London Arts & Culture: He was known for his piercing blue eyes, Adonis physique and charming personality.
But what Paul Newman was best loved for were his acting skills.
With a career spanning more than half a century, he won numerous awards – including an Academy Award for his performance in The Color Of Money, three Golden Globes, a BAFTA and an Emmy.
In homage to the screen icon, who died aged 83 in September 2008, the BFI Southbank in London is to celebrate Newman’s illustrious career with a season of his films running throughout April.
Born in 1925, the son of a successful Ohio entrepreneur, Newman served in the Navy during WWII.
He went on to study drama at Yale, then found a foothold in New York in the early 1950s – he starred on the Actors Studio, appeared on Broadway and in live television dramas. 
However, Newman’s big breakthrough came with his second film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) where he played the role of middleweight champ Rocky Graziano.
After playing Billy the Kid in The Left-Handed Gun (1958), Newman’s next big success was with Richard Broooks’ adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958), as Elizabeth Taylor’s alchoholic husband.
The Hustler (1961) proved Newman’s acting capabilities as he took on the role of Fast Eddie Falcon, the cocky pool player, a role that he reprised in The Color Of Money (1986) as a mentor to the young Tom Cruise, for which he finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Geoff Andrew, head of film programme at the BFI, said: "We had been planning a season in tribute to Paul Newman for some time, even before he died.
“He was not just an exceptionally good-looking and successful star; more importantly in terms of our celebration of his work, he was one of the finest actors working in Hollywood for several decades, and many of the films he appeared in have become enduring classics."
Despite his good looks, Newman often played the outsider; a drifter who uses a woman to advance his situation in Sweet Bird of youth (1961), the immoral womaniser in Hud (1963) or the western outlaw in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972). 
But it was as the rebellious prisoner in Cool Hand Luke (1967), and as one half of the outlaw duo with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969), that cemented his reputation as one of the greats.
However, many would argue he saved the best for last: in The Verdict (1982), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and Twilight (1998) we see the man in full, the stubborn charm and braggadocio seasoned with doubt and regret.
BFI Southbank’s Newman series kicks off on Thursday 1 April with Somebody Up There Likes Me and concludes with Twilight on Thursday 29 April.
