An Unfiltered Look at the Private Lives of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
Melissa Newman's gorgeous, fascinating new book is a visual love letter to her parents.
Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.
“How strange is it to grow up around all of these pictures,” Melissa Newman says. “They aren’t your run-of-the-mill family photos, there are shots of my father in a top hat and cane on a set somewhere, or my mother dressed up like a stripper. I understood that my parents were in the movies, but it was still odd to live with these images of them as other incarnations of themselves.”
As the child of two of the world’s most recognizable stars, Newman got used to seeing her mother, Joanne Woodward, and father, Paul Newman, playing characters who weren’t themselves, but those photos and their impact would stay with her and inspire her new book, Head Over Heels: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman: A Love Affair in Words and Pictures, out now.
It wasn’t just the people in the photos that spoke to Newman, however, but also the person behind the camera. “Stewart Stern was a screenwriter who wrote Rebel Without a Cause, Sybil and various other projects,” she explains. “He met my dad 12 days before my dad met my mom, and I think Stewart was incredibly jealous, but then he and my mother became best friends until his last moment on the planet. He was really important to my family; my middle name is Stewart, he was my sister’s godfather and my son’s godfather, too… He was such an important part of my life and my children’s lives, and he took the most intimate pictures of my parents, so early in fact that he actually chronicled their illicit affair.”
Here, Newman shares a selection of Stern’s images from the book and explains what makes each unique and important in its depiction of her family’s life outside the public eye. “This book celebrates the beauty and intimacy of what they had,” she says. “You come away feeling immersed in their relationship, and that was an unexpected joy of making this. Every time I go back and look at the book, I’m delighted.”
Adam Rathe is Town & Country's Deputy Features Director, covering arts and culture and a range of other subjects.
Watch Next
Queen Camilla Recommends 'Pachinko'
Who Does Cressida End Up with in Bridgerton?
Inside the Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Biography
'The Thursday Murder Club' Movie News