Paul Newman ‘dying of lung cancer’

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Paul Newman, Hollywood’s blue-eyed boy, has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. The news follow reports in January that the 83-year-old film star, who was a chain-smoker in his early life, had undergone surgery to remove an unspecified cancer. However, Newman (pictured in Cool Hand Luke) is now said to be receiving treatment at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he is under the care of a leading oncologist.

One of the few to know about Newman's illness is Robert Redford, a friend since they starred together in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting more than 30 years ago. But neither Redford nor Newman's wife, Joanne Woodward, have offered to comment on today's story.

In March, a cancer patient who was also being treated at the Sloan-Kettering claimed he had regularly seen Newman at the hospital. He said: "He's been there a lot. He's even worked out in the waiting room, doing the squat thrusts. Last time, he was in there he had a long beard. Joanne is there waiting for him and being very sweet with the assistants."

Late last month, he announced that for 'unspecified health reasons' he was pulling out of directing a production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men due to be staged at Connecticut's Westport Country Playhouse this autumn.

Newman started out as a television actor in the early 1950s and broke through in Hollywood with the 1958 film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in which he played Brick opposite Elizabeth Taylor's 'Maggie the Cat'. The Hustler in 1961 and Hud in 1963 confirmed his star quality. He was nominated for best actor Oscar in all three films but had to wait until 1987 and The Color of Money before winning the Academy Award.