“Nobody gets out of life alive.”

I’m a younger man. The first time I felt a considerable blow when a star met his end was in April of 1994. Three and a half years later, it happened again. So I started to get used to it. As you get older, heroes fade, legends die and it all becomes a part of the bitter reality that this, too, shall pass.

In my years as a film enthusiast, I’ve been blindsided here, felt the long wait of death’s touch there. You get to a point where you understand a person’s passing as cause to celebrate what they afforded in better days. But the further one marches into life, the more the hits seem to keep coming, to steal an over-utilized sentiment. Less becomes more as doors begin to close at a rapid pace on the elements you cherished from afar.

This year has been a considerably heartbreaking one. No one could have seen the deaths of Heath Ledger and Anthony Minghella coming, even if we were all patiently dreading the exit of Sydney Pollack. But a deficiency of expectation is never the cold bucket of water to the face that it might be and preparation can’t mask the deflation one feels when curtains such as these drop. In either case, the ultimate sadness is a lingering sort of ache.

And so it is that actor, director, producer, writer and entrepreneur Paul Newman has left us.

The reality of obituaries is that they are prepared months, sometimes years in advance of a subject’s passing.  News organizations gather the material and hammer out the piece so they can unleash it on the public when the time comes.  It might be considered something of a tasteless practice, but it is the necessity of things.

I never subscribe to this way of thinking.  I generally take in the news of a passing, expected or not, and deal with the writing of an appreciation as the emotions present themselves.  But I would be lying if I said I applied this reasoning to the words you read now.

Paul Newman’s legend has forced a perspective on his life and times in recent months.  I first caught wind that he was on the ropes back in June.  I even wrote up a brief for The Times of London when I was working there over the summer.  Ever since, I’ve been expecting the worst, like most in the industry.  And that time has brought me to this passage every now and then.  So you’ll forgive me if I take part in what has been acknowledged as a morbid exercise.  It slowly became the best way for me to consider my feelings fully.

Everyone will have their favorite.  Newman was the sort of actor who always had more where that came from.  There was just the right flare of familiarity in every character, but always enough originality to force a new staple onto the face of film history.

Rocky Graziano will always be the sentimental preference for some.  For others, the iconography of Brick Pollitt or Eddie Felson will stand above the rest.  The classic stuff won’t deter fans who latched onto Henry Gondorff, Doug Roberts or Frank Galvin, while I’m more than sure that Reg Dunlop and Bill Cody have their champions.

Later generations would certainly take to the quiet power of Sully Sullivan and John Rooney in various ways, while it likely isn’t out of bounds to mention the lasting power Doc Hudson has in the minds of any number of children.

And of course, there is and always will be Luke Jackson and Butch Cassidy, Gods etched on the posterity of celluloid, if not the eternity of memory.

For me, it’s Hud Bannon, “the man with the barbed wire soul.”  In many ways, it feels like his most complete performance.  It’s certainly his bravest, the actor committing to a character so despicable at a crucial moment in his career.  And yet the balance of the role (owing plenty to Larry McMurtry) remains striking to this day.  The work represented a level of star power married with a sort of modesty that seemed to define the man.

And yet it wasn’t just on the film industry that Newman made his impact.  Any number of obituaries will likely explore the success he enjoyed as an entrepreneur, and surely notes will be made regarding the proceeds that went to charity.  But $220 million in donations, a great deal of which services the education of young people, can’t be held in any dim light.  Alone it would prove a considerable legacy for any man or woman.

Newman stayed out of the rat race and many loved him for it.  Even when he found himself in the thick of stardom, he preferred a modest family life in Southwest Connecticut.  And when the time had come, he knew when to take his exit from the limelight, when he had lost the confidence, lost the invention, as he put it.

He made a marriage work for over 50 years in an industry that seems to prey on happiness.  He’d lost a son to drugs and put plenty of time and effort into ensuring others wouldn’t endure the same.  He gave so much and never seemed to ask for anything in return; entitlement just didn’t become him.

So I will miss him dearly.  But I will take comfort in the company of Rocky, Brick, Eddie, Henry, Doug, Frank, Reg, Bill, Sully, John, Doc, Luke, Butch and, of course, Hud.  They represent a rich legacy, one we owe it to ourselves to carry with us from here to eternity.

May he live forever in them.