French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 942. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 412.
A crush on Laurence Olivier
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1930. Her parents were Elinor Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward and Wade Woodward. Her older brother, Wade Jr., eventually became an architect.
Her father was an administrator in the Thomasville school system. Her mother was an avid movie lover and enjoyed going to the cinema often. Joanne later claimed that she was nearly born in the middle of the Joan Crawford movie Our Modern Maidens (Jack Conway, 1929). Her mother wanted to name her Joan, but being Southern, she changed it to Joanne.
It wasn't surprising that Joanne wanted to go into the acting profession. Her father wasn't keen on the idea, but her mother was thrilled. When she was 9 years old, Joanne travelled with her mother to Atlanta for the premiere of Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939).
During the parade, she leapt into a limousine carrying Laurence Olivier and sat in his lap as she had a crush on him after seeing Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939). Years later, when the two were working on the TV movie Come Back, Little Sheba (Silvio Narizzano, 1977), Olivier claimed to remember the incident vividly.
In her teens, Joanne won many Georgia beauty contests. She wanted to become an actress and saw beauty contests as the first step toward her dream. She enrolled in Louisiana State University, majoring in drama. After graduation and doing small plays, Joanne headed to New York and studied acting with Sanford Meisner. The first thing he tackled was Joanne's southern drawl.
Vintage postcard, no. 5364.
She didn't like him at first sight, but couldn't resist him
Joanne Woodward was soon starring in television productions and theatre. One day, she was introduced by her agent to another young actor at her level, the then-unknown Paul Newman. Joanne, while admitting that he was very good-looking, didn't like him at first sight, but she couldn't resist him.
Soon, they were working closely together as understudies for the Broadway production of 'Picnic' and got along very well. Then both their movie careers took off: Woodward with Count Three and Pray (George Sherman, 1955) and Newman with The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954).
Adding to the tension was Paul's wife, Jackie, who first refused a divorce. Finally, she gave in, and Paul and Joanne married in Las Vegas in 1958.
A few months later, Woodward won her Best Actress Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve (Nunnally Johnson, 1957), in which she plays a woman with multiple personality disorder. With Woodward's credentials as a star attraction established, Fox gave her top billing in No Down Payment (1957), directed by Martin Ritt and produced by Jerry Wald.
Woodward and Newman co-starred in The Long, Hot Summer (Martin Ritt, 1958), Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (Leo McCarey, 1958), From the Terrace (Mark Robson, 1960) and Paris Blues (Martin Ritt, 1961). She was reunited with Martin Ritt on another James Faulkner adaptation, The Sound and the Fury (1959), with Yul Brynner. Sidney Lumet cast Woodward alongside Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani in The Fugitive Kind (1960), a box office disappointment.
Spanish postcard by F.A.G. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
Italian postcard by Max. Photo: Sid Avery / G. Neri.
Do you remember love?
In 1959, Joanne Woodward gave birth to their first child, Elinor Teresa Newman, named after her and Paul's mothers. They both continued with their careers, doing films both together and apart. Two more children followed: Melissa Steward Newman in 1961, and Claire Olivia Newman in 1965. Since then, Joanne has been busy in theatre, film and television as well as ballet performances. She was also involved with charities and taking care of her family.
For her title role in The Stripper (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1963), Joanne was coached in technique by burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee. She co-starred with her husband in the films Winning (James Goldstone, 1969), WUSA (Stuart Rosenberg, 1970), The Drowning Pool (Stuart Rosenberg, 1975), Harry & Son (Paul Newman, 1984), and Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (James Ivory, 1990).
She received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Rachel, Rachel (1968), directed by Newman. She played mother to real-life daughter Nell Potts (Elinor Teresa Newman) in Newman's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (Paul Newman, 1972). Woodward supported Burt Reynolds in The End (Burt Reynolds, 1978), and as the 1970s progressed, she did more television drama. Paul Newman directed or produced her films They Might Be Giants (Anthony Harvey, 1971), the TV Movie The Shadow Box (Paul Newman, 1980), The Glass Menagerie (Paul Newman, 1987) and Empire Falls (Fred Schepisi, 2005).
As a producer, she won another Emmy for the documentary Broadway's Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theatre (David Heeley, 1989) in 1990. In 1993, Woodward appeared in the film Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993) with Tom Hanks and, in the same year, she narrated The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993). Woodward served as artistic director for Westport Country Playhouse, near her home in Connecticut.
Paul Newman died in 2008. A year earlier, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, a few days after Woodward was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She moved from Westport, Connecticut, to Santa Monica, California, to be near her three daughters and other family members. Joanne Woodward's mother also suffered from Alzheimer's disease, which is why she chose to play a woman with Alzheimer's in the TV movie Do You Remember Love (Jeff Bleckner, 1985).
Vintage postcard, no. 5364.
Sources: Skye Robinson (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
