The death of Robert Redford earlier this week reminded many Westporters of his long friendship with fellow actor Paul Newman.
Many residents recalled encounter with the pair here, at hangouts like the Ship’s Lantern bar and Tavern on Main restaurant.
But Newman entertained at least one other superstar, as these undated photos posted to social media by Christopher Maroc show.
Paul Newman, in the backyard of his North Avenue home, with Tom Cruise …
… and in the nearby Aspetuck River.
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My brother, David remembers fondly the time Paul and Robert (and families) came into Baskin Robbins for ice cream, while The Sting was playing at Fine Arts a block away. True gentlemen who took good care of their friendly scooper.
In the 1970’s we were in a high backed booth in The Ship’s Restaurant, when a family that we couldn’t see entered and were seated in the booth directly behind us and out of our field of vision.
We noticed everyone (didn’t know any of them) on the opposite side of the restaurant were surreptitiously glancing in our direction throughout the rest of the meal.
On the way out we finally saw that seated behind us were the Newman family!! No one ever bothered them but everyone was nonchalantly peeking at them (or us)!!
My mom spotted Newman in Dorains one day and never stopped talking about it.
Indeed Russ!!!! Wayne Knight killed it as Newman in Seinfeld (“Hello Newman!” “Hello Jerry!!”) I owe it to him that I was an “early adopter” of Depends. It was my beta testing that enabled an early adoption as the industry standard for assisted living facilities worldwide-wide.
I haven’t shared this previously but back in the early 80’s I was recovering from my ill-fated “older-woman/younger man” breakup with Cher (she dumped me for Gregg Allman) and Tommy Cruise (his “inner-circle” buddies called him Tommy/mine called me “Bucky”) was heartbroken over what he’d gone through with Mimi (Rogers). So we decided (at Paul’s urging over pizza at The Arrow) to take up car racing. I was already an expert (in 1968 I could get my car from the SHS parking lot on North Avenue to the Rialto in Port Chester in under 23 minutes – without going on the turnpike. I mentored Tommy who was a quick study. Anyway, we recovered, Tommy met Nicole (Kidman) on the set of Days of Thunder (I was his stunt double on the racing scenes) and I soon after filming “wrapped” (that’s an expression we cinematic pros use) I went to Paris and the Sorbonne to study art. Catherine (Deneuve) nursed me back to mental health (some of her “techniques” were incredible) and the rest is history. I feel very comfortable sharing this because, after all, deep down we’re all just Westporters.
I was on the same train from NYC to Westport when Tom Cruise came up to visit Paul Newman. Yes, Cruise took the train! I saw Newman pick Cruise up in his VW bug. I was told that his VW had a Porsche engine – which may or may not have been true.
I lived on East Meadow Rd. for 30 years. When I first moved there, Neal Sedaka lived at the end of the road. The rumor I heard from neighbors was that Robert Redford rented the house at some point.
Does anyone else know about this?
You are spot on Bobbi. I saw it with my own eyes.
These pictures are from 1989-90 when Cruise was invited for an extended stay with Newman and was also filming Days of Thunder.