With his engaging smile, sardonic twinkle in his piercing blue eyes, and cool, confident air, Paul Newman was a consummate charmer, easily passing the test of superstardom. His persona exuded magnetism even when occasionally he played less than commendable characters. As Billy the Kid, Hud, Fast Eddie, Butch Cassidy, Lew Harper, Cool Hand Luke, Henry Gondorff, and scores of others, he connected with his audiences, earning approval and acclaim. But his aversion to the Californian lifestyle was never disguised. He preferred to stay well away from the glitzy milieu when he was not working there, and dedicated himself to his charities, businesses, racing cars, family and wife, Joanne Woodward.

Famously faithful to her, he once joked: "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?" Not that she approved of the metaphor. Explaining their relationship on another occasion, he said: "I make all the big decisions and she makes all the little decisions. For instance, if I want to live in California and she wants to live in Connecticut, we live in Connecticut. That's not important, that's geography.

"If she wanted the children to go to a certain school and I wanted them to go to a different one, they go to the one she wanted them to go to. Those things are really not important decisions. If she insists I become a Democrat not a Republican, then I become a Democrat. Those things are not important.

"But the things that are important are, What will be our foreign policy decision regarding China. Those are the things I take to heart, and she has the little decisions."

Newman was the last survivor of a spectacular trio of exciting young actors who emerged from New York towards the end of the first post-war decade to conquer Hollywood. At that time he would have seemed the least impressive of the three.

Marlon Brando was mesmeric in A Streetcar Named Desire and James Dean's performance in East of Eden was one of the most exciting film debuts ever. Newman's debut film, The Silver Chalice, was an undistinguished Biblical dud in which he played a slave improbably called Basil, flaunting his tanned calves in a male mini-dress. Throughout his life he would wince whenever the title was mentioned, even taking out a full-page ad apologising for his performance when the film appeared on television.

Yet of the three actors he had the constancy to achieve the most sustained and fulfilled career. Brando, whom Newman hardly knew, was to squander his extraordinary greatness. Dean, after only three films, died ludicrously young at 24 behind the wheel of his Porsche Spyder. Newman took over what was to have been Dean's part as the young boxer Rocky Graziano in the biopic Somebody Up There Likes Me. The ensuing rave reviews and healthy box-office figures made him a star. For all his charm, he was wary of his fans, once saying: "If people come up to me, perfect strangers and ask me to take off my dark glasses so they can have a look at my eyes, I just say, 'Is that all you think of me?' Are they going to write on my tombstone, 'Here lies Paul Newman who died a failure because his eyes turned brown'?"

Another time he snapped, "If people start treating you like a piece of meat or a long lost friend or feel they can become cuddly for the price of a five dollar movie ticket, then you shut them out."

Paul Leonard Newman was born in Shaker Heights, Cleveland, Ohio on January 26, 1925. His father was Jewish, his mother a Catholic who turned Christian Scientist when he was five. He was their second son. The family was prosperous and comfortable, owning a successful sporting-goods retail business. His father was a good businessman with tough standards. If young Paul wanted a baseball mitt, even though the store was stuffed with them he would first have to earn the money to pay for it. "He survived the Depression because of his reputation for honesty," Newman said in an interview six years ago. "I learnt something about morality from him."

At high school he discovered enjoyment in acting. He had a few months at Ohio University studying economics before being called for war service. Applying for naval pilot training he was rejected, not just for his then puny build but because his blue eyes were colour blind. He became a radio operator and rear gunner on torpedo bombers instead. After service in the Pacific he enrolled at Kenyon College, a private liberal arts institution in Ohio. He was in trouble after a bar room fight between the football team and town youths, and lost his place as a linebacker. Acting was now his big interest, and after graduating "magna cum lager", as he put it, he went to Wisconsin to play in summer stock. He married an actess and model called Jackie Witte, and when she was pregnant with their first baby his father died at 57. Newman always regretted that his father never lived to see his apparently feckless son achieve success.

He went on to study acting at Yale, financing himself by selling encyclopaedias when his government grant ran out. From there it was a short hop to New York, and the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg, where "the Method" was taught to those deemed talented enough to be invited to enrol.

Newman was extraordinarily handsome, with a profile that looked as if it should be on a Roman coin, and he soon attracted casting agents. Television drama then was live and centred on New York, providing valuable experience to take to Hollywood. Although he became a young star in the 1950s, his defining film role did not come until 1961 when he played Fast Eddie Felson, a glib champion pool player mercilessly manipulated by a wily and ruthless George C Scott in The Hustler.