Television shows across the spectrum to salute Paul Newman by flashing his products.
When Salma Hayek makes her appearance as a guest star on an upcoming episode of NBC's “30 Rock,” viewers will see more than a great performance and a really nice pair of boobs.
They may also see a bottle of “Newman’s Own Lighten Up Italian Salad Dressing” in her hands.
It’s a salad dressing bottled by a food company founded by Paul Newman called “Newman’s Own” that has generated $250 million in revenue to charities across the country by selling product offerings that include pasta sauce, iced tea, lemonade, limeade, fruit cocktail juices, popcorn, pretzels, salsa, cookies, coffee, grape juice, dog food, cat food, and other offerings.
Inspired by a recent Broadway salute to actor Paul Newman in which every theater on Broadway dimmed its lights in remembrance of the actor, who died of cancer last week at the age of 83, television shows across the spectrum, from ABC’s “Pushing Daisies” to NBC’s “30 Rock” to Bravo’s “Real Housewives” reality series to CW’s “Gossip Girls” and all the way to MTV’s “The Hills” and Hayek's own "Ugly Betty" are figuring out ways to flash one of Paul Newman’s products onscreen – and for a duration of at least a full five seconds.
“When someone leads such a totally excellent and charitable life as Paul Newman did, always helping others, it only makes sense to lift him up one final time as an inspiration to the rest of us to do as well,” said talk show host David Letterman, who was a close friend of Newman’s. “Moments like this remind us what life is really about.”
According to Letterman, Newman was “quite a prankster,” among other things.
Because of their looser formats, it won’t be hard for talk shows such as David Letterman’s “The Late Show,” Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show,” Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson, Conan O’Brien, Bonnie Hunt, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah, Regis Philburn and the others to give Newman’s non-profit company, called “Newman’s Own,” a plug. Nor will it be hard for reality-based shows such as Bravo’s “Project Runway” and “Real Housewives” and Fox’s“So You Think You Can Dance” to work it in.
“What will be harder will be for the scripted shows like ’30 Rock,’ Kristin Chenoweth’s ‘Pushing Daisies’ and Anna Paquin’s ‘True Blood’ to do it,” says Tina Fey, who credits the original idea to NBC’s Ben Silverman, who she praises as “simply amazing.” “But I think we can get like 10 or 20 to do it, and that’s a pretty good way to remember a good guy.”
Adds Fey: “There’s a lot of good feeling around the industry for the integrity of a guy like Paul Newman. It’s something we don’t see as often as we like in the entertainment business -- although we do see quite a bit of it, that’s for sure. So we’ll see what we can do. If nothing else, I know that Canadian-born Lorne Greene over at Saturday Night Live owes me a favor or two.”
Richard Plepler, who is passing the idea around over at HBO, expects at least three or four of the season’s show to be able to work something in to commemorate one of the nation’s most charitable actors. “Les Moonves at CBS has told me he is definitely in favor of it, and I’m sure the same is true over at Bravo and Lifetime,” says Plepler.
Newman's Own is a food company and for-profit corporation founded by actor Paul Newman and author A. E. Hotchner in 1982. Newman received all of the profits from product sales, and then he donated 100% of the proceeds, after taxes, to various educational and charitable organizations of his own selection. In 1982, Newman summarised his initial intentions regarding distribution of his company's profits:
"My profits will be divided between a number of tax-deductible charities and causes, some church-related, others for conservation and ecology and things like that".
The brand started with homemade salad dressing that Newman and Hotchner had prepared, and given to friends as gifts. The successful reception of that salad dressing led Newman and Hotchner to commercialise that item for sale. From that initial food item, made with USD $40,000 of Newman's own funds as seed money, the product offerings have expanded to include pasta sauce, iced tea, lemonade, limeade, fruit cocktail juices, popcorn, pretzels, salsa, cookies, coffee, grape juice, dog food, cat food, and other offerings. Newman's Own Limeade was introduced in 2004. The sketch of Newman that is found on the labels of each product bottle was created by a young fan from Boston. While Newman was filming The Verdict in the area, a young girl gave him a sketch which she had drawn, and it has been used ever since. Each label features a picture of Newman, dressed in a different costume to represent the product. The company incorporated humour into its label packaging, as in the label for its first salad dressing in 1982, "Fine Foods Since February."
According to the Newman's Own website, the franchise has resulted in over $250 million in donations as of February 2008. The company co-sponsors the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, which is presented annually to a United States resident who has fought courageously, despite adversity, to safeguard the First Amendment right to freedom of expression as it applies to the written word.
The complete list of charities, and their nature, to which the proceeds are given mostly remain undisclosed. One beneficiary of his charity is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a summer camp for seriously ill children he co-founded in 1988, located in Ashford, Connecticut. While proceeds from Newman's Own financed the startup of the camp, it now receives funding from many additional sources. Other beneficiaries of the profits from Newman's Own have included The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund (from 1983 onwards), the Safe Water Network, Women of Worth, and the Breast Care Centre at Singleton Hospital through the Swansea National Health Service Trust.
In 1993, Newman's daughter, Nell Newman, founded Newman's Own Organics, as a remote division of the company that she runs from California. It produces only organic foods and her father posed with her for the photographs used on the labels. She also donates the proceeds of that division to charity.
Newman and Hotchner co-wrote a memoir about their company and the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good (ISBN 0-385-50802-6), published in 2003. Newman and Robert Forrester had arranged for the continuation of the distribution of Newman's Own profits to charity after Newman's death through the establishment of the Newman's Own Foundation.[7]. After Newman's death on 26 September 2008, whilst some feared that the company would become defunct, the company is expected to continue to function, with Nell Newman expected to take it over. It has been announced that both Warren Buffett and Andrea K. Smith will be joining the company’s board of directors.
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