to the sold-out world premiere of Pixar's latest animated film Friday night. Newman was the gracious old lion who spent almost an hour entertaining the media.

Co-stars Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Cheech Marin and others held court for smaller groups Wednesday. (Owen Wilson, co-billed first on the marquee with Newman, spoke only to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, giver of Golden Globes.)

But in the first significant film junket to come to Charlotte for at least three decades -- maybe ever -- Newman was the acknowledged star: Oscar-winning actor for "The Color of Money," owner of a race car team and once a famed driver himself. (He later went around the track at pace car speed -- 90 to 100 mph -- in that Hudson Hornet, then reportedly asked a mechanic to re-gear it to go 30 mph faster.)

He didn't hear every question, and some of the accents -- Irish, English, Australian, Latino -- threw him when the words flew quickly. But he offered polite, sometimes brief, replies to all.

Even the questioner who wanted to know if there might be a sequel to "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," in which the two men are slain at the end, got a gentle "no." When Newman teased, he teased only himself.

Asked which title he'd recommend to a kid who didn't know his work, he picked his 1954 debut: " `The Silver Chalice.' Then he'd know what bad really was."

Does he have unseen flaws?

"Ask my wife." Pause. "Don't look under the carpet, guys. There's a lot of murky stuff."

Newman's been married for 48 years to Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward. He's been politically active left of center, mostly in the cause of getting people to vote; he calls his position in the top 20 of Richard Nixon's famed enemies list "the highest honor I ever received."

The proceeds from his salad dressings, cookies and the like yield millions for charities. And his Hole-in-the-Wall camps have let 100,000 disabled kids enjoy themselves in pressure-free conditions among their peers.

"Luck is the key factor in any of our lives," he said seriously. "I've been lucky."