Susan Kendall Newman, an actress, Emmy-nominated producer, social activist and firstborn daughter of Paul Newman, has died. She was 72.
Newman died Aug. 2 of issues from power well being circumstances, her household introduced.
Newman, whose mom was Paul Newman’s first spouse, Jackie Witte, portrayed one of many six youngsters making an attempt to wrangle their means into The Beatles’ first efficiency on The Ed Sullivan Present in February 1964 in I Wanna Maintain Your Hand (1978), directed and co-written by Robert Zemeckis.
She additionally had smaller roles in Slap Shot (1977), the place she confirmed up as a pharmacist within the hockey movie that starred her father, and Robert Altman’s A Wedding ceremony (1978).
Earlier, Newman appeared on Broadway in 1975 in We Interrupt This Program …, directed by Jerry Adler, however the ingenious manufacturing — involving “gunmen” who enter the viewers and take over the Ambassador Theatre throughout a play — lasted simply seven outings.
In 1980, she produced an ABC Theatre presentation of Michael Cristofer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Shadow Field that was directed by her father and starred her stepmother, Oscar winner Joanne Woodward.
And she or he produced a family-friendly audiobook sequence of classical literature for Simon & Schuster, incomes a Grammy nomination for greatest spoken phrase album for kids.
Susan Kendall Newman and Paul Newman circa 1970.
Everett Assortment
Her mother and father had been married in Cleveland on Dec. 27, 1949, they usually had three youngsters — Scott (born in 1950), Susan (born in 1953) and Stephanie (born in 1954) — earlier than their divorce was finalized on Jan. 28, 1958.
The subsequent day, her dad wed Woodward — that they had first met whereas on Broadway in Picnic in 1953, then starred in The Lengthy, Sizzling Summer season (1958) — in Las Vegas. They’d three daughters — Elinor (born in 1959), Melissa (born in 1961) and Claire (born in 1965) — earlier than he died of lung most cancers at age 83 on Sept. 26, 2008.
Witte died in 1994 at age 64.
After her brother, Scott, who had appeared in such movies as The Towering Inferno (1974) and Breakheart Cross (1975), died in November 1978 from a drug overdose, her father based the Scott Newman Heart for drug abuse prevention.
In 1980, she joined the Scott Newman Basis and ultimately turned government director. As a drug abuse prevention knowledgeable, she testified earlier than Congress and was a frequent speaker on the Betty Ford Heart and at universities, hospitals and neighborhood teams.
Her household mentioned that she was particularly happy with a groundbreaking program in a number of states that invited Tenth-grade college students to create their very own anti-drug TV commercials. Tutorial supplies guided college students via analysis, storyboarding and manufacturing, with successful entries professionally produced and broadcast nationally.
She additionally served as president of the Leisure Trade Basis and based a consulting firm that supplied experience to authorities companies, companies and nonprofits in growing prevention packages, outreach efforts and fundraising methods.
Extra just lately, she targeted her advocacy on schooling, juvenile justice, conservation and well being care.