A happy marriage of stars and cars

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Apart from fast cars and stars, Hollywood is also about fast money and fast love, right? Not necessarily. The girl seen here, leaning on her Austin-Healey, was photographed just prior to what would become one of Hollywood’s most enduring marriages: that of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward – today’s Friday Lady. They were cast opposite each other in the movie The Long Hot Summer and married – in Las Vegas – in between the shooting. That was on this very day in 1958. We don’t know if the Healey was Joanne’s own, but if so, we can imagine it did help Newman to fall for her in the first place.

That her husband had the ability to get absorbed into his movie characters, became well clear after the filming of the 1969 movie Winning. Newman became a great racing fan, and not without merit either. And his love for fast cars became clear outside the racing track, too. He had a seemingly ordinary looking VW Beetle converted into a monster car with Holman-Moody Ford V8 placed amidships into a spaceframe chassis. Later he did a similar trick by converting a Volvo 960 station wagon to supercharged racing V8 power, retaining the mundane family car looks. Some real sleepers. Newman passed away in 2008, by which time he had been married to Woodward for 50 years. Bless him.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy Keystone Features)

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