I just read on the New York Times that Paul Newman passed away. He was one of my favorite actors, most notably as Butch Cassidy in George Roy Hill’s 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and as Reg Dunlop in the best Hockey movie ever, released the year that I was born, Slap Shot (1977). Of course, Newman’s accomplishments as an actor go far beyond those two memorable roles, and one role in particular stands out in my mind, because it was the one that, in a way, served as my point of entry into Science Fiction discourse.
At Georgia Tech, I chose the Senior Thesis option to complete my B.S. in Science, Technology, and Culture, instead of the Senior Seminar. The thesis option was better for me, because I wanted my work to serve as my graduate school writing sample. Professor, and Chair of the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, Kenneth Knoespel, Professor Lisa Yaszek, and Professor Doug Davis (at Gordon College) guided me in my research. The paper that I produced, “Networks of Science, Technology, and Science Fiction During the American Cold War,” went a long way on my initial steps on the SF studies path (that sounds very Tao). Elements of my thesis made appearances at Georgia Tech’s Monstrous Bodies Symposium, and my first SFRA conference in White Plains, New York. So, what does that have to do with Paul Newman? The epigraph that I chose for that paper was delivered by Paul Newman, portraying General Leslie R. Groves in the film about the first two atomic bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy. In the film, he said to J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz), “Sometimes, just standing here, I keep wondering–Are we working on them, or are they working on us? Give them dignity doctor, then we can start talking about who can do what and what they mean.” What better way to begin a paper on the interaction between technology and culture during the Cold War? Those lines represent the central question to which my thesis was responding.
I’m not familiar with Paul Newman acting in any SF films, but he certainly had many connections to SF through his fellow actors, as evidenced above by working with Dwight Schultz of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame. However, the Guardian says that he began working in television on Tales of Tomorrow in 1952. It would have been interesting to see Newman in a Science Fiction film, and who knows, I might even draft him in a story that’s yet to be written.
