The movie so bad that it sent Paul Newman into Hollywood exile: “I figured I was due”
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(Credits: Far Out / TCM)
Everybody needs a break every once in a while, particularly within the minefield of anxiety that is Hollywood life, and especially when you are as tirelessly devoted to your work as the iconic actor, director, and racecar driver, Paul Newman.
His unwavering and longstanding connection to the Hollywood landscape was, in part, due to his starting out as a teenager. His first major film and theatre appearances in the 1950s were only while in his 20s, and along the way, he had his hand in a fair few Hollywood success pies.
He starred in iconic roles, from prison feature Cool Hand Luke to a screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, both of which earned him Oscar nominations, but winning remained elusive. In fact, he is one of the only figures to have been nominated for at least one ‘Best Actor’ Oscar for five consecutive decades. Still, even in a career of pinnacles, Newman appeared in a few mis-hits, flops, and bizarrely terrible productions.
In a 1998 Larry King interview, when asked if there were any particular films Newman regretted making, pat came the response: “That volcano movie”. The volcano movie in question was 1980’s doomed disaster flick When Time Ran Out, which saw him star as Hank Anderson, an oil rigger on a Pacific island, which is thrown into chaos with the revelation that its active volcano is ready to blow. Alongside the explosive plot, Newman’s character is also embroiled in a love triangle with a hotel manager and his secretary.
Upon reading that, admittedly very brief plot synopsis, it is easy to understand why the film was a catastrophic flop. Exacerbating the paper-thin storyline, however, was a shoestring budget and a multitude of production issues. Potentially realising that the film was a dud, Warner Bros. halved the production budget midway through filming, meaning that the special effects, the core appeal of virtually every disaster film, had to be rolled back. In the end, the film spoke for its very dismal self.
Not only was the film a box office bomb, but it also took its toll on Newman as an actor. Having worked tirelessly in Hollywood for multiple decades up to that point, When Time Ran Out was the straw that broke the actor’s back, forcing him to take a break. “I decided to take that year and a half off because it was time,” he revealed in an interview years later, “I’d been working since I was 13, and I figured I was due to put a bunch of time together.”
Although, as he went on to claim, “It’s really funny, though, because I found out that I didn’t do anything of consequence. Either sweeping out the old head or the kind of travel that I would have liked to have done,” that self-imposed Hollywood exile proved to pay off for Newman. The When Time Ran Out earnings helped found his charitable food organisation Newman’s Own, and he returned to the silver screen a new actor.
His first order of Tinseltown business was to finally win a ‘Best Actor’ Oscar for 1986’s The Color of Money, which saw him reprise his role as Fast Eddie Felson from 1961’s The Hustler, and he honoured his return with gold. Starring in a doomed disaster film might not have done much for the man in the short term, but the subsequent break from acting that it inspired was pivotal in avoiding burnout and keeping on for many more decades.
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