Even conservative Muslim Iran, which would not usually concern itself with reporting on a Western film star, marked his death. Two pro-reform newspapers displayed the actor on front pages while Iran’s state media also reported his death.

The Etemad newspaper, published Newman’s picture, saying “Fading away the last classic star” and the Kargozaran daily said “End of the blue-eyed boy.”

I’m guessing they never saw Exodus, nor read this Time Magazine article:

The journey to this poignant, uneven movie, through a succession of worse and better ones, began in Cleveland Heights, a comfortable suburb of Cleveland, where Paul was born in 1925. He was the second son of Arthur S. Newman, a prosperous Jewish partner in a sporting-goods store, and Theresa Fetzer, a Hungarian-descended Catholic. By the time Paul and his brother Arthur, now 58, a film production manager living in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., were children, Theresa was a Christian Scientist. Paul’s exposure to that faith did not make any lasting impression (he has followed no religion as an adult, but calls himself a Jew, “because it’s more of a challenge”).