Westport's star resident was cool

Neighbors recall normal guy whose extraordinary life was understated

MICHEL NISCHAN "It was the thing he loved more than anything in the world," referring to Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang camps for children with serious illnesses and their families. (Steve Miller for The Boston Globe)

WESTPORT, CONN. - Not long after moving into a rambling farmhouse on North Avenue, David Gottlieb was working in his garden when a man looking for a stray terrier craned his neck over the stockade fence and flashed his unmistakable blue eyes.

"He says, 'Hi, I'm Paul Newman, your neighbor. Have you seen my dog?' " Gottlieb recalled yesterday, chuckling at the everyday nature of their 1976 introduction. "Everyone in the world knew who Paul Newman was."

But in Westport, that was typical Newman: always understated, at once earnest and playful. Newman, who died Friday at his home, was known to the world as a Hollywood star, pop icon, and humanitarian. In Westport, where he and his wife, Joanne Woodward, resided for half a century, he was all those things, sure, but he was above all a normal guy - if not an ordinary one.

Whether running errands downtown, speaking to schoolchildren about substance abuse - as a grieving parent, not a celebrity - or quietly assisting local charities, Newman lived a meaningful, low-key life in this Fairfield County town, friends, neighbors, and community members said.

"He was such a Westport treasure," said Mollie Donovan, co-chairwoman of the town's arts advisory committee and a director of its historical society; she worked with Newman on several projects over the years to preserve the town's countrified appearance and New England-village heritage. "There have been a lot of very important people in Westport, but none of them who really supported and became a part of the fabric of Westport the way Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman did."

Newman and Westport enjoyed a kind of tacit agreement: mutual appreciation, quiet respect. They forsook autographs for everyday encounters, as well as the occasional flourish - always delivered with a playful grin, never self-important.

Dan Woog, a columnist for the Westport News, remembered playing a pickup soccer game in the early 1970s near Newman's house when a helicopter descended, temporarily disrupting the game. Newman emerged, wearing shorts and carrying a briefcase. "Hi, boys," he said, waving nonchalantly and walking home.

After Walt Grossman moved to North Avenue 16 years ago, he was out walking his dog when a souped-up Volvo zoomed around the corner and came to a sudden, dramatic halt before him. When the dust settled, he saw a beaming Newman. "Pretty cool, wasn't it?" said Newman, who famously loved auto racing.

But foremost, Grossman and Woog said, Newman was generous and gentle.

"You can't say enough about him. What a role model for all of us," said Grossman, who used to attend the fund-raisers Newman held for his Hole in the Wall Gang camps for children with serious illnesses and their families; the kids would always sit up front, with celebrities such as Julia Roberts and Nathan Lane.

Newman and Woodward would always return from the camps uplifted, "as though they had just had an audience with God," said friend Michel Nischan, owner of The Dressing Room, the Westport restaurant with which Newman was closely involved; a sign near the entrance yesterday asked mourners to donate to the camps, in lieu of flowers. "It was the thing he loved more than anything in the world."

Westport, for its affluence, has historically had a bohemian flavor and artistic tradition distinguishing it from other wealthy towns on Long Island Sound, like Greenwich and Darien. When Newman chose it, especially, it was a close-knit community where actors, writers, blue bloods, Wall Street bankers, and middle-class families all had a place.

"He was a real American, and he found that here in this community," Nischan said. "He just dug the diversity of it, and he really found it a wonderful place."

Nischan spoke on the restaurant's patio, in back of the Westport Country Playhouse, a historic theater that Newman and Woodward revived and restored to prominence, leading a $30 million capital campaign. She serves as artistic director; he was involved in several productions and also enabled the construction of the restaurant.

Though he did not invest directly in the eatery, he served as "director of opinions, of which he had many, and director of jokes," Nischan said. Newman helped shape the menu - comfort food, made with organic and sustainable ingredients - and had an avuncular way that put the staff at ease.

As proud as Newman was of The Dressing Room's burger, he still roared over in his Volvo once a week for a burger and a Heineken at Mario's Place, a cozy bar near the Westport train station, where he dined in the corner amid real and faux wood.

"He was a good man. We loved him," said Frank DeMace, co-owner since 1967, "right from day one."

At the bar, Karen Lawler recalled a time when she was dining with her now former husband at a downtown Westport restaurant. The meal ended in an argument, and Lawler found herself suddenly alone in the dining room - until Newman, seated nearby with Robert Redford, beckoned her over and invited her to share their table. "He was just a genuine guy, so nice," said Lawler, a healthcare administrator. "I think everyone in Westport would tell you the same thing."

Newman and Woodward's home was set back from the road, a stately and sprawling 18th-century farmhouse at the end of a gated, crushed-stone drive, but it wasn't a cloistered manse on the town's Gold Coast. Although it's a leafy, brook-bounded estate, it sits near an intersection, a few hundred yards from a public school. Neighbors knew Newman as a friendly presence, devoted husband, and human jungle-gym to the grandchildren living around the corner.

"When you called on the phone, he answered," said Arlene Kasper Gottlieb, David's wife. Before Newman launched his eponymous food company - which would raise $250 million and counting for charity - he would bring the Gottliebs homemade salad dressing in old wine bottles.

Still, even if the man himself gave no sign he was aware of his own celebrity, he was, up close, unmistakably Paul Newman.

"Definitely," said Donovan, 82, a year younger than Newman but sounding suddenly like a teen. "Those blue eyes," she said. Then, faintly: "Oh."

Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.