Israellycool

When Hollywood actor Paul Newman died a little over a month ago, I noted that even the Iranians marked his death.

Now Iranmania is reporting that they are holding a film festival in his honor.

Iran’s 27th Fajr International Film Festival will commemorate the late American actor Paul Newman, the secretariat of the festival announced in a press release, MNA reported.

Several films in which Newman starred will go on display during the festival, which will be held from February 1 to 11, 2009 at various Tehran theaters.

Born in 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, Paul Newman acted in more than 80 films. He produced ten films and was the director of six movies.  He was one of the few actors who successfully made the transition from 1950s cinema to that of the 1960s and 1970s.

He went on to become one of the top box office draws of the 1960s, starring in such classic films as “The Hustler”, “The Prize”, “Hud”, “Cool Hand Luke”, and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.  He also produced and directed many high quality films, including “Rachel, Rachel” for which he received an Oscar nomination for best picture. Nominated nine times for best actor, he finally took one home an Oscar for his performance as an aging pool shark in “The Color of Money”.

A caring and supremely generous man, he is the founder of “Newman’s Own”, a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which the philanthropic movie icon has donated to charity.

On September 26, 2008, Newman died at his longtime home in Westport, Connecticut, of complications arising from lung cancer.

No word yet on whether they will be screening Exodus.

Hollywood actor, philanthropist, and all-round nice guy Paul Newman, who passed away a few days ago, was so well respected, that even the bad guys marked his death.

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”).