Paul Newman’s “naughty and bawdy” first love letters to his wife Joanne Woodward were discovered by his daughter in the attic of the family’s home in Westport, Connecticut.
The late actor – who died in 2008 aged 83 – famously enjoyed a torrid relationship with Woodward – even boasting that the couple had a ‘f*** hut’ in his memoir – with their romance starting as an affair while he was still married to his first wife, Jackie Witte, with whom he had three children, Scott, Susan and Stephanie.
Now his daughter Melissa, 62, has revealed her discovery of The Color Of Money star’s torrid love notes – the tamers of which are included in a new book, Head Over Heels: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman – A Love Affair in Words and Pictures.
Melissa told me Fox News digital that some notes were too risky to include, and said: ‘There (are) quotes from the letters in the book. I read the letters and just said, “Oh, this is so sweet. This should be in the book.” And then I would read on, and I would say, “Ooh, Dad, I can’t put this in the book!”
“I always say, ‘People, read the things my father wrote to my mother… (and) take notes, man.’ This is how you woo someone. And it’s just so obvious that he’s just on his head was hit. He fell so hard for her.
Saucy: Paul Newman’s ‘naughty and bawdy’ first love letters to his wife Joanne Woodward were discovered by his daughter in the attic of the family’s home in Westport, Connecticut (photo 1969)
“I got to a point in the letter where I said, ‘I can’t print this.’ But… it was charming.”
Revealing that she almost threw the bag away, Melissa said the letters were ‘savage and naughty but not filthy’, adding: ‘It made perfect sense. And I thought, “Go ahead, Mom!” My mother was just a free spirit. She was her own powerful force… She did it all. And apparently she was a sex bomb at the same time.’
Melissa likened the affair to a “freight train” and said she was “not sure” Newman and Witte’s marriage would have lasted — adding that her parents’ relationship “started on a low note with collateral damage.”
Melissa explained how her parents’ bedroom also had “comically large latches” that “functioned like an airlock” — writing that she “undoubtedly almost witnessed the ultimate intimacy firsthand, long before I would have known how to had to mention it.’
Melissa writes that her parents’ long marriage – from 1958-2008 – is due to their ‘mutual respect’ for each other. Melissa said the union came under pressure over the “anxiety” of Newman’s drinking – with the star becoming a teetotaler in 1971.
She said Newman would leave while her parents were fighting and having “screaming arguments,” realize he had nowhere to go and then come back.
The couple had three daughters together, Nell, Melissa and Clea, and remained together until Newman died of cancer in 2008.
Woodward is currently 93 and lives on the couple’s property with Alzheimer’s disease.
Spicy! The late actor – who died in 2008 aged 83 – famously enjoyed a torrid relationship with Woodward – even boasting that the pair had a ‘f*** hut’ in his memoir – with their romance starting as an affair while he was still married to the first wife, Jackie Witte; Pictured circa 1965
Tome: Now his daughter Melissa, 62, has revealed her discovery of the The Color Of Money star’s torrid love notes – the tamer of which is featured in a new book, Head Over Heels: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman – A Love Affair in Words and Images
Family: Woodward is seen with Melissa (R), her and Paul’s daughter Claire (L) and Paul and Jackie Witte’s daughter Susan (2nd from right) in 2009
Newman’s posthumous memoir released last year revealed he didn’t feel like a sex symbol until he met Joanne.
The book shared intimate details of the Hollywood couple’s wedding, including their ‘f*** hut’ where they would get ‘intimate, loud and bawdy’.
“Joanne gave birth to a sexual being,” Newman wrote in an excerpt from the book she shared People. ‘We left a trail of lust everywhere. Hotels and Public Parks and Hertz Rent-A-Cars.”
The book is based on interviews with the legendary Hollywood actor – known for films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke and The Hustler – and with his friends and family over a five-year period in the mid-1980s.
The interviews were done by Newman himself and by his friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern.
The actor spared no personal detail, at one point describing the couple’s love nest – located in their Beverly Hills home – as a separate room that Woodward had decorated with a “double bed from the thrift store” and a “f*** hut’. .
‘It was done with such affection and joy. Even if my kids came, we’d go to that damn cabin several nights a week and just be intimate, loud and bawdy,” Newman shared.
Newman also described his insecurities growing up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where he was too small to play football in school. He discussed how he was anything but a sex symbol in his high school years, and how that all changed when he met Woodward.
‘I felt like a goodman freak. Girls thought I was a joke. A happy buffoon,” he shared in the book.
Lust: ‘Joanne gave birth to a sexual being. We left a trail of lust everywhere. Hotels and Public Parks and Hertz Rent-A-Cars,” Newman previously revealed; Pictured circa 1975
Affair: The two met in 1953, when they were both studying in the Broadway play Picnic. They began having an affair while he was married to his first wife, Jackie Witte, with whom he had three children; Pictured with Witte
Quick: The couple’s divorce was finalized in 1958 and he married Woodward that same year; Pictured in 1958 cutting into their wedding cake
Lovers for life: the couple had three daughters, Nell, Melissa and Clea, and remained together until Newman died of cancer in 2008 at age 83; Pictured in 2004 in New York
It wasn’t until he met Woodward in 1953, when they were both students in the Broadway play Picnic, that it all changed.
“I went from not really being a sexual threat to something completely different,” he said.
The couple’s divorce was finalized in 1958 and he married Woodward that same year.
“Joanne and I still drive each other crazy in different ways. But all the crimes, betrayals and troubles have more or less leveled out over the years,” he says in the book.
Their daughter Clea proudly said that although the couple’s arguments “could be dramatic”, in the end they “didn’t work out” and “fought very hard to stay together”: “There were times when it was quite close, but they worked hard on it. They finally came together.”