By Anne W. Semmes
Melissa “Lissy” Newman I have had the pleasure of meeting and writing about her jazz singing and her art, but as of a week ago Lissy came to Old Greenwich to talk about her book about her parents at the Athena Bookstore. Her book’s title, “Head Over Heels” comes from her actor dad Paul Newman, newly smitten upon encountering her actress mom Joanne Woodward so many years ago. The sizeable book of a reported 120 photographs is aptly subtitled “A Love Affair in Words and Pictures.”
Lissy began her talk before a group of mainly ladies, of how she and her book editor friend Andrew Kelly began the gathering of photos in her parent’s Westport house, that she inherited where she has raised her own family, that I was privileged to visit. “And I think it’s really sad,” she noted, “people aren’t going to find shoe boxes full of snapshots anymore. It’s so weird.” Yes, those photos now reside inside our iPhones or on our laptops.
Lissy tells in her preface, “Along with my parent’s house, I inherited the curse of nostalgia. [Count me in] In every closet are bags and boxes, layers of ephemera stretching back to the Cretaceous era…Nothing can be tossed without being carefully examined. I am an archaeologist. I uncurl my fingers. In my hand are what appear to be the first ten letters my father wrote to my mother. Ever.”
And the first quote of her father’s that begins the book is taken from one of those letters: “I shall lock myself in an abandoned water closet I love you so very much. And shut my mouth and carry on in silent communion with your soul.”
“So, Andrew came up with this beautiful idea,” said Lissy about the construct of the book, “Why don’t we just make an art book? We’ll see how the pictures flow with each other…what text [of Paul or Joanne] would go with what photo. It’s not necessarily obvious, but if you look, things sort of make sense.”
And look for the humor… “So, here’s my favorite quote in the whole book: “I thought Paul was grossly untalented when I first met him. I remember going to dinner with Kim Stanley when we were all doing ‘Picnic’ together in Cleveland and saying to her, ‘God, it’s a good thing Paul Newman is handsome because he certainly can’t act.’ And we paired it with a picture of my mother helping my father do a headstand. And you’ll have to see why that works.”
“And this is a picture of my mother wearing nothing but fishnet stockings and balloons,” she continued, showing us a photo on her laptop, “which is a kind of photo that most people don’t have. But when we were living in our [former] house in Fairfield and having baby groups over, most people didn’t know anything about my parents, So, people would walk up and say, who are these people? And I’d just say they’re my parents and walk away.” But she added for us a caveat, “My mother was taught to strip by Gypsy Rose Lee because when you’re on the movie set, you get only the best.”
Addressing her parents’ love affair [they were married 50 years] she shared a quote: “In Hollywood, if your relationship can survive the first year and the first infidelity, you deserve an award.” “And their relationship was complicated,” she said. “It wasn’t simple. But I think that makes it more interesting and more relatable. We wanted you to feel as though you were sort of immersed in their relationship when you finished the book.”
She followed with another quote from the book from her mom: “Stars are people who are immediately recognizable, who bring their own mystique, their own essence to whatever role they play. Paul is a star. I think I’m a character actress. Nobody recognizes me when I walk down the street. And I can have a hard time getting checks cashed.”
“So, when we were putting the book together,” added Lissy, “we thought we don’t want to do chronological. As my friend said, no one needs to watch them get old.” [Paul died age 83, and Joanne at age 93 lives on sans memories]
Lissy returns to those discovery days in preparation for the book. “Can you imagine I reached in this bag that was so close to being tossed in the garbage, right? And there’s just this stack of letters. And then I reached in again. And there was a huge stack of telegrams like this from Ingrid Bergman to my mother for winning her Academy Award.”
Another telegram that makes the cut is from Paul to Joanne: “Forgot to mail your letter so I figured it would be nice you got something this morning I love you and did the same yesterday which is pretty good for a young buck like me and you too.”
“This was during the time,” said Lissy, “when he was literally writing a letter a day, these silly, lovely letters. And we didn’t find my mom’s letters. I don’t know what happened to them. But telegrams need to come back. It wasn’t only for when scary, horrible things happen.”
Lissy ends with reading from one of those Newman letters. “No one sings like Woodward, or acts like Woodward, or bitches like Woodward or kisses like Woodward or talks like Woodward, or talks as long as Woodward, or wipes water out of her eyes like Woodward, or smiles like Woodward, or cusses like Woodward. No one is as theatrical as Woodward, or changes like Woodward or listens like Woodward, or laughs or cries or hiccups or nuthin’ like Woodward. You is a special, a super, an absolutely unbeatable wench and I love you.”
“I just think anybody who’s getting ready to write a love note to somebody,” Lissy added, “should take a little lesson from my dad.”
