Joanne Woodward And Paul Newman Had A Legendary 50-Year Marriage

When it comes to Hollywood relationships, they're notoriously short. In fact, trying to find celebs who have been married for over 30 years is quite a feat. While there are many reasons why making it as a couple in Hollywood can be tough, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman managed to stay married for a whopping 50 years. The only reason their marriage came to an end in September 2008 is that Newman passed away from lung cancer at the age of 83. Had this not happened, it's pretty safe to say the two would still be together.

Not only were Woodward and Newman married for a little over 50 years, but they had three daughters together (in addition to Newman's three kids from his previous marriage), collaborated on several films, and created a network of philanthropic endeavors that still exist today. They were also deeply in love, so much so that despite having cheated on his first wife to be with Woodward, Newman claimed to have stayed faithful to her for the entirety of their marriage. When Playboy asked Newman in 1968 about fidelity in his marriage, he famously said (via The Washington Post), ”I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?” While Woodward may not have enjoyed being referred to as a piece of meat, the comment did speak volumes about how Newman felt about his wife.

Although Newman passed away 18 years ago, Woodward, who's now 96, never remarried. When Newman's posthumous memoir, "Paul Newman: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man," was published in 2022, much was revealed about their relationship. To call it legendary would be an understatement.

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman first met in 1953 while starring in "Picnic" on Broadway. At the time, Newman was married to Jackie Witte, with whom he had three children, Scott, Susan, and Stephanie. The two met in Ohio, where they were both originally from, and tied the knot in 1949.

While it wouldn't be surprising if sparks flew between Newman and Woodward during their initial meeting, considering the love story that followed, that wasn't the case. As Woodward told "The Today Show" in June 2002, when she first saw him in her agent's office, she thought that Newman, in his seersucker suit with his big blue eyes, looked like an ad for an ice cream soda. "And I thought 'ick, that's disgusting,'" Woodward recalled. When the two met again in 1957 on the set of "The Long, Hot Summer," the energy was much different, resulting in Newman pursuing Woodward despite still being married to Witte. While sometimes you can make the case that cheating is an act of self-care, this was definitely not the scenario.

In the 2009 biography, "Paul Newman: A Life, Paul" (via ExpressUK), Newman shared with biographer Shawn Levy that he never truly forgave himself for the affair, saying, "I'll carry it with me for the rest of my life," adding that he was probably too immature to have made the first marriage last for the long haul. Newman and Witte divorced in early 1958, and he married Woodward on January 29, 1958, in Las Vegas.

When Paul Newman's memoir, "Paul Newman: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary," was published in 2022, 14 years after his death, it came with a boatload of details about his sex life with Joanne Woodward. What Newman shared not only proved just how compatible the two were on many levels, but also made their sexual chemistry enviable. After all, just because someone has a successful marriage doesn't necessarily mean they have a satisfying sex life to go with it.

While what details you should and shouldn't share about your sex life are debatable, Newman really opened the floodgates in his memoir. "I felt like a goodman freak... Girls thought I was a joke. A happy buffoon," Newman wrote of his sex life before meeting Woodward (via Entertainment Weekly). "I went from being not much of a sexual threat to something else entirely... We left a trail of lust all over the place... Hotels and public parks and Hertz Rent-A-Cars."

Not only were these two getting it on in rent-a-cars all over the world, but Newman came home one day to find that Woodward had taken it upon herself to renovate their bedroom with a double bed and a "raucous color" of paint. Woodward cheekily referred to the room as their "F*** Hut." "Even if my kids came over, we'd go into the f*** hut several nights a week and just be intimate and noisy and ribald," wrote Newman. "Joanne gave birth to a sexual creature. I'm simply a creature of her invention."

Although it's easy to assume two people so madly in love, like Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, had a perfect relationship, that's not exactly true. For starters, the relationship was plagued with rumors of Newman's infidelity, hence the reason for his famous quote about not going out for burgers when you have steak at home. However, it appears that Newman actually did have an affair with journalist Nancy Bacon while filming "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" in 1969. In 2009's "Paul Newman: A Life," biographer Shawn Levy interviewed Bacon (via The Telegraph), who said their affair lasted a year and a half and was "the worst-kept secret in Hollywood." Although Woodward was devastated, they managed to work through it.

Newman's heavy drinking was also a problem. "They fought, and it could be dramatic, but they also fought really hard to stay together," their daughter Clea Newman Soderlund said in Paul Newman's memoir (via People). "There were times it was pretty close, but they worked hard at it. Ultimately they came together."

When Newman's son, Scott, died in 1978 at the age of 28, the couple endured a tragedy that no parent should ever have to experience. Scott had passed away from an accidental drug overdose, and it's something Newman blamed himself for, writing in his memoir that he thought Scott's drug use was just a phase and never imagined it would end as it did. "Many are the times I have gotten down on my knees and asked for Scott's forgiveness," Newman wrote (via People). 

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

When Paul Newman was in his 60s, he decided to write his memoir, and in it, many truths were revealed. "He wanted to dispel the perfection that things were just great," Clea Newman Soderlund told the BBC in 2022, adding she learned things about her father which made the decision to publish the memoir difficult. However, it was what Newman wanted.

In 2007, Joanne Woodward was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and just a few days later, Newman was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. When Newman died at home in Connecticut in September 2008, he wouldn't let go without Woodward at his side. "My father wouldn't take his last breath until my mother was holding him," Soderlund said.

Woodward, who's now 96, stays out of the limelight, but what she and Newman built together will forever be their legacy. It wasn't just their love for each other, their filmography, or the countless lives they changed and made better with their philanthropy, but their humanity. Speaking about his 2022 docuseries about Woodward and Newman, "The Last Movie Stars," director Ethan Hawke told USA Today, "When I started this project, my one fear was I would discover they weren't who I thought they were. I realized they were much more than I thought they were... It's not a fairy-tale journey. They are actually human beings with the same problems as the rest of us. But they managed to fight through them."