Paul Newman ‘doing nicely’

Good news. It appears that reports about Paul Newman's illness – the Los Angeles Times claimed yesterday that he had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer – may have been wide of the mark. While his spokesman stops short of denying that the 83-year-old actor is receiving treatment at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he is said to be under the care of a leading oncologist, he does claim that Newman is comparatively well, certainly not at death's door as some reports suggest.

Says the actor's spokesman, Jeff Sanderson: "Newman says he's doing nicely. This is what I got from him. He says he's doing nicely, and this is the statement I wanted to share with you."

Speculation about the Oscar-winning actor's health has been rife, and to some extent justified. Late last month, Newman announced that for "unspecified health reasons" he was pulling out of directing a production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, which was due to be staged at Connecticut's Westport Country Playhouse this autumn. And in March, a cancer patient who was also being treated at Sloan-Kettering, claimed he had regularly seen Newman at the hospital.