Farewell to Mr. Paul Newman, mensch...

The first tiny film role I ever got was in 1988 in a movie about the Manhattan Project called "Fat Man and Little Boy" with John Cusack, Paul Newman, Laura Dern and others. I played Doug Panton, an attache to Paul Newman's character, General Leslie Groves, the man in charge of the Manhattan Project. I had done a mess of plays for free and one where I actually got paid, but I had never even been on a movie set, so I was excited, but also nervous as hell.

I was visiting LA for the very first time, networking in advance of what would surely be the start of big things, when I got a desperate call from my agent saying that they had decided to bump my first shoot day up and that I was needed in Mexico that night. An hour later I was racing to LAX and getting on a plane to Mexico. By midnight I was being driven deep into the desert to the area where the scene was being staged. I went into my small freezing trailer, changed into my WWII era army uniform and then went to the set. You call it a set even if (like this one) it's a fenced-in outdoor compound in the desert where a fake atom bomb is about to be test exploded.

Next thing I knew I was standing around with a lot of tense people in the wilderness in Mexico in the middle of the night. I shook hands with the director, Roland Joffe, whom I had met and then I was introduced to Paul Newman. Ohmigod, those eyes. In the scene, Newman's character, General Groves, was to drive up, get out of his staff car, notice the lack of security personnel and then call out for me by saying, "Panton!" Then I would run up and do a lot of "Yessir, nossir" and we would play the brief scene on the move in a driving fake rain storm.

"Holy crap," I thought. Paul Newman was going to introduce my character. He would say my character's name the only time you heard it in the movie. So Paul (Mr. Newman to me) got in the car and they backed it up about 600 yards to do a rehearsal. The vintage staff car raced in, skidded to a stop, and Mr. Newman got out of the car and yelled out, "Security!" I ran up, eyes wide and played the scene. Afterwards, everyone went over what had gone right and what had gone wrong, but nobody mentioned the omission of my character's name.

A few minutes later I realized that Paul Newman was standing next to me, in the desert at night, waiting around (which is mostly what you do on a movie) for the final preparations to be completed at which point the cameras would roll and we would commit the scene to film. I looked at him. Maybe he was tired, but I had barely heard him speak a word. Finally, he looked up at me. This was my chance and I knew it, but I hesitated and he looked away. With my stomach twisted in knots I somehow summoned the courage to say, "Mr. Newman..." He looked up again. "Yeah?" I said, "Um, in the script, you know, if you care, I mean, you can do it however, but in the script you call me Panton. So you know."

Then Paul 'Butch Cassidy, Hud, Cool Hand Luke' Newman gave me a look with those eyes like, "You have got to be freakin' kidding me." Then the 1st AD called his name and Paul Newman walked off without a word and got into his staff car.

"Nice work," I thought to myself, "you have just insulted a legend and assured yourself the shortest film career in history." My self-loathing was interrupted by a sudden torrent from the massive sprinkler cranes. A megaphoned voice cried out, "Rolling!" I watched from my spot as the staff car barreled onto its mark. The car door swung open and Paul Newman stepped out, looked around, then yelled out clear as a bell, "Panton!" And I swear if you rent the movie you can see something approaching perfect love in my eyes as I run up and bark, "Sir!"

Rest in peace, sir. And the rest of you...GO SEE CHOKE.