Actor Paul Newman could be coolest person of all time

There are just so many lines to choose from.

In a movie truly full of them, a character in “Cool Hand Luke” named Dragline says, “Nothin’. A handful of nothin’. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothin’. Just like today when he kept comin’ back at me — with nothin’.

Paul Newman, playing Luke, says in a way that only he could do, “Yeah, well, sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.”

I don’t remember how old I was when I first saw Cool Hand Luke or had any understanding of who Paul Newman was, but it was not long before he became my favorite all time actor. He might have been the coolest person of all time.

When news of his death came across the television scroll Saturday morning, I was truly taken aback. He lived a long life and certainly was not going to last forever, but I never imagined a time when Paul Newman wouldn’t be the current “coolest person in the world.” Frankly, guys like George Clooney or Brad Pitt are not even in his category.

Maybe Frank Sinatra was. I was never a fan but his fans would certainly say so.

Paul Newman, though, he was cool. So cool, you felt cooler just watching his movies. They were just too good to see only once.

His charm and charisma carried his film career more than 52 years, spanning numerous roles that included a litany of American classics.

In the beginning of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Paul Newman, as Butch, asks, “What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful.”

The guard says, “People kept robbing it.”

Butch says, “Small price to pay for beauty.”

During “The Hustler,” Newman, while addressing Bert Gordon says, “Boy, you better, you tell your boys they better kill me, Bert. They better go all the way with me, ’cause if they just bust me up, I’ll put all those pieces back together again, then so help me ... So help me God, Bert, I’m gonna come back here and I’m gonna kill you.”

Newman couldn’t be stopped by the end of that movie and, for the better part of his 83 years in life, he just plain couldn’t be stopped.

However, my favorite Newman line comes from “Where the Money Is,” a lesser known thief film that came out in 2000. Toward the end of the movie, Newman, playing Henry Manning, is caught in a house where the police have surrounded him.

The police cars lights are flashing and you can hear a voice over a bull horn say, “You’re surrounded, come out with your hands up.”

Newman smiles, looks at the female lead next to him and says, “You haven’t lived until you heard someone say that to you.”

He was 74 years old when he said the movie line, but he was still the coolest guy in the room.

I learned that lesson the first time I watched “Cool Hand Luke,” and I can’t wait until my son can watch and learn.

STEPHEN HEMELT is city editor of The Daily Iberian. He can be reached at stephen.hemelt@daily-iberian.com.