Screen legend Paul Newman dies aged 83

Paul Newman, the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as an activist, race car driver, popcorn impresario and the anti-hero of such films as 'Hud', 'Cool Hand Luke' and 'The Colour of Money', has died, a spokeswoman said today. He was 83.

Newman died on Friday of cancer, spokeswoman Marni Tomljanovic said. No other details were immediately available.

In May, Newman said he had dropped plans to direct a autumn production of 'Of Mice and Men', citing unspecified health issues.

He got his start in theatre and on television during the 1950s, and went on to become one of the world’s most enduring and popular film stars, a legend held in awe by his peers.

He was nominated for Oscars 10 times, winning one regular award and two honorary ones, and had major roles in more than 50 motion pictures, including 'Exodus', 'Butch Cassidy' and the 'Sundance Kid', 'The Verdic', 'The Sting' and 'Absence of Malice'.

Newman worked with some of the greatest directors of the past half century, from Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston to Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese and the Coen brothers. His co-stars included Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and, most famously, Robert Redford, his sidekick in Butch Cassidy and The Sting.

He sometimes teamed with his wife and fellow Oscar winner, Joanne Woodward, with whom he had one of Hollywood’s rare long-term marriages. “I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?” Newman told Playboy magazine when asked if he was tempted to stray.

They wed in 1958, around the same time they both appeared in 'The Long Hot Summer', and Newman directed her in several films, including 'Rachel, Rachel' and 'The Glass Menagerie'.