One by one, our cultural icons leave us, marking another “end of an era.” Now we’ve lost legendary actor Paul Newman, who died of cancer at his home in Westport, Connecticut on September 26th at age 83. With this news, Paul Newman’s life will flash before the eyes of millions…and that will take awhile. The world enjoyed his powerful film career, admired his grounded personal life, applauded his auto racing skills, and appreciated his advocacy of worthy causes — his noble contributions. All it takes to lift spirits is a look at the spirit of Paul Newman.

Initially known for his boyish good looks, smoky blue eyes, and playful charm, Newman achieved stardom in the 1950s in such classic films as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Exodus, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, and The Verdict. His eighth Oscar nomination made him a winner in 1986 for The Color of Money, a sequel to The Hustler. He received Oscar nominations twice more and earned the Motion Picture Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Newman was a Method-trained actor who forged ahead in his film career, taking risky roles on and off the screen. A portrayal as a race car driver in 1969’s Winning led to his own competitive racing. At 70, he participated in 24 Hours of Daytona, and still enjoyed racing at age 80.

He supported liberal causes, including Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential candidacy, and was included on Richard Nixon’s enemies list, which Newman called “the highest single honor I’ve ever received.”

In 1982, Newman and friend A.E. Hotchner founded Newman’s Own, a company that produces food ranging from pasta sauces to salad dressing, to chocolate chip cookies and popcorn. “The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is out-grossing my films,” Newman quipped. The company donates all profits to charities, such as Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camps for gravely ill children. To date, it has donated more than $200 million.

“Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humor, and humanness,” said Robert Forrester, vice chairman of the actor’s Newman’s Own Foundation. “His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps for which he cared so much.”

“He saw the camps as places where kids could escape the fear, pain, and isolation of their conditions, kick back, and raise a little hell,” Forrester said. Today, there are 11 Hole in the Wall Gang Camps around the world, with additional programs in Africa and Vietnam. Some 135,000 children have attended the camps, free of charge.

The Association of Hole in the Wall Camps “is part of his living legacy and, for that, we remain forever grateful,” an Association statement expressed. “We are greatly saddened by his passing. His leadership and spirit can never be replaced, but he has left us strong and confident.”

Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. His father owned a successful sporting goods store, but Paul was attracted to his mother’s and uncle’s interest in the arts. He started acting in grade school. “I wasn’t running toward the theater but running away from the sporting goods store,” he said later.

After being kicked out of Ohio University for unruly behavior, he joined the Navy and served three years during World War II. After the war, he attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where his still unruly ways led him to theater.

Newman continued studying acting at Yale and New York’s Actors’ Studio, which led to jobs in the growing television medium.

He made his Broadway debut in William Inge’s 1953 play, Picnic, opposite Kim Stanley, a highly successful stage actress. The next year, he made his first Hollywood film, The Silver Chalice, a bomb that caused him to place a newspaper ad apologizing for his performance. But success as boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me in 1956 made him a star, and more hits followed: The Long, Hot Summer (1958), opposite his soon-to-be wife, Joanne Woodward; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) with Elizabeth Taylor; and The Young Philadelphians (1959).

Married to Jackie Witt from 1949 to 1957, Newman married actress Joanne Woodward in 1958 and shared one of Hollywood’s most successful unions. He observed that just because he was a sex symbol, there was no reason to commit adultery. “Why would I go out for a hamburger when [I] have steak at home?” he asked. CNN’s Larry King, who interviewed Newman through the years, said he greatly admired the actor. “He lived a long and terrific life,” King said Saturday morning. “He was much appreciated. Did some theater, graduated Yale. Long marriage to Joanne Woodward — one of those showbiz rarities.”

The 1960s were to be Newman’s decade, a period that matched for his anti-establishment ways. It started with Exodus in 1960, an epic about Israel’s founding directed by Otto Preminger, and continued with The Hustler (1961) with Newman as pool shark Fast Eddie Felson, then Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), written by Tennessee Williams, and Hud (1963), Harper (1966), and Hombre (1967), continuing a winning streak of films beginning with the letter H. After playing the malcontent title character in Cool Hand Luke in 1967, Newman turned to directing, earning raves for his behind-the-camera work on Rachel, Rachel (1968), starring his wife.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973) teamed Newman with co-star Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill. These were two of the highest-grossing films of their time, winning a multitude of awards including a Best Picture Oscar for The Sting, a tale of con-men in 1930s Chicago.

Newman teamed up with Steve McQueen, who was originally to be his co-star in Butch Cassidy, in 1974’s The Towering Inferno. Though the Irwin Allen-produced disaster film earned mixed critical notices, it was also one of the most successful box-office films of the time.

Newman’s career began to decline in the late ’70s, when he turned his attention to other pursuits, most notably auto racing. The loss of his son Scott to a drug overdose in 1978 was a heavy blow. Then Newman made an artistic comeback with 1982’s The Verdict, the story of an ambulance-chasing, hard-luck lawyer in which he showed every bit of his 58 years.

By the time Newman starred in The Color of Money, directed by Martin Scorsese, his film career had slipped further. Never afraid of playing his age, Newman portrayed a repressed businessman in 1990’s Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, a cantankerous lodger in Nobody’s Fool (1994), a fatherly, retired gangster in Road to Perdition (2002), and the wise voice of a classic Hudson Hornet in Cars (2006).

Newman never lost his movie star aura and gained some of his best reviews for his performance as the stage manager in a Broadway production of Thornton Wilder’s classic play Our Town, filmed for television in 2003. He was next appropriately cast as the rascally father to Ed Harris’s responsible diner owner in the miniseries Empire Falls.

In recent years, Newman talked about doing another film with friend Robert Redford, but the two couldn’t settle on a script. In 2007, Newman said he was retiring from acting, saying he’d lost confidence in his abilities. But he still marveled at his own resilience. “You can’t be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: ‘Holy Christ, whaddya know — I’m still around!’ It’s absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.”

While his words share a philosophical view of his purpose, Newman’s longevity benefited many. His entrepreneurial efforts will continue to serve children and others for years to come. Paul Newman never considered himself what he clearly was — one of the most renowned figures in American arts and an awe-inspiring member of society. He is survived by wife Joanne Woodward, their five children, and an extraordinary legacy.